Written by Noriko Ueda-Lang, Holistic Acupuncture for Brain Health Dr. Noriko Ueda-Lang is a leading expert in acupuncture, functional medicine, and brain coaching. She helps patients restore balance and vitality by treating the root cause of illness. Founder of Ueda Lang Acupuncture in San Diego, she integrates mind-body healing to achieve optimal health and performance. If your monthly cycle feels less like a quiet rhythm and more like a rollercoaster you didn't ask to ride, you're not alone. For many women, and for the next generation watching their mothers, sisters, and coaches navigate it, the menstrual cycle is treated like an inconvenience to mute, a chart to track, or a problem to fix with a prescription. Eastern medicine offers a radically different lens: your cycle is a monthly health report. It is a messenger of your health and well-being, and a map of your body's energy flow. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), every cycle tells a story about your stress load, your digestion, your sleep, your emotional life, and your nervous system. Read the story well, and you can change it. Let's dive in, period. The cycle as a mirror of Qi and Blood In TCM, menstruation reflects the balance of two foundational forces: Qi (vital energy) and Blood. When Qi flows smoothly and Blood is abundant, periods arrive on time, with a manageable flow, minimal pain, and a steady emotional baseline. When Qi stagnates, or Blood becomes deficient, you feel it as symptoms such as cramps, clots, mood swings, fatigue, breast tenderness, or cycles that arrive too early, too late, or not at all. Bob Flaws's A Compendium of Chinese Medical Menstrual Diseases, published by Blue Poppy Press, is widely considered the most thorough English-language clinical reference on TCM gynecology.[1] Flaws systematically maps menstrual disorders into categories, including early menstruation, late menstruation, scanty flow, profuse flow, painful menstruation, flooding and leaking, blocked menstruation, and perimenopausal patterns. Each category demonstrates the distinct root causes of the symptoms.[1] The core message of the book is one Western medicine is only beginning to catch up to. Menstrual disorders are not isolated reproductive problems. They are communication from the whole body. Real-world example: A 28-year-old graphic designer with chronic deadline stress, cold hands, and a tendency to skip meals comes in with dark, clotted, painful periods. In TCM, that's not "just bad cramps." It's a classic Liver Qi stagnation with Blood stasis pattern, often layered with Spleen Qi deficiency from irregular eating. The treatment isn't a painkiller. It's moving stuck Qi, warming circulation, and rebuilding her digestive foundation. The organ systems behind your cycle One of the most useful frameworks Flaws lays out is how four organ networks, which in TCM are more like functional systems than the anatomical organs in a Western textbook, shape menstruation.[1] Liver: Stores Blood and regulates the smooth flow of Qi. When you're chronically stressed, repressing emotion, or running on adrenaline, the Liver "stagnates," and you feel it as Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), breast tenderness, irritability, and painful periods. Spleen: Produces Blood from food and keeps it in the vessels. A weak Spleen, from cold foods, skipped meals, or overthinking, shows up as fatigue, spotting, heavy bleeding, and that "I can't think straight" brain fog. Kidneys: Store Jing (Essence), the deep constitutional reserve that governs fertility, libido, ovarian reserve, and the transitions of puberty and menopause. Overwork, chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and excessive exercise drain Kidney Essence, and your cycle is often the first system to register the cost. Heart: Governs Blood and Shen (the mind and spirit). The Heart Uterus connection explains why anxiety, insomnia, and emotional overwhelm so often show up alongside cycle issues. If this sounds remarkably like a modern conversation about cortisol, the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) axis, and the autonomic nervous system, that's because it is. Eastern medicine has been describing nervous system and endocrine depletion for centuries, just in a different vocabulary. The athlete paradox: When "healthy" stops the flow Here's a pattern I see often, and one Flaws addresses directly under deficiency-type amenorrhea: high-performing female athletes whose cycles have become irregular or disappeared entirely.[1] From a Western lens, intense training redirects the body's resources toward muscular recovery and energy production. Hormonal communication between estrogen and progesterone falters because the body is, quite literally, prioritizing survival of the next workout over the long game of reproduction. From a TCM lens, intense training without adequate replenishment depletes Blood, fluids, and Kidney Essence. The body simply doesn't have the raw materials to build a menstrual cycle. Cold drinks, cold post-workout meals, and electrolyte powders that focus only on sodium can compound the issue. Many athletes are quietly low in magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron, and copper, all of which are essential for hormone production, nervous system regulation, and Blood building in the TCM sense. The fix isn't to stop training. It's to train and replenish with warm, mineral-rich foods, adequate rest, and seasonal recovery built into the program. Dr. Lia G. Andrews, in 7 Times a Woman, frames this beautifully: women's bodies operate on daily, monthly, yearly, and seven-year cycles, and ignoring any one of them eventually catches up with the others.[2] The four phases, Eastern style Andrews's work draws on the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, one of the foundational texts of Chinese medicine, to show how a woman's monthly cycle maps onto natural elements and energetic phases.[2] Each phase asks something different of you: Menstrual phase (Water, days 1 to 5, roughly): Rest, reflect, replenish. This is your "new moon" internally. Cancel what you can in your planner. Eat warm food, take warm baths, and have early bedtimes. Follicular phase (Wood, days 6 to 13): Energy builds. This is the time to plan, create, start projects, and tackle complex thinking. Ovulation (Fire, around day 14): Communication, connection, visibility. This is your most outward-facing phase. Luteal phase (Earth/Metal, days 15 to 28): Slow down, nourish, complete, release. Focus on detail work and reflection, not new launches. Working with these phases rather than against them isn't woo. It's pattern recognition. Most women who start cycle syncing their workload, training, and social calendar, even loosely, report less PMS, better sleep, and more consistent energy within two to three cycles. Three tools you can start using this cycle These are entry-level, accessible practices, not replacements for clinical care, but a strong foundation: Mugwort moxibustion sticks. A cigar-shaped stick of compressed mugwort, warmed without touching the skin over acupoints like Sanyinjiao (Spleen 6 (SP6), three finger widths above the inner ankle bone) and Guanyuan (Conception Vessel 4 (CV4), below the navel), to warm a "cold uterus," ease cramps, and move stuck Blood.[1] Integration: 10 minutes per point, two to three times per week, starting one week before your period. Skip during heavy bleeding. Shatavari powder (Ayurveda). A cooling, nourishing root traditionally used to support hormonal balance and reproductive vitality. Integration: ½ teaspoon stirred into warm milk, dairy or alternative, once daily during the luteal phase. Pair with cardamom for digestion. Ginger and red date tea. A TCM grandmother-approved staple to tonify Blood and warm the body.[2] Integration: Simmer 3 to 5 dried red dates (jujubes), 3 slices of fresh ginger, and, optionally, a small handful of goji berries in 3 cups of water for 20 minutes. Drink warm daily during menstruation and in the days leading up to it. A note on safety: Always consult a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist, or physician before starting herbs, especially if you are pregnant, trying to conceive, taking hormonal medication, or managing a chronic condition. Food, lifestyle, and the boring stuff that actually works Eastern traditions are unromantic about the basics: warm, cooked, mineral-rich food does more for your cycle than any supplement. Congee with goji berries, bone broths, stewed fruits, sesame seeds, dark leafy greens, and grass-fed red meat (if you eat it) are deeply blood-building. Raw salads and iced drinks during menstruation are not the friends they're marketed as. They can tax an already working digestive system. Andrews repeatedly emphasizes preserving Jing: early bedtimes, before 11 PM where possible, gentle qigong or yin yoga during your luteal and menstrual phases, limiting cold drinks, and protecting your lower back and lower belly from cold.[2] One yoga teacher in her mid-30s I know swapped her daily iced coffee for warm cinnamon tea, added a hot water bottle to her lower abdomen at night the week before her period, and saw her cramps drop dramatically within three cycles. Nothing flashy, just consistent. Key takeaways Your cycle is a monthly health report, not a burden to be muted. In TCM, menstrual symptoms reflect the state of the Liver, Spleen, Kidneys, and Heart, not just the uterus. Overtraining, chronic stress, and undernourishment deplete the resources your cycle needs to function. Cycle sync your work, training, and rest to the four phases for steadier energy and mood. Moxibustion, shatavari, ginger, and red date tea are accessible, time-tested starting tools. Warm food, early sleep, and mineral replenishment are nonnegotiable allies. It is boring, but that's the point. Your cycle has been trying to tell you something every single month. Eastern medicine just hands you the translation, so you can tune in to your health, slow down your life, and let your cycle teach you because it has plenty to say. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Noriko Ueda-Lang Noriko Ueda-Lang, Holistic Acupuncture for Brain Health Dr. Noriko Ueda-Lang is a leader in integrative healing, combining acupuncture, functional medicine, and brain coaching to treat the root cause of illness. After witnessing how stress and imbalance affect both mind and body, she developed a unique system to restore the autonomic nervous system and enhance mental clarity. She founded Ueda Lang Acupuncture in San Diego, where she helps patients reclaim their vitality and resilience through a blend of Eastern wisdom and modern science. Her mission: Heal the mind to heal the body. References: Flaws, Bob. A Compendium of Chinese Medical Menstrual Diseases. Boulder, CO: Blue Poppy Press, 2005. ISBN 9781891845314. Andrews, Lia G., DAOM, L.Ac. 7 Times a Woman: Ancient Wisdom on Health and Beauty for Every Stage of Your Life. Alcyone Press, May 13, 2013. ISBN 9780989326001.

