You will never guess what I found on the side of the road

but go ahead, guess

Hello my beloved community!

found this guy on the side of the road during my morning walk. I picked him up initially to give to my brother, a lego lover, but I think I might keep him

I will never forget the time I met bell hooks

she came to the college of charleston when I was a student there. I knew enough to know that I was meeting a very special person. Because gift giving is my love language, when I met her I kneeled before her and presented her with a box of crayon hearts.

she was absolutely delighted, which I am grateful for in hindsight. The type of South Asian culture I grew up in involved a lot of kneeling before your elders and touching their feet.

Anyways one of my key takeaways from my time with bell hooks was her acknowledgement that we may survive hard things, but we will be changed by them forever

she was adamant that we do not erase the wounds they incur through “surviving”

Her rigorous assertion planted a seed of intention within me to create space and not glamorize our emotional truths.

In a culture like ours, it can feel like I am swimming against the current to acknowledge pain.

I am grateful for the increase in cultural acknowledgment of toxic positivity, and the baby step towards being present with life as it is.

The only thing (to me) that is worse than being in deep emotional pain is being in deep emotional pain and having to pretend to be happy.

There are a variety of situations where we may have to lie or suppress our emotions, or some aspect of our identity. It is so common that there is a term for it : Masking.

I am very appreciative of the internet and the generations below me for their discourse around these subjects and the new words that exist to describe not just masking, but masking burnout.

When we mask— our emotions or our true self— we step out of presence and into survival

I say this with no judgement. There are a million reasons and a million situations where we can’t be who we really are.

But I think it’s important to acknowledge because fawn responses, activated nervous systems, and dissassociation all have this invisable inertia, and it is possible to be stuck in these states for months or years.

Although reductive, I do appreciate the science of our brains and the acknowledgement that when we are activated and in a survival response, our brain is in protection mode.

when we are in protection, we are unavailable for connection.

this is why I aspire to be like API who is in a perpetual state of rest and digest

In a previous newsletter I shared:

I have spent the past few years thinking about how I can be more present with other people. How I can listen to them with my whole body when we are together instead of trying to recreate or play out the fantasy/expectation of what should happen that I came up with in my head, or even more frequently, engaging with someone as a distraction or way to disengage from my own life and emotions.

I have come to realize that self-regulation is the first step to authentic deep connection.

We can go our whole lives without truly interacting with another person, only engaging with our projection of them.

This thought haunts me, and also pushes me to commit deeper to the habits and rituals that ground me and support me each day.

my pool often supports me in interrupting the momentum of dysregulation

dysregulation makes us vulnerable to colonial capitalism & energy vampires

I said what I said.

When we invest: in our presence, in our self-care, in our stability, in our calm we are pulling apart the knot of intergenerational trauma, created by past violence.

This is why I am so passionate about New Cycles.

New Cycles is a group container that I will be hosting this fall.

It is for cycle breakers, individuals who are ready to release stagnant patterns and to step into a new possibility.

I am the most excited about the community that is coming together, specifically because of the explicit alignment of values around self accountability, growth, and healing.

Earlier this week I shared the below video about why I love boundaries.

What I didn’t share in the video is that after I had a mental health breakdown and realized that my habits were going to kill me if I didn’t change, I chose to join multiple group containers to ground me.

I was on pandemic unemployment at the time, and investing in my own healing and education felt like a slightly irresponsible leap of faith, but it saved my life.

The relationships I built in the group containers I stepped into have nourished me in a way I did not know was possible. The relationships I have made have continued to flourish.

I exist within a vibrant ecosystem of community and connection as a result.

You all witness me in the intersection of these relationships all the time. For instance, my beloved Earthworm Slumber party host, Nisha, is someone who I met through a group program. My first business partner, the incredible Miller, is also someone who I met through a group coaching space.

I am still enrolled in a coaching program, and while it is expensive, the benefit literally out weighs the cost. This year I spent $6,000 in group coaching spaces, and I earned a total of $50,000 from opportunities and connections I made in my container.

I know this is not everyone’s experience, and some programs are legitimately scams, but I want to be transparent about it. I would not be able to live off my consulting practice if I was not in these spaces.

The program I am running is not explicitly about making money, but it does focus largely on boundaries, which can change your life. Let me be a testament to that.

The way I am able to nurture and share about this program and create all this video content about dreams coming true is only possible because of my boundaries, and I feel so glad. I feel such deep relief.

It is a relief to live my purpose, and to know that if I were to die suddenly, this information and hard won wisdom would be in the world.

I know (because you all tell me ) that many of you have a dream, a purpose you are meant to fulfill that you are working to bring to life.

A former mentor once told me

your business will grow at the pace of your boundaries

The benefits of boundaries are so clear, so why don’t we all just have them? How do we all know this word, “boundaries” , but simultaneously continue to find ourselves in relationships that lack boundaries?

boundaries are ultimately about self regulation

I believe that the way we conceptualize boundaries is very cognitive, but boundaries live in our nervous system.

Once we understand this, we can better track where we need boundaries, and where we feel safe to be boundless.

This is why in New Cycles we won’t just learn about boundaries, we will set them with each other in real time. We will simulate a boundary cross ( an activity I learned from generative somatics where someone walks towards you and says, can I ask you something? it’s genuinely so activating), and we will also self regulate together, all the while creating more resilient nervous systems.

I was so excited to make this video about New Cycles, but it came out like a commercial for tampons :(

So I added an AI voice filter on it, and I think I maybe saved it? What do you think??

there are 8 spots left // 6 days left to enroll

I hope to see you in the container! Don’t sleep on it homies. If you are feeling like the container is a space for you, but cost is a barrier, reach out ! I’m happy to work something out.

Your excitement and commitment to the course is the one true requirement to attend. You can learn more about new cycles here and use code VAMPIRE at checkout for and additional discount.

ALSO PLEASE SHARE THIS NEWSLETTER <3 EVERYTIME U SHARE API GROWS AN EYELASH

THANK YOU ALL FOR READING WE LOVE U STAY HYDRATED HAPPY BEYONCE’S BIRTHDAY <3 <3 <3 <3 <3