Written by Caitlin Sirett, Leadership and Self-Trust Coach Caitlin Sirett is a Leadership and Self-Trust Coach, Chartered Manager, and founder of Evoke & Lead Coaching Ltd. She helps women build strong internal foundations and question the thoughts holding them back, so they can go for the promotion, start the podcast, speak up in the room, or finally act on the idea they keep thinking about. Have you found yourself absorbing as much information as possible to take that step, but your feet are still firmly on the ground? You’re not alone. “Get comfortable being uncomfortable” is something I’ve discussed with the teams I’ve led for years because some of the most important work we do requires us to trust ourselves enough to step into difficult conversations and situations rather than avoid them. Over the last few years, I’ve realised the same is true in our own personal growth. I’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, done the courses and spent more hours thinking about why we do what we do than is probably healthy. Still, one of the most important lessons I keep coming back to is this: get comfortable being uncomfortable. Sometimes, we don’t need another answer. We already know what we want to do, but knowing and actually doing it are two very different things. Now, I’m not suggesting we should all spend our lives at full throttle in our stretch zone because, let’s be honest, that sounds exhausting. We need comfort, safety, rest and periods when we are not trying to improve every inch of our lives. Comfort itself isn’t the problem. Avoiding change when something in your life needs to change is. Why can’t I just start? Sometimes, the reason we can’t just start has very little to do with not knowing enough because, let’s be honest for a moment, we’ve all consumed the “how to” articles, watched the “follow these five steps” reels, and thought, this makes perfect sense. But you’re still here, still not moving forward, which is why I’m getting bored of seeing the same quick fixes branded and repackaged everywhere. We have become a society obsessed with quick wins, covering things with a plaster and carrying on, but so much of that advice only touches what we can see on the surface. Now, don’t get me wrong, learning through whatever source works for you is helpful, as long as you’re not using it to avoid the deeper work. If you can read something, apply it to your own life and feel able to step forward with that new learning, that’s the aim. But if you’re saving every free guide, listening to every podcast and hoping the next piece of information will finally solve the problem for you, this is where we need to look a little deeper. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown explores our attraction to quick fixes and the much less appealing reality that, to truly grow, we need to engage with the difficult, imperfect work underneath. Hearing her talk about this confirmed something I have seen time and time again: we often already have the knowledge. It’s the discomfort and fear that stop us from actually doing something with it. Research into behaviour change backs this up too. The King’s Fund highlights that one of the ways we become more confident in our ability to do something is by actually doing it. We take a small step, realise we can handle it and give ourselves some evidence to draw on the next time we face something difficult. You can read everything there is to know about setting boundaries, but eventually, you are still the one who has to look someone in the eye and say no, then sit with the discomfort that follows. Knowing “how to” isn’t usually the hardest part. The doing is. Can support sometimes keep us comfortable? A social worker once taught me something about support that has stayed with me ever since: there’s a difference between supporting someone and rescuing them. Good support shouldn’t always remove the uncomfortable part for us. Sometimes, its job is to help us feel supported enough to do the difficult thing ourselves. If someone constantly steps in, gives us the answer, or removes every obstacle, we can lose the opportunity to discover what we’re capable of. The same can happen in personal growth. We can keep looking to other people for the answer, reassurance, or certainty that we’re making the right choice, but there will always be another decision to make and more challenges to navigate. At some point, we have to start building that trust within ourselves by trusting our own decisions, listening to our own intuition, and knowing that, whatever life throws at us, we have built internal foundations strong enough to respond, adapt, and find our way through it. That, to me, is what self-trust really gives us. Why does personal growth feel so uncomfortable? I’ve done my own fair share of avoiding the uncomfortable stuff. For a long time, I was staying in my lane, same shit, different day, looking at people achieving incredible things and thinking, but how? That doesn’t mean I wasn’t progressing. I took opportunities, developed my career and moved into leadership, but I was growing within a world I already understood. I knew the lane, I knew the rules, and I knew what success looked like there. It wasn’t that the “how” wasn’t available to me. The information was everywhere, but underneath it sat a much bigger problem: the story I had created about who I was and what my life could amount to. I had built a box around myself without really realising it. I knew who I was inside that box, what was expected of me and roughly what my life was supposed to look like. When I looked at people doing incredible things outside of that, I just thought that life was possible for them, not me. The more I started learning about identity, our thoughts and the power of the stories we tell ourselves, the more I started questioning mine. Learning mattered enormously, but only when I was willing to use what I was learning to challenge the limits I’d unknowingly accepted for myself. Understanding how our identity impacts behaviour change can help us recognise which beliefs are leading the way and which ones are helping or hindering us. Did I think I’d ever be writing for Brainz Magazine? Nope. There was no manual inside the box for that, which is why I keep coming back to this question: We spend so much time asking, “How do they do it?” when perhaps the better question is, “What would I try if I stopped assuming I’m not someone who can?” Do successful people still have self-doubt? Recently, I’ve been reading and listening to the stories of some of the world’s leading thinkers, coaches, and experts, people like Brené Brown and Jay Shetty, and I’ve become fascinated by what happens when you reverse engineer the success of people we often look at and think, “How did they get there? I could never achieve what they have.” We can assume that somewhere along the way, they developed a level of confidence the rest of us haven’t quite figured out yet, that eventually the self-doubt disappeared, fear packed its bags, and they started walking into every opportunity feeling completely sure of themselves. But listen to their stories, and that isn’t what you hear. You hear vulnerability, uncertainty, rejection, self-doubt, taking risks without knowing how they will turn out, and perhaps one of the hardest things of all, being seen trying. Years of experience don’t necessarily eradicate fear or self-doubt, but doing the deeper, uncomfortable work can give us stronger foundations underneath them. This helps us recognise when we are choosing what feels familiar simply because it feels safer and decide whether that is actually what we want. You don’t need to remove fear before you act. Sometimes, you need enough courage and enough trust in yourself to put fear in the passenger seat. How do you build self-trust when you don’t feel confident? For a long time, I thought confidence was something I needed to gain before I could take the step. Now, I think I had it backward. Taking the step is part of how we build confidence in the first place. Self-trust isn’t the belief that everything will work out exactly as you planned. It’s trusting that if it doesn’t, you will be able to manage whatever comes next. So, how do you actually build that? Start smaller than you think you need to. Have the conversation you’ve been rehearsing in your head. Make one decision without asking three other people what they would do first. Share the idea before you’ve perfected it. Say no without writing an essay explaining why. Apply for something you’re not completely convinced you’ll get. Then, and this is the part we often miss, notice what happened. Did you survive the awkward conversation? Did you make a decision and deal with the outcome? Did someone disagree with you and you manage it? Did you get rejected and realise that, actually, you were okay? That is evidence. Self-trust is built by collecting those moments and allowing them to challenge the old story that says, “I can’t handle this.” Not every decision you make will pay off. People will see you trying, learning, and adapting, and that can feel uncomfortable. But that’s the beauty of taking risks. Each time you do, you give yourself more evidence that you can handle what comes next and trust yourself to try the things that really matter to you. That is the relationship between discomfort, action, and self-trust that sits at the heart of the work I do with women. The goal isn’t to reach some magical point where you never experience self-doubt again. It’s to build enough evidence that self-doubt no longer gets the deciding vote. Before you search for another “how” Think about something you have wanted to do for a while but keep putting off. It could be changing jobs, starting something of your own, or even admitting that something in your life needs to change. Before you ask ChatGPT for another answer, save another post or buy another course, ask yourself one uncomfortable question: “What am I hoping another quick fix will save me from having to feel or do?” Then, get curious about what you’re already assuming, what you’re believing to be true, and what you think that answer will give you that you don’t already know. You don’t need to leap ten steps ahead or throw yourself so far outside your comfort zone that you freak out, switch to Instagram and start doom scrolling to avoid it altogether. You just need to recognise the work you’ve been avoiding and take one honest step towards it. That’s where the work is, and while you don’t have to do that work alone, nobody can do that uncomfortable part for you. So, perhaps the question isn’t, “How do they do it?” Maybe the question is, “How uncomfortable are you willing to get for the life you say you want?” Ready to stop waiting and start doing? I’m Caitlin Sirett, a Leadership and Self-Trust Coach and Chartered Manager, and I help women build the self-trust to stop waiting to feel ready and start taking action towards the life they actually want. My coaching isn’t about handing you another five-step plan or promising to make the uncomfortable bits disappear. It’s about helping you understand what’s actually keeping your feet firmly on the ground, challenge the stories you’ve accepted about what you’re capable of, and build the foundations to trust yourself enough to take the step. If you’re tired of collecting more answers and you’re ready to start putting what you already know into action, book a coaching call and let’s start with what’s actually getting in the way. You don’t need to feel completely ready. Sometimes, you just need the right support to help you trust yourself enough to take the step and find out what happens when you try. Follow me on Substack. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Caitlin Sirett Caitlin Sirett, Leadership and Self-Trust Coach Caitlin Sirett is a Leadership and Self-Trust Coach, Chartered Manager, and entrepreneur navigating ambition alongside motherhood, with over a decade in healthcare spanning frontline practice and senior leadership. Drawing on her trauma-informed training and lived experience, she understands the reality of wanting more while managing everything already on your plate. Caitlin helps women explore the thoughts and beliefs that keep them second-guessing themselves and build strong internal foundations of self-trust. Through mindset work, feminine leadership, and somatic understanding, she helps women back themselves and act on what matters to them.

Written by Maria Alejandra Toledo Valderrama, Holistic Wellness Coach Ale is a Holistic Wellness Practitioner and founder of Ale's Health, who creates transformative programs combining Breathwork, Mindfulness, Nutrition, and her own line of organic health snacks. She empowers driven individuals to reconnect their mind and body while unlocking their full potential. You know what I love? Science. Give me the study. Show me the data. Tell me how many participants, what the researchers found, and what the limitations were. I genuinely love understanding why something works. But there is one thing I have learned through years of working with people and working with myself. To be more precise, by living: Something can be scientifically supported and still not be the right fit for you. That doesn't mean the science is wrong. It means you're not a statistic. You're you. So what happens when we stop asking, “Does this work?” and start asking a much more interesting question: “Does this work for me?” What does science tell us? Let's clear something up first. When a scientific study says an intervention “works,” it usually means researchers observed an effect in the group they studied, under the conditions of that study. That is incredibly valuable. It gives us evidence. It helps us make better decisions. It protects us from believing every wellness trend that goes viral on Instagram. But an average result is not a guarantee of your personal result. Research in medicine has long recognized that people can respond differently to the same treatment. The National Academies describes this as heterogeneous treatment effects. Simply put, the effects of an intervention can vary from person to person. There is even a research approach called an N-of-1 trial, where one person becomes their own comparison, and researchers look at how that individual responds over time. These studies exist because sometimes the question that matters most isn't “What works for most people?” It's “What works for this person?” Honestly, I think there's something cool about that because it gives you permission to become curious about yourself again. Maybe you've been outsourcing yourself This is where I think many of us get stuck. We Google. We ask the expert. We read the book. We listen to the podcast. We save the Instagram Reel. We download the protocol. We buy the supplement. We try the morning routine of the person who wakes up at 4:30 am and apparently has their entire life together before sunrise. Then it doesn't work for us. So what do we do? We blame ourselves, thinking, “I must not be disciplined enough,” “I must be doing it wrong,” or “Maybe I need to try harder.” Or worse: “Something must be wrong with me.” But what if nothing is wrong with you? What if it’s simply part of the journey that is taking you closer to what you’re looking for? What if instead you learn, “It’s not working this way. Let’s try another approach”? That can change everything. Your body is giving you information This doesn't mean throwing science out the window and declaring, “I just feel it, therefore it must be true.” Please don't. Your feelings can be valuable information, but they aren't automatically facts. Your body can also misread signals. Stress, fear, expectations, past experiences, sleep, hormones, illness, medication, environment, and countless other factors can influence how you feel. So I'm not asking you to blindly “trust your body.” I'm asking you to listen to it, investigate it, and get curious about it. There's a difference. Instead of saying, “Everyone says meditation makes them calmer, so why am I still restless?” try asking, “Interesting. What happens in my body when I meditate for ten minutes?” Instead of saying, “Everyone says this diet gives them energy, so why am I exhausted?” try asking, “Okay. What happens to my energy, digestion, mood, and hunger when I eat this way?” Instead of saying, “This breathing technique is supposed to calm me down, so I must be doing something wrong,” try asking, “What happens when I use this particular breathing pattern? Do I feel calmer, more alert, uncomfortable, or exactly the same?” What we’re doing is personalising your relationship with the information science gives you. Stop collecting answers, start collecting evidence about you This might be one of the biggest mindset shifts I can give you. You don't need another 47 wellness hacks. You need to become a better observer of yourself. Think of yourself as a friendly little scientist. Not obsessive or extreme, just curious. You try something, observe, learn, adjust, and try again. Suddenly, wellness becomes less about following someone else's perfect formula and more about building a relationship with yourself. For example, let's say you've heard that a particular morning practice improves focus. Don't immediately decide it will transform your life. Try it for a week. Keep it simple. Notice: How do I feel before? How do I feel afterward? What changes during my day? Does my energy change? Does my mood change? Do I actually enjoy doing it? Can I realistically maintain it? Does the benefit outweigh the effort? Here's the important part: change one thing at a time when you can. If you completely overhaul your diet, start exercising, meditate for 30 minutes, stop caffeine, wake up at 5 am, and start journaling all on Monday, and then you feel amazing, great. But what actually helped? You don't know. If you feel terrible? You don't know what caused that either. Small experiments create clearer information. Remember the goal is: “I am willing to learn from science, professionals, experience, and myself.” That’s a much healthier kind of self-trust. This is where it gets really interesting Because sometimes what we're searching for isn't actually another technique. It's permission. Permission to stop forcing something that doesn't feel right. Permission to change our minds. Permission to say: “That worked for her. It doesn't work for me.” “This approach helped me six months ago, but I need something different now. I tried it properly. I gave it a fair chance. It's not for me.” You claim your power and the freedom to decide what to stick with because it works for you. I've written before about how easily our minds can absorb beliefs and then treat them as truth. If you've ever felt trapped by an internal voice telling you who you're supposed to be, you might recognize the connection here. The Voice in Your Head Isn't Yours and Here's the Proof. Sometimes the biggest breakthrough isn't discovering a new answer. It's realizing: “Wait… I never actually decided this was true for me.” Your body deserves a seat at the table I want to be really careful with this because wellness can sometimes romanticize “body wisdom” to the point where everything becomes: “Just listen to your body.” But listen to what? How? Your body communicates through sensations, emotions, energy, fatigue, tension, appetite, and countless other signals. Those signals matter, but they require context. Sometimes tiredness means you need rest. Sometimes it means you're unwell. Sometimes it means you slept badly, you're grieving, you need food, or you've been pushing yourself for months. The interpretation may require you to dig deeper. That's why I believe the strongest relationship you can build with yourself isn't based on blindly believing every thought or sensation. It's based on curiosity and consciousness. Listen. Question. Learn. Adjust. Repeat. You don't have to choose between science and yourself This is the part I really want you to remember. You don't have to become anti-science to trust yourself, and you don't have to abandon yourself to follow science. We can hold both. We can say, “Show me the evidence.” Then, “Now let's see how this applies to me.” Not somebody else's body, somebody else's morning routine, or somebody else's definition of healthy, but your definition of what helps you genuinely thrive. Then there is faith Now I'm going to get a little more personal. Because for me, there is another piece of this puzzle that science cannot answer for me: God. I don't believe I have to understand everything to keep going. I don't believe I need certainty before taking the next step. When I doubt myself and don't trust myself, I come back to faith. I remind myself: “I've got this. God has got me.” Maybe your faith looks exactly like that. Maybe it looks different. Maybe you're still figuring it out. You don't have to have every answer before you move. You can be scared and still go. You can doubt and still go. You can have no idea what happens next and still take the next step. Sometimes faith is saying: “It looks out of my hands now. I’ve done my part, and I leave it to God or the universe now.” So go find out what's true for you Try things, not recklessly or desperately, but curiously. Try the walk, the breathing practice, the meditation, the earlier bedtime, or the different breakfast. Try putting your phone away. Try saying no. Try saying yes. Try sitting quietly long enough to actually hear yourself. Then pay attention. What gives you more energy? What makes you feel more like yourself? What makes you feel grounded? What makes you more present with the people you love? What helps you show up as the person you know you're capable of becoming? When something doesn't work, don't make it mean something is wrong with you. Maybe it simply wasn't yours, or maybe you need to try a different approach. Keep experimenting. The goal is to become someone who knows themselves deeply enough to make conscious choices. One day, something will click. Not because somebody on the internet told you it should. Not because a study guaranteed it. But because you've experienced it, you've tested it, you've lived it, and you know. You feel it in your bones: “This is for me.” If there's one thing I want you to take with you Learning is your superpower: Learn from people, learn from science, and learn from experience. Learn from your mistakes, your body, and your emotions. Learn from the people who love you and from the people who challenge you. If faith is part of your life, learn to lean into God when you don't have the answers, and even when you do. Keep going and remember: You are allowed to participate in deciding what your life, your health, your happiness, and your wellbeing actually look like. Keep exploring If this idea of reconnecting with yourself resonates with you, you might also enjoy my previous conversations about the mind, body, and the patterns that shape us: The Real Reason Diets Keep Failing You, It's Not You 7 Powerful Things Conscious Breathing Does for You Break Free: How Limiting Beliefs Keep You Stuck If this article made you stop for a second and think, “Maybe I need to come back to myself,” that's exactly the conversation I want us to keep having. Come join the community. Let's keep learning, questioning, experimenting, and growing together. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Maria Alejandra Toledo Valderrama Maria Alejandra Toledo Valderrama, Holistic Wellness Coach Ale is a Holistic Wellness Practitioner passionate about helping others discover their true potential and live life to the fullest. Through her comprehensive approach combining Breathwork, Mindfulness, and Nutritional guidance, she empowers driven individuals seeking balance, health-conscious professionals navigating stress, and wellness enthusiasts ready for deeper transformation. She has developed her own line of five organic health snacks made exclusively with natural ingredients, providing clean, guilt-free nutrition.

Written by Ebi Sheila Diete-Spiff, Lifestyle Strategist Ebi Sheila Diete-Spiff is a leading self-love and transition coach, speaker, and mentor. She is the founder of Ebi’s Powerhouse, where she equips women worldwide with the tools to break free from self-doubt, reclaim their worth, and step into their power with confidence. There is a particular kind of depletion that can be difficult to recognise because, from the outside, everything still appears to be working. You are showing up, meeting deadlines, supporting other people, making decisions, leading, producing, coping. Nothing has necessarily fallen apart. Yet somewhere amongst the constant responding, producing, and performing, you may have stopped noticing what all of this is asking of you. This is one reason I believe we need to broaden our conversations about burnout, wellbeing, and sustainable performance. We tend to notice the problem when somebody can no longer continue. But what if we became more interested in what happens before burnout becomes visible? What if one of the earliest losses is not performance, but connection with ourselves? The Beautiful Interruption: Creating space before the response I call the first part of this process The Beautiful Interruption. Consider how easily we can move through a typical day, thinking, responding, analysing, anticipating, solving, performing. None of these is inherently problematic. They are essential human and professional capacities. The difficulty comes when they become so automatic that there is almost no space between what happens and our response. The email arrives, we answer, the notification appears, we look, someone asks, we respond. A problem emerges, and we solve it. One demand moves seamlessly into the next. We can become extremely efficient at responding to life while becoming increasingly disconnected from our experience of living it. The Beautiful Interruption is the deliberate creation of a gap. It is not withdrawal from responsibility. It is not disengagement or an invitation to stop being ambitious. It is a moment in which we do not immediately have to react. Within that moment, something important becomes available: awareness. What have I normalised? What am I overriding? Where is my attention going? What is quietly consuming my capacity? What is my body communicating before my mind tells me to keep going? Transformation does not always begin with changing something. Sometimes it begins with noticing something. The danger of becoming excellent at overriding ourselves Human beings are remarkably adaptable. We can normalise exhaustion, constant availability, checking emails late at night, carrying work into weekends, being the person everybody relies upon, and believing that recovery has to be earned. Because we are still functioning, we may conclude that we have capacity, but functioning and flourishing are not the same thing. There is a difference between having sustainable capacity and becoming highly skilled at overriding its depletion. This distinction matters especially when we think about high performers and leaders. The person who appears most capable may also have become exceptionally practised at pushing beyond their own signals. They continue delivering, solving, and supporting everyone else. From the outside, this may look like resilience, but resilience should not simply mean becoming better at enduring depletion. The Bridge: Returning to another form of intelligence Once we interrupt the automatic pattern, what comes next? This is The Bridge. It is not about abandoning the intellect. Our intellectual capacity enables extraordinary things. It allows us to strategise, innovate, plan, analyse, and solve complex problems, but intellect is not the only information available to us. Direct experience also offers intelligence. The body, the breath, sensation, rhythm, and space. We can also receive an experience before immediately deciding what it means. This matters because sustainable change cannot live entirely in intellectual understanding. We can understand boundaries and still override them. We can understand burnout and still keep pushing. We can know that we need rest and still feel unable to stop. We can intellectually recognise that something needs to change while repeating the same pattern. Sometimes our minds understand something that our bodies have been practising differently for years. The Bridge invites the whole human being back into the conversation. From transmitting to receiving Much of modern life trains us to transmit, answer, explain, produce, react, interpret, prove. Even when another person is speaking, how often are we already preparing our response? We may be physically present while our attention is somewhere else entirely. Receiving asks something different. Listen before preparing the answer. Notice before judging. Feel before explaining. Experience before interpreting. This does not mean abandoning critical thinking. It means allowing experience to arrive before the intellect immediately takes possession of it. Sometimes, when we create that space, what we notice is remarkably simple. “I am tired.” “I don't actually want to say yes to this.” “I need space.” “I haven't properly switched off for days.” “Something about this doesn't feel right.” “I miss myself.” Not everything we notice requires analysis. Sometimes it is simply information. The Reclaiming: Coming back to what was already ours This brings us to what I call The Reclaiming. When we hear the word reclaiming, we may imagine taking back something that was stolen, but for many of us, there was no single moment when we lost connection with ourselves. It happened gradually: Life became louder. Work became faster. Technology became more demanding. Notifications wanted our attention. Deadlines wanted it. Other people's expectations wanted it. Organisations wanted it. Social media wanted it. Even our own thoughts wanted it. Somewhere amongst all that wanting, we became extraordinarily skilled at responding to everything outside us. Reclaiming is about restoring the relationship with what was already ours: our attention, body, direct experience, inner space, capacity to notice, voice, boundaries, ability to choose, and ultimately, our own life. Why reclaiming ourselves is also a workplace issue This may sound like an intensely personal conversation, it is. But it is also an organisational one. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 12 billion working days are lost globally every year to depression and anxiety, at an estimated cost of US$1 trillion in lost productivity. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2025 reported that only 21% of employees worldwide were engaged at work, while 40% experienced stress during much of the previous day. Behind statistics like these are human beings. Some may be absent from work. But many are still there, answering emails, attending meetings, managing teams, achieving targets, and appearing to cope. That is why organisations cannot afford to look only for visible breakdown. We need to become much more interested in what happens before performance declines. Burnout rarely begins on the day somebody can no longer continue. Long before that, there may have been overriding, reduced recovery, constant availability, difficulty switching off, boundary erosion, disconnection, and increasing effort required simply to maintain normal performance. The performance remains visible. The cost of maintaining it often does not. This raises a question I believe leaders and organisations need to ask more frequently. Not only "Are our people performing?" But, "What is it costing them to maintain that performance?" Reclaiming human capacity through W.O.R.T.H.Y. This thinking also sits at the heart of the W.O.R.T.H.Y.™ Ecosystem I use in my work. W.O.R.T.H.Y. represents: Worth: Recognising that human value cannot be reduced to human output. Ownership: Reclaiming agency over our attention, decisions and direction. Resilience: Moving beyond endless endurance towards recovery, adaptation and sustainable capacity. Truth and transformation: Becoming willing to recognise what is actually happening instead of continually normalising what depletes us. Healing and healthy boundaries: Understanding that boundaries are not barriers to performance, they can help protect the capacity required to sustain it. Your voice and visibility: Reclaiming the ability to speak, contribute, disagree, ask for what we need, and participate fully. These principles begin with the individual, but their impact does not end there. I see capacity moving through four interconnected levels. Individual capacity to leadership capacity to team capacity to organisational capacity. A depleted leader influences how they communicate, how they respond under pressure, how mistakes are handled, how much psychological safety other people experience, and whether recovery is modelled or quietly discouraged. Those behaviours influence teams. Teams influence culture, and culture ultimately influences organisational performance. That is why I don't believe wellbeing and performance should be treated as separate conversations. Human capacity connects them. Sustainable performance should not require unsustainable humans Much of personal and professional development focuses on becoming. Become more confident. Become more productive, resilient, a better leader, and become the next version of yourself. But constant becoming can quietly reinforce the idea that who we are now is somehow insufficient. What if transformation does not always begin by adding something? What if sometimes it begins by reclaiming something? Your attention. Your voice. Your boundaries. Your capacity. Your relationship with your body. Your right to recover. Your ability to be present. The person underneath the performance. For organisations, this requires a shift too. Instead of asking only how we can get more from people, perhaps sustainable leadership asks, "What conditions enable people to contribute fully without continually depleting the human capacity on which that contribution depends?" That is not lowering standards. It is recognising what makes sustained performance possible. Because sustainable performance should not require unsustainable humans. How to begin reclaiming yourself Reclaiming yourself does not need to become another item on your to-do list. Start smaller, choose one moment today. A meeting, a conversation, a walk, a decision, the moment before you open your laptop, or simply the few seconds before answering a question. Create an interruption and pause. Before responding, notice. Before interpreting, receive. Before automatically saying yes, check what is happening within you. Before rushing into the next task, allow yourself to experience this one. Then ask, "What becomes available when I stop transmitting long enough to receive?" Perhaps another question will follow. What have I been giving away that I am ready to reclaim? My attention? My voice? My boundaries? My recovery? My time? My ability to choose? My presence in my own life? The Beautiful Interruption teaches us to pause. The Bridge invites us to receive. The Reclaiming asks us to return. Not to a better version of ourselves, to ourselves. Perhaps sustainable transformation does not always begin with the question, "Who do I need to become?" Sometimes it begins somewhere quieter: What was already mine that I am ready to reclaim? Pause. Notice. Receive. Reclaim. Your next step: What are you ready to reclaim? Before you move on to the next email, meeting, or demand on your attention, pause and ask yourself, "What have I been giving away that I am ready to reclaim?" Your attention? Your voice? Your boundaries? Your capacity? Your right to recover? Or simply the space to hear yourself again? You don't have to change everything today. Begin with one interruption. One conscious pause. One moment of receiving before responding. If you are ready to explore this more deeply, I invite you to connect with me and discover the W.O.R.T.H.Y.™ Ecosystem, where we explore how reclaiming worth, ownership, capacity, boundaries, and voice can transform not only how we live, but how we work and lead. Because the goal isn't to become better at carrying more. It is to build the capacity to live, work, and lead without losing yourself in the process. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ebi Sheila Diete-Spiff Ebi Sheila Diete-Spiff, Lifestyle Strategist Ebi Sheila Diete-Spiff is a self-love and mental fitness strategist who empowers women to reclaim their worth and embrace their potential with confidence. Born in Hertfordshire, England, she transformed personal struggles with toxic relationships, divorce, chronic illness, and single motherhood into a journey of resilience and growth. A pivotal awakening in 2014 inspired her to embrace self-love, fueling her mission to guide women worldwide past self-doubt. Through her signature blueprint, The WORTHY Woman Framework, Ebi offers tools for healing and empowerment. Today, she stands as a beacon of hope, inspiring women to live boldly and authentically.

Written by Tiffanae Dawn Luke, Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist Tiffanae is a Clinical Ayurveda Specialist dedicated to restoring balance, vitality, and resilience through personalized Ayurvedic care. Working with clients worldwide, she combines ancient wisdom with modern insight to support sustainable energy and long-term well-being. The human body is constantly communicating. Through energy levels. Through digestion. Through sleep patterns. Through emotions. Through symptoms. Yet many people spend years trying to silence these messages instead of understanding them. One of the most profound lessons autoimmune conditions can teach us is the importance of listening. Not just listening to symptoms, but listening to ourselves. Because healing often begins with awareness. Your body is always providing information Many people think of symptoms as problems to eliminate. Ayurveda invites us to see them differently. Symptoms are often signals. They are the body's way of communicating that something requires attention. Fatigue. Brain fog. Digestive changes. Sleep disturbances. Joint discomfort. Stress sensitivity. These experiences can feel frustrating, but they also offer valuable insight into how the body is responding to internal and external influences. The question becomes, "Are we paying attention?" The challenge of one-size-fits-all solutions Autoimmune conditions are often complex and highly individualised. Two people may share the same diagnosis and have completely different experiences. One person struggles with fatigue. Another experiences digestive symptoms. Another notices skin changes. Another battles chronic stress and nervous system overload. This is why generalised wellness advice often falls short. The same recommendation does not produce the same result for everyone. Ayurveda recognises this reality. Rather than asking, "What works for this condition?" it asks, "What does this individual need?" Awareness creates empowerment One of the most transformative moments in any wellness journey occurs when a person begins recognising their own patterns. They notice which foods support them, which habits create imbalance, how stress affects their body, what improves their energy, what disrupts their sleep, and which routines help them feel their best. This awareness is powerful because once you can see a pattern, you can begin changing it. Awareness creates options. Options create empowerment. Your blueprint matters Every person has a unique blueprint. Their constitution. Their environment. Their daily routines. Their stress response. Their habits. Their strengths. Their challenges. All of these factors influence how the body functions. This is why personalised wellness matters. What supports one person may not support another. What creates balance for one individual may create imbalance for someone else. Understanding your blueprint allows you to make decisions based on your needs rather than someone else's experience. Healing happens through consistency Many people search for a breakthrough. A new supplement. A new treatment. A new protocol. While these tools can be valuable, lasting change is often created through consistency rather than dramatic intervention. Small daily actions matter: Consistent sleep habits Supportive meal timing Stress management practices Mindful movement Personalised herbal support Healthy boundaries Rest and recovery These practices may seem simple. But over time, they create a foundation for resilience. Accountability bridges the gap Information alone rarely changes behaviour. Most people already know they should prioritise their health. The challenge is maintaining those choices consistently when life becomes busy or stressful. This is where accountability becomes invaluable. Private mentoring provides support, encouragement, perspective, and guidance. It helps transform knowledge into action. Over the years, I have found that accountability is often one of the most powerful tools for helping people create sustainable change. Not because they lack information but because they benefit from having someone walk beside them on the journey. Becoming your own health advocate One of the goals of Ayurvedic care is empowerment, not dependence. The more you understand your body's language, the more capable you become of supporting your own wellbeing. You begin recognising early signs of imbalance. You learn which habits serve you. You make decisions from awareness rather than confusion. You become an active participant in your health. This is where confidence grows. This is where lasting transformation begins. Resilience is built, not found Many people think resilience is something you either have or you don't. Ayurveda teaches otherwise. Resilience is cultivated. It is built through daily choices. Through self-awareness. Through consistency. Through honouring your body's needs. Through learning when to push forward and when to rest. Every supportive choice strengthens your foundation. Every moment of awareness builds resilience. Final thought Autoimmune conditions remind us that health is rarely simple. But they also remind us of something incredibly important, "Your body is wise." It is constantly providing information. The more you learn to listen, the more empowered you become. Healing does not begin with finding the perfect solution. It begins with understanding yourself. Because when you understand your unique blueprint, you gain the ability to make choices that support your health, vitality, and resilience for years to come. That may be one of the most powerful forms of healing available. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Tiffanae Dawn Luke Tiffanae Dawn Luke, Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist Tiffanae is a Clinical Ayurveda Specialist specializing in personalized Ayurvedic wellness programs that support nervous system regulation, detoxification, and long-term vitality. She works with clients worldwide through private and virtual consultations, helping individuals understand their unique constitution and restore balance from the inside out. Her approach blends ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern lifestyle realities, offering practical, sustainable strategies for lasting health. She believes true prosperity begins with a regulated nervous system and a body that functions efficiently for decades to come.

Written by Reena Pathak, Creator of the 6R Ascension™ Process Reena helps people move beyond symptoms, grief, and limiting patterns to reconnect with their true selves. Inspired by her own journey of loss, healing, and spiritual awakening, she has created the 6R Ascension™ Process, a structured pathway for deep transformation, self-discovery, and conscious growth. A few days ago, several things I had been working towards happened all at once. My new 6R Ascension™ website was finally going live. A podcast where I had shared some very personal parts of my journey was about to be released, and that same morning, I received an email telling me my Brainz Magazine interview had also been published. These were all things I had chosen and worked towards, so I should have been excited. Instead, I remember thinking, “Why have I done it? Am I really ready for this? What will everyone think? What if my family listens to the podcast? How will everyone react?” I am a very private person, and suddenly I felt very exposed. I had spent months working on the website because I wanted it to feel like me: warm, calm, and welcoming. I wanted someone arriving there to feel a connection, almost as though they had stepped into the space I try to create in my sessions, rather than simply reading about what I do. Yet when the moment came for me to be seen alongside it, all sorts of doubts came up too. It eventually made me smile because here I was, creating a space for healing and self-discovery while life was quietly giving me another opportunity to do some of my own. When another layer appears I used to think there might be a point in healing where you could say, “I’ve dealt with that now,” and move on. My experience has been quite different. We can work through something, understand it, and genuinely feel lighter, and then life presents another situation that brings back a familiar emotion. I don’t see that as going backward anymore. Sometimes we are simply seeing another layer, perhaps one we weren’t ready or able to see before. This understanding sits at the heart of the 6R Ascension™ Process: Recognise, Release, Restore, Reconnect, Rebuild, and Radiate. Although there are six stages, I don’t experience them as six boxes we neatly tick in order. I can be rebuilding one part of my life while recognising something completely new in another. I can feel ready to Radiate and be seen, as I thought I was recently, only to realise that part of me needs support first. That’s where I am, and that’s okay. What grief taught me about giving ourselves time Some of my deepest understanding of healing came through grief. When my mother passed away during the pandemic, I couldn’t travel to India because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) restrictions at the time. I understood the reality logically, but emotionally, it was much harder to accept. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be with my sisters. Alongside the grief was the guilt of not being there but also a deep sense of being alone. For a while, I felt orphaned, regardless of how old I was. It was a lot to hold at once. Looking back, I realise I didn’t need to explain myself or push myself to be strong. I needed time, space, and permission to feel what I was feeling. I can speak about my mother now with love and gratitude, and there are still moments when I cry. I no longer feel those two things contradict each other. Grief has taught me that there is no timetable for these things, and it has changed the way I sit with someone else’s loss too. I don’t want to hurry someone towards acceptance or try to find meaning in their pain before they are ready. After a profound loss, I sometimes think we have to learn how to live again, almost like a child. We learn how to walk with what has happened, how to talk about it, and how to find our strength again. It does get easier, but that doesn’t mean leaving the person we love behind. We learn to carry that love differently. Meeting the parts of myself I had forgotten My own journey eventually led me towards inner child work, which surprised me because I remember very little of my childhood. I didn’t consciously carry anger or regret about it, yet when I began exploring that part of myself, memories and emotions surfaced that felt very real. There was sadness, anger, and jealousy, but there was also silliness, laughter, and memories of cracking jokes with my sisters for absolutely no reason. I wasn’t discovering only the difficult parts of my childhood. I was rediscovering the child I had been. My adult mind could explain why certain things happened. It could rationalise them or decide that something shouldn’t matter anymore because so much time had passed. But the younger me wasn’t looking for an adult explanation. She needed love. She needed her feelings to be acknowledged and heard, and simply to know that what she felt was real. That has stayed with me. If I feel anger now, I try not to judge myself immediately for it. If I am sad, I don’t need to pretend I am above sadness because I do healing or spiritual work. I am joy and love, but I also experience sadness, fear, and anger. All of that is part of being human. What I have noticed is that the more I allow myself to acknowledge and accept these emotions, rather than resist or judge them, the less hold they seem to have over me. Their intensity begins to soften, leaving more space for calm and peace. For me, it isn’t about becoming a perfect version of myself. I would much rather understand and accept myself honestly. We cannot walk someone else’s journey There is another side to self-discovery that I have had to learn. Once we begin recognising patterns and seeing things differently, we naturally want to help the people we love. We see someone hurting and think, “If only they could see this,” or “If only they would try that.” I have done that too. But the people we love have their own journey, their own timing, and their own way of learning. Respecting that doesn’t mean caring less. For me, it has meant learning the difference between supporting someone and feeling responsible for changing what they are going through. I am also learning to give people the space to find their own way while still supporting them, even if that sometimes means supporting them quietly and from a little distance. I am beginning to understand that I can care deeply without carrying everything they are feeling. That space gives them room to grow while also protecting my energy and keeping me grounded. It has also taught me to look at myself when another person’s pain affects me deeply. Instead of focusing only on what I think they need, I can ask myself why their situation is affecting me in the way it is. Sometimes something in me is asking for attention too. This is also how I see my work with others. I can listen, support, share what I sense intuitively, and offer the different approaches I have learned, but I don’t own another person’s journey. I can hold space and walk beside them for part of it. I can support, but I cannot walk the path for them. The journey remains theirs. I have also had to learn something similar in my own relationship with my spiritual teachers. Many teachers and people have helped me at different stages of my life. For a long time, I felt a sense of responsibility to stay connected, to keep attending, or somehow remain loyal because of what I had received from them. Over time, I began to understand that we can be deeply grateful for what someone has given us without feeling that we have to stay in the same place forever. We learn, we grow, and sometimes we are ready for another teacher or another experience. Moving forward doesn’t take away from what came before. Knowing something and living it are very different things More than twenty years ago, someone said something to me that I didn’t really understand at the time: “You don’t let anyone help you.” It stayed somewhere in the back of my mind, and it has probably taken me all these years to understand just how true it was. Giving has always come much more naturally to me than receiving. I can still feel uncomfortable when somebody asks how much they should pay for a session. In fact, part of me is quite looking forward to having the website booking system fully running because then I can ask people to book there and avoid that conversation altogether! I know that’s another growth opportunity, but apparently I’m not quite ready for that one yet. The same thing happens when somebody offers me something generously. My first response can still be, “But I haven’t done anything for them. Should I really accept this?” I know what I am doing when I do this. I understand the pattern. I’m just still learning to respond differently. Then the website, podcast, and interview all became public at almost the same time, and suddenly I needed support. I shared how I was feeling with people I trusted, including a circle of people who have become very close to my heart. With them, I can show up as I am. Their encouragement, along with the kind messages I received from everyone else, reminded me how powerful it can be to feel genuinely supported. This time, instead of being the one offering support, I allowed myself to receive it. It really did help. This is what Rebuild can look like for me. It isn’t necessarily a dramatic breakthrough. Sometimes life simply allows us to do something a little differently: accept the compliment instead of dismissing it, say no without explaining ourselves endlessly, ask for help, or allow somebody to do something kind for us. I am still learning this one, and I am quite happy to admit it. What Radiate is beginning to mean to me All of this has made me think differently about the final R: Radiate. When I developed the 6R Ascension™ Process, Radiate represented living more fully as ourselves, our truth, our gifts, our voice, and what we have to share. I still believe that, but I am beginning to understand that it doesn’t mean I have to lose the fear of being seen. Maybe it means allowing myself to be seen even when some of that fear is still there. I sometimes think of a lighthouse. It doesn’t stop the storm or remain untouched by it; it simply stays grounded while the storm passes around it. I’m learning to stay grounded in much the same way: to care deeply without absorbing everything, to recognise what is mine to carry and what isn’t, and to protect my energy when I need to. I’m certainly not there yet, but I understand myself a little better each time. Looking back, I think that’s partly why making the website, podcast, and interview public affected me so much. It wasn’t just about launching something I had created. I was allowing myself to be seen in a way I hadn’t before. It turns out I still have some work to do there, and that’s okay too. Making the journey your own I believe every person’s healing journey is unique. My own spiritual understanding includes energy, ancestry, consciousness, inner child work, and past lives, and those beliefs naturally influence the work I do. They may not be someone else’s beliefs, and I don’t need them to be. Not everything will resonate with everyone. I think we have to permit ourselves to discover what genuinely helps us, take what serves us, and leave what doesn’t. Ask for support when you need it, whether that is from someone you trust, a therapist, a healthcare professional, a healer, or another appropriate form of support. But remember that the journey is still yours. Sometimes you may think you have worked through something, only for it to appear again. Before becoming discouraged, notice what feels different this time. You may understand yourself better. Perhaps you ask for support sooner. Perhaps you recognise a boundary you couldn’t see before, or you can sit with an emotion you once wanted to run from. This journey has beautiful parts too. I don’t want healing to become an endless search for wounds, patterns, and things we need to release. There are moments of love, connection, laughter, and completely ordinary joy. Those matter just as much. When I look back, I feel incredibly grateful for the people I have shared parts of this journey with. Some stayed for many years, some were there for a particular chapter, and some may not even realise what they taught me. I don’t think everyone who touches our lives is meant to remain in it forever. Sometimes we meet, share something, learn something from each other, and continue on our own way. That doesn’t make the connection any less meaningful. I don’t know whether healing has a final destination, and these days I am not particularly concerned with finding one. I am more interested in the relationship I have with myself while I am living my life. I am not perfect, and I don’t want to be perfect. I am who I am. I am simply getting to know myself better. And for where I am today, that feels enough. Follow me on Instagram, WhatsApp, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Reena Pathak Reena Pathak, Creator of the 6R Ascension™ Process Reena is the creator of the 6R Ascension™ Process and a passionate advocate for healing beyond symptoms and transformation beyond awareness. Drawing on her personal journey of grief, spiritual awakening, and conscious growth, she combines intuitive insight, spiritual and energy healing, ancestral healing, inner child healing, egression therapy, and Qi Gong to support meaningful, lasting change. Through her work, Reena helps individuals reconnect with who they truly are and step into lives of greater clarity, purpose, and alignment.

Written by Guy Van de Putte, Spiritual Guide & Mentor Guy Van de Putte works as a guide for those looking for help navigating life's challenges or finding themselves at a crossroads. Blending shamanism, breathwork and constellation therapy with the non-dual and yogic traditions, he has a wide toolkit to support the power of presence and the healing words to accommodate lasting change. It might be one of the best-known sentences from the Bible: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” These are the words uttered by Jesus on the cross that inspire yet confuse many of us still today. How can you forgive those who have literally killed you? It feels impossible and even unjust. Forgiving is letting them win, letting them get away with whatever injustice they have inflicted upon you. How can they be held accountable if you forgive them? You can’t be a pushover, right? It’s important to set boundaries. It’s perfectly fine, and even necessary, to set healthy boundaries to prevent whatever happened from happening again. Forgiving is not allowing it to happen again. It’s not a free pass for others to hurt you, step all over you, or treat you however they want. But the resistance to forgiveness is a wall you’ve built for yourself to protect you from ever getting hurt like that again, from ever being treated like that again. Walls aren’t boundaries. They often get confused. A wall is there to protect you; it comes from a place of feeling powerless. A boundary comes from strength and trust. You’re the main recipient of the grudge you still carry. They’re probably just living their life, maybe not even remembering. All the anger you’re feeling, all the sadness, and any other emotions still associated with the event(s) that occurred are being felt by you. You’re experiencing all the effects from it. As long as you hold onto it out of spite, out of an idea of justice, or because you don’t want to let them off the hook, you’re really only hurting yourself. You’re making life more difficult for you. So you don’t forgive them for them. You don’t even have to speak those words to them. You’re doing it for you, for your life, your wellbeing, and your future. It’s the ultimate gift you can give yourself. The main forgiveness that’s needed, however, is not towards the other but towards yourself. A big part of the grudge you hold onto is directed towards you, but easily projected onto the other. Where did you give more than you got back? Where did you allow your boundaries to be flagrantly disrespected? Where did you act out of character, for whatever reason? Maybe you’ve been giving more than you wanted to. Now you stop. Enough. It’s the final drop, and whatever they ask of you now will receive a firm “no.” You’re not even seeing clearly at the moment. The past is influencing your decisions now. Nobody can act out of their level of consciousness. Therefore, whatever they did, whatever you did, was the best both they and you could do at that moment in time. I know how “easy” that sounds, how much resistance that usually causes. But look back on your life. Look back at those painful moments and encounters. Yes, you would act differently now. Good. That means you learned from them. There’s no time machine, however, no way to reverse the events. I can guarantee you that if there were a time machine, you would do the same things again, speak the same words again, because it has to stay fair. You can’t take what you learned back in time. So in the same circumstances, and with the same events you experienced in your life before that moment, the conclusion would be the same. Not because you’re stupid, but because you didn’t yet have the insight, the lesson, the consciousness to act differently. You needed the event or experience to learn that. If that applies to you, how could it not apply to another? We’re all products of our surroundings, our upbringing, and our life events. We live, we learn, and we move on. Ask yourself that question and answer it fairly. Could I have acted differently? Maybe you knew you shouldn’t have. That’s okay. It’s not just about the knowledge. It’s also about the courage, the strength, and the trust to follow your gut feeling at that moment. Once you fully realize and accept that neither of you could have handled it differently, forgiveness is actually no longer needed. What replaces it is understanding. So free yourself from your past. That’s what forgiveness is. So you can welcome a brighter future. A lighter future. Stop carrying it around. Learn from it. Don’t let yourself get hurt over and over again by people who showed you they are not capable of treating you the way you deserve. But don’t judge them for it. They’re doing the best they can, and sometimes that doesn’t feel like a lot. No need to take that upon yourself. Leave it with them. To forgive is to release the past. You can’t force it nor just say you forgive. It has to come from a deeper place. From realizing and understanding that things couldn’t have gone any other way at that exact moment in time. You can’t change how someone decides to treat you. But you can let them show you and reach your own conclusions on how and if you still want to allow them in your life. Stay open for a sincere apology. Maybe they have learned from it as well. Then let the past be the past. There’s no need to dig it up over and over again. Bring light to the shadow it casts over your present so you can have a different future. You can cast people out of your life, but if you’re holding on to them and your mutual story, they’ll be more present than they could ever be in physical form. That’s not what true inner freedom is about. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Guy Van de Putte Guy Van de Putte, Spiritual Guide & Mentor Guy Van de Putte works as a guide for all those looking for help navigating life’s challenges or finding themselves at a crossroads. His passion is helping people who are ready to wake up go beyond the stories and patterns that unconsciously run their lives, thereby helping them debunk the lies they told themselves that are at the root of all the drama in their lives and take back the power over their own lives. So the old wounds from the past can be permanently healed and a new life of true freedom can emerge out of that. A fulfilled life in service of and in harmony with their true calling.

Written by Renee Devereaux, Regeneration Specialist Renee's work addresses what lies beneath the surface of "personal abandonment," creating an "addiction" to a coping mechanism, keeping the person from the fulfillment they seek. Each person's journey is different. Her role is to meet you where you are and guide you to what needs resolution. True beauty is often pursued through diets, treatments, and cosmetic procedures, yet one essential ingredient is frequently overlooked: the connection between inner wellbeing and outward appearance. This article explores the belief that beauty begins within, examining how emotions, lifestyle, and the soul may shape the way we see ourselves and how others see us. What is the secret ingredient most often ignored in the quest for personal, physical beauty? Very early in my life, I remember noticing the beautiful as well as the ugly! I recall wanting to run away when my mother insisted I hug a relative I found unattractive! That sense stayed with me as I was growing up. Then I found the book that clarified the situation for me. It was, "The Picture of Dorian Grey". It tells of a man who makes a deal with the devil to stay forever youthful and handsome, no matter what he does! From the book, I understood that evil acts had the power to make one ugly! That possibility simply terrified me! Due to illnesses that I contracted from the beginning of my life, I was not a pretty child. Shame became very real because I was sure that I was responsible for the illnesses and the resulting homeliness. Life changed dramatically for me at 10 when we came to the States. At 15, I learned that what I ate would make a difference, so I became obsessed with improving my diet, as well as everyone else’s! As I became healthier, I looked better, even to myself! Tears of joy? Absolutely! The memory of the book never left me! It was in the back of my conscious mind as well as the subconscious! Having received a master’s degree in health science and nutrition, I started my own business offering transformation through lifestyle changes. The obvious changes in clients’ appearance helped my business thrive, and I was always guided by the philosophy that Beauty is an Inside Job! To many, my belief was sheer vanity! I said, Not! I continued studying, and I discovered through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), New German Medicine, New Biology, and Carl Jung that emotions do, indeed, cause blockages in the body’s energetic field. When that occurs consistently, organs or organ systems cannot work efficiently, and the effects show up first on the face. When you ignore the signs, the dysfunction may show up as illness in a corresponding area of the body later! It seemed that the more I learned about the true connection to beauty, the more plastic surgery became popular! Of course, I learned and was horrified by injuries caused by doctors themselves! It was a relatively new art form. For many opportunists, plastic surgery was a source of fame and fortune. They didn't take the time to truly study the human face or learn how deeply their scalpels could injure beauty seekers. At the same time, Botox was developed and became enormously popular for those wanting a temporary “fix” until they could afford the major work. I was aghast as I watched men and women risk their lives by going under “the knife”! and some very intelligent people expose their brains to botulism toxin in order to smooth their wrinkles! I could not believe the “movement”! Being “old school,” I could not even consider either option, so I enrolled in a beauty school to become an esthetician, an expert in skin care and esthetics. As I stated previously, the book made an impact, and all the other courses and certifications seemed to confirm my perceptions until I fully accepted that my soul was responsible for how I looked! I have never considered anything else! It’s clear and simple! I watched my face and body change throughout the years, and my interpretation of what I had learned became my evidence. Beauty does come from within. Many quotes from philosophers confirm this, and this is one of my favorites. “The face you have at twenty is God’s gift to you. The face you have at sixty is your own soul’s doing!” Beauty is an inside job, and at the same time, I hold fast to the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I invite you to explore why too many, despite huge financial investments, will never “feel” beautiful, why others have unfavorable results due to mistakes by surgeons or practitioners, and how what’s promised as an “improvement” can turn into a horror story. Please visit me here or contact me here. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Renee Devereaux Renee Devereaux, Regeneration Specialist Renee Devereaux built and rebuilt her business multiple times, surviving financial collapse, health crises, and relocations across countries. Every loss taught her about resilience and the impermanence of external security. This work has remained constant: helping people reclaim their power by resolving what holds them back. "Freedom and Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship" is her second book, a guide and workbook she shares with those eager to start their own business.

Written by Stoyana Natseva, Global Mentor, Bestselling Author, and Founder Prof. Dr. Stoyana Natseva is a Full Professor, psychologist, researcher, bestselling author, and founder of Happy Life Academy. She created the Direct Change Solution® (DCS) methodology and the Internal Autobiographical Map (IAM), helping individuals and organizations achieve lasting transformation through science-based education. For years, one question has fascinated me both personally and professionally: How does a person become someone they have never been before? As a professor of psychology and education and a researcher of identity and human change, I study this question academically. But I have also lived it repeatedly. When I first decided to write books, the thought that appeared immediately was, “Who are you to write books?” Instead of trying to silence that thought with affirmations, I became curious about what was possible. Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books. Brian Tracy has written more than 70. That mattered to me for a simple reason. If another human being could demonstrate that level of creative capacity, then perhaps what I was experiencing was not a limit of human potential. It was a limit in my current understanding of myself. Years later, that distinction became central to my work. Before we can consistently create a new result, we often have to develop the person capable of creating, sustaining, and expanding it. Identity shapes what feels possible Psychology has long treated identity and self-concept as more than labels. Markus and Nurius introduced the concept of “possible selves,” representations of what we might become, what we would like to become, and what we fear becoming. These possible selves connect our present understanding of ourselves with future motivation. Daphna Oyserman’s work on identity-based motivation adds another important dimension. Identity influences which actions feel congruent with who we are and how we interpret difficulty. The same obstacle can be understood as “this matters, so it requires effort” or “this difficulty proves that this is not for someone like me.” This is where identity becomes practical. A person may want a different future while still interpreting the world through an older version of themselves. They may say, “I am confident,” while experiencing criticism as danger. They may imagine themselves as entrepreneurs while repeatedly avoiding uncertainty. They may take enormous amounts of action while carrying beliefs and emotional responses that continually pull their choices in another direction. Changing one element can help. Sustainable identity change, however, requires increasing alignment across the system. What my own research suggests This systemic understanding became central to my work on the Internal Autobiographical Map. Rather than treating identity as a single belief, I examine how multiple internal dimensions organize the way people understand themselves and their lives. In one of my validation studies with 345 participants, the proposed model demonstrated strong statistical fit, including a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of .968 and a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of .038, with high internal reliability across the measures. These results do not mean that identity is reducible to a formula. They support something more useful: the possibility of studying the organization of identity-related processes systematically rather than treating personal transformation as something vague or magical. In my applied work, I look particularly at the interaction between knowledge, beliefs, emotions, qualities, decisions, actions, and experiences. New knowledge expands what we understand. Beliefs influence interpretation. Emotional responses influence what we approach and avoid. Repeated decisions develop qualities. Actions produce consequences. Experiences become new evidence about what we are capable of. Over time, these dimensions can begin reinforcing the same answer to a fundamental question: Who am I? This perspective became part of the foundation of my Direct Change Solution® methodology and the Internal Autobiographical Map. I had to build the person before the result My own life gave me repeated opportunities to observe this process. To become a writer, I had to learn to research, structure ideas, write, edit, publish, and distribute my work. Eventually, “I want to write a book” became something much more stable. I am a writer. Hundreds of thousands of people have since bought my books, but the number is less interesting to me than the process that preceded it. The same thing happened when I became an entrepreneur. I entered entrepreneurship after a long career in banking and management. I had advised successful businesspeople, but I had never built my own company. I started from zero. I had to develop capabilities in sales, marketing, product creation, leadership, systems, risk, and decision-making. Happy Life Academy eventually grew into an educational ecosystem with a million-plus audience, more than 100,000 people trained, thousands of certified professionals, and an international presence. The question underneath that growth was always more interesting to me than the numbers. Who did I have to become to create, sustain, and lead something at that scale? Later, the same principle accompanied my development as an educator, researcher, and professor, as well as my journey into challenges I once would never have imagined, including a 25-hour event recognized by Guinness World Records and four separate World Book of Records titles for which I was honored in the British Parliament. Different results required different capabilities, but the underlying principle remained remarkably similar. Stress is where identity becomes interesting This is the part of identity change that interests me most. In my work, I use stress as a practical test of identity integration. It is relatively easy to perform a new behavior when we are rested, motivated, supported, and receiving positive feedback. But what happens when those conditions disappear? What happens when you have not slept enough? When somebody criticizes you? When an important opportunity is rejected? When the result you expected does not arrive? When you are under financial or professional pressure? When the old response is faster, more familiar, and easier? This is where I believe we can distinguish between performing a new identity and integrating one. If a person can behave confidently only when receiving approval, confidence may still depend heavily on external conditions. If someone behaves like a leader while everything is working but immediately returns to avoidance under pressure, the new pattern may not be deeply integrated yet. If one rejection restores the old belief, “I am not capable of this,” then the previous identity still has considerable organizing power. For me, therefore, the question is not simply, “Can you behave like the person you want to become?” The deeper question is, “Who are you when conditions become difficult?” A sustainable identity has to hold under pressure. I am not presenting this as an established universal law of psychology. I use it as a practical proposition arising from my broader work on identity: the stability of a new identity may be revealed by the degree to which its associated beliefs, emotional responses, decisions, and behaviors persist when internal and external resources are strained. That proposition is also empirically testable. Transformation is integration This is why I am cautious about promises of instant identity transformation. Manifestation, visualization, affirmations, or an isolated technique may produce motivation, insight, or a meaningful emotional experience. Those experiences can have value. But an experience is not yet an integrated identity. The deeper work is alignment. Knowledge. Beliefs. Emotions. Qualities. Decisions. Actions. Experiences. When these dimensions repeatedly point in conflicting directions, change remains fragile. When they increasingly reinforce one another, a different possibility emerges: the new way of being requires less conscious performance because it is becoming part of the person's internal organization. That is the difference between temporarily doing something differently and gradually becoming someone different. Why I believe in human potential My belief in human potential does not come from magical thinking. It comes from research, observation, and repeatedly witnessing how much people can learn and develop when they approach change systematically. Even if nobody has believed in you before, their belief does not define the limits of your potential. People can acquire knowledge they once lacked. They can develop qualities they believed they lacked. They can revise long-held beliefs, make different decisions, and accumulate experiences that gradually change their understanding of themselves. I have done this repeatedly in my own life. I learned to believe in myself because I built myself. That is what I mean by building a new identity. Life does not change simply because we want something different. It changes when we develop the identity capable of creating different results, sustaining them, and expanding them. This is not magic. It is the science and the work of consciously participating in who we become next. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Stoyana Natseva Stoyana Natseva, Global Mentor, Bestselling Author, and Founder Prof. Dr. Stoyana Natseva is a Full Professor, psychologist, researcher, international educator, bestselling author, and founder of Happy Life Academy. She created the Direct Change Solution® (DCS) methodology and the Internal Autobiographical Map (IAM), and founded the Happy Life Institute for Direct Change Science. Through her internationally accredited MBA and professional education programs, she has trained more than 100,000 students from over 50 countries. Her work has earned international awards, a Guinness World Record, and multiple World Book of Records distinctions, while her research and educational initiatives continue to bridge science, leadership, and personal transformation worldwide.

Written by Rocio Sanchez, SEO-First Brand Strategist Marketing by Rocio is a multicultural and multilingual brand strategy and digital marketing agency helping LGBTQ-focused brands stand out in their industries. Founded by Rocio Sanchez, the agency combines expertise in branding, digital marketing, and cross-cultural perspectives to support LGBTQ-affirming businesses in building stronger, more visible brands. Some business owners don't come to me asking for a marketing strategy. They come to me asking for Instagram, SEO, Google Ads, or a newsletter. They've already decided on the tactic and simply want help executing it. The challenge is that tactics and strategy answer two very different questions. A tactic is how you're going to do something. A strategy is why you're doing it, who you're trying to reach, and what you're ultimately trying to achieve. After more than a decade in marketing, I've learned that confusing the two is one of the fastest ways to waste time, money, and energy. It's also one of the most common mistakes I see business owners make. They become fixated on a particular platform or marketing channel before they've established whether it supports their larger goals. In this article, I'll break down the difference between marketing tactics and marketing strategy, why the distinction matters, and how understanding it can help you make better marketing decisions. When marketing strategy finally clicked for me I first learned about the difference between marketing strategy and marketing tactics while studying Advertising, Marketing, and Communications at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. It wasn't presented as a groundbreaking idea. In fact, it was one of the more fundamental concepts we covered. Like many Marketing 101 lessons, it seemed almost obvious once it was explained. Yet years later, I'm still surprised by how often the two are confused. Business owners, marketers, and even entire organizations sometimes jump straight to tactics before they've clarified the strategy behind them. What made the concept click for me was how logical it felt. A strategy leads to tactics. One decision informs the next. There's a clear relationship between the goal you're trying to achieve and the actions you take to achieve it. In that sense, marketing strategy always felt a little like a math problem. If the objective changes, the path changes. If the path changes, the tactics often need to change as well. That's why it never made sense to me to start with a tactic. The tactic is supposed to support the strategy, not the other way around. Why business owners jump straight to tactics "I need Instagram." One of the most common things I hear from prospective clients isn't a question. More often than not, they've already decided what they think they need. Maybe it's Instagram. Maybe it's SEO. Maybe it's Google Ads or a newsletter. They're not asking whether the tactic makes sense for their business. They're asking for help executing it. I understand why this happens. Marketing channels are visible. We can see competitors posting on social media, launching podcasts, sending newsletters, or running ads. It's much harder to see the strategy behind those decisions. As a result, many business owners start by focusing on the tactic because it's the most tangible part of the process. The challenge is that a tactic doesn't automatically become a good idea just because someone else is using it successfully. Before deciding how you're going to market your business, it's worth understanding what you're trying to achieve, who you're trying to reach, and what resources you have available. Those are strategic questions, and they're often skipped entirely. The hidden assumption behind most marketing advice A lot of marketing advice encourages this way of thinking. We're constantly told to post more on social media, build a personal brand, start a podcast, launch a newsletter, invest in SEO, or run Google Ads. None of those are inherently bad recommendations. In fact, I've seen all of them work. The problem is that they're often presented without context. We rarely hear about the business goals behind the decision, the resources required to sustain it, or the trade-offs involved. Instead, the tactic gets treated as the solution. To me, that's a little like choosing a mode of transportation before deciding where you're going. You can spend hours comparing cars, trains, bicycles, and buses, but if you don't know the destination, it's impossible to know which option makes the most sense. Marketing works the same way. The channel only becomes meaningful once the strategy is clear. My favorite way to explain the difference The destination and the vehicle If I had to explain the difference between marketing strategy and marketing tactics to a 12-year-old, I'd probably use a transportation analogy. Let's say your goal is to get from Paris to Amsterdam. That's the destination. Your strategy is the route you've chosen to get there. Your tactics are the vehicles you use along the way. Maybe you take a train. Maybe you drive a car. Maybe you fly. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, maybe you ride a bike. Each option comes with trade-offs. Some are faster. Some are cheaper. Some require more effort. Some are more reliable. Yet all of them can potentially get you to the same place. That's how I think about marketing channels. Social media, SEO, Google Ads, email marketing, networking, and referrals are all tactics. They're simply different ways of moving toward a goal. Why the vehicle doesn't matter if you don't know where you're going One of the reasons businesses get stuck is because they spend so much time debating the vehicle that they forget to define the destination. Should we invest in Instagram? Should we focus on SEO? Should we start a podcast? Those questions can be useful, but they're difficult to answer without understanding the larger objective. Are you trying to generate leads, increase brand awareness, build authority in your industry, or retain existing customers? A tactic without a strategy can still create movement. You can post content, launch campaigns, and spend money on marketing activities. The problem is that movement and progress are not the same thing. Without a clear destination, it's difficult to know whether you're moving closer to your goal or simply staying busy. What happens when tactics come first More activity doesn't always mean better results One of the biggest risks of starting with tactics is that it's very easy to mistake activity for progress. A business owner launches an Instagram account, starts a newsletter, experiments with Google Ads, and begins posting on LinkedIn. A few months later, they add a podcast because someone online claimed it was the fastest way to build authority. They're busy. They're investing time and energy into marketing. Yet they're often no closer to achieving their goals because each tactic is operating independently rather than supporting a larger strategy. I've seen businesses jump from platform to platform in search of results, abandoning one tactic for another before they've given either enough time to work. The problem isn't necessarily the tactics themselves. It's that there was never a clear reason for choosing them in the first place. The cost of taking the long way around Going back to the transportation analogy, imagine setting off on a trip without a clear route. You might encounter a flat tire, a missed bus, road construction, or an unexpected detour. Those challenges are frustrating enough when you know where you're going. They're even more frustrating when you're already uncertain about the destination. Marketing works in a similar way. Every channel comes with obstacles. Social media algorithms change. Advertising costs increase. SEO takes time. Content creation requires consistency. None of these challenges are unusual. The difference is that when you have a strategy, setbacks become problems to solve. Without a strategy, they can feel like signs that the entire approach is failing. That's one of the reasons I believe strategy creates confidence. It provides a framework for making decisions, adapting when circumstances change, and staying focused on the outcome you're trying to achieve. Without that framework, every obstacle feels bigger because there's no clear path forward. What happens when strategy comes first Better decisions become easier One of the biggest benefits of having a strategy is that decision-making becomes much simpler. Without a strategy, every marketing opportunity feels equally important. Should you invest in Instagram? Focus on SEO? Run Google Ads? Start a newsletter? Launch a podcast? Each option presents itself as a potential solution, making it difficult to know where to focus your time and resources. When a strategy is in place, those questions become easier to answer because the goal is already clear. Instead of asking whether a tactic is popular or trending, you can evaluate whether it helps move you closer to the outcome you're trying to achieve. The conversation shifts from "Should I do this?" to "Does this support the strategy?" Strategy creates filters One of the most overlooked benefits of strategy is that it gives you permission to ignore things. Not every marketing channel deserves your attention. Not every trend deserves an experiment. Not every opportunity deserves a yes. Without a strategy, it's easy to feel like you're constantly falling behind. There's always another platform to join, another tactic to test, or another expert telling you what you should be doing. A strategy acts as a filter. It helps you identify which opportunities are worth pursuing and which ones can safely be ignored. That doesn't mean you'll never change direction or try something new. It simply means those decisions are made intentionally rather than reactively. In my experience, that's where a lot of clarity comes from. The goal of strategy isn't just to tell you what to do. It's also to help you decide what not to do. A simple question to ask before choosing any marketing tactic By this point, you might be wondering what a strategy-first approach actually looks like in practice. For me, it starts with slowing down long enough to ask a few basic questions before committing to a particular marketing channel. Instead of immediately asking whether you should invest in Instagram, launch a podcast, or focus on SEO, take a step back and ask what you're actually trying to accomplish. Who are you trying to reach? What business goal are you working toward? What resources do you have available? Perhaps most importantly, what can you realistically sustain over the long term? These questions aren't nearly as exciting as debating algorithms, content formats, or marketing trends. Yet they're often far more useful because they provide the context needed to make good decisions. Once those answers are clear, the tactics become easier to evaluate. Some options will naturally rise to the top, while others will fall away. That's because strategy helps narrow the field before you invest significant time, money, or energy. The mistake many businesses make is treating tactics as the starting point. In reality, tactics are usually the final step in the decision-making process. They come after you've clarified the objective, understood the audience, and assessed your resources. In other words, strategy comes first. Tactics come later. Frequently asked questions Can a marketing tactic become part of a strategy? Absolutely. The distinction isn't that tactics are bad, and strategy is good. In fact, every marketing strategy relies on tactics to be executed effectively. The difference is that strategy comes first. For example, a business might decide that increasing visibility among local customers is a priority. That's a strategic objective. Local SEO, community partnerships, and referral programs could all be tactics used to support that strategy. A tactic becomes much more effective when it's connected to a larger goal. What's the difference between a marketing goal and a marketing strategy? A marketing goal is the outcome you're trying to achieve. A marketing strategy is the plan for achieving it. For example, generating more qualified leads could be a goal. Building visibility through SEO, referrals, and educational content could be part of the strategy designed to reach that goal. Put simply, the goal defines the destination. The strategy defines the route. Do small businesses really need a marketing strategy? Yes, although it doesn't need to be complicated. When people hear the word "strategy," they sometimes imagine a lengthy document filled with charts, projections, and corporate jargon. In reality, a strategy can be as simple as understanding who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to achieve, and which channels make the most sense given your resources. The smaller the business, the more important those decisions often become. Most small business owners don't have unlimited time or marketing budgets. A clear strategy helps ensure those resources are invested intentionally rather than spread across every new platform or trend that comes along. Strategy first, tactics second After more than a decade in marketing, I've become convinced that the biggest mistake businesses make isn't choosing the wrong tactic. More often, it's choosing a tactic before they've clarified the destination. Marketing channels, platforms, and tools all have their place, but none of them can compensate for a lack of direction. Social media, SEO, Google Ads, newsletters, podcasts, and personal branding can all be effective when they're supporting a clear objective. Without that foundation, it's easy to stay busy without making meaningful progress. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless stream of marketing advice online, resist the urge to start with the tactic. Instead, start with the goal. Understand what you're trying to achieve, who you're trying to reach, and what resources you realistically have available. Once those answers are clear, the right tactics often become much easier to identify. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Rocio Sanchez Rocio Sanchez, SEO-First Brand Strategist Rocio Sanchez is a brand strategist and digital marketer who specializes in helping LGBTQ-affirming businesses take up space. With a marketing degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology, they started Marketing by Rocio to help small business owners who often feel left behind and under-resourced. Rocio grew up between New York City and the Dominican Republic, and is now based in Europe, where they've lived for almost ten years between Amsterdam and Paris. They speak three languages (English, Spanish, and French) and deeply understand the lived experience of queer folks in these cultures, giving Rocio a unique outlook on running a queer-led business.

Teresa Summer is a holistic yoga teacher, transformational retreat facilitator, and Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) hypnotherapist who works between Austria and South Africa, blending yoga, psychology, and nervous system work through her method, LifeFlow360. Across her teacher trainings, retreats, and one-on-one sessions, she has come to see disconnection from oneself, often built up through years of people-pleasing and old conditioning, as one of the deepest, most common blocks to a genuinely fulfilling life. In this interview, she talks about what years of working with people in these different settings have taught her about lasting change, where traditional yoga practice can fall short, and how her own experience of not feeling seen shaped the way she now meets her students and clients. Teresa Summer, RTT Therapist & Yoga Life Coach What does helping someone "finally" return to themselves look like in your work today? There's something that happens when you step away from your everyday life, even just for a few days, and let yourself simply be. We carry so much of our daily noise with us, the roles we play, the responsibilities we hold, the pace we've gotten used to, and we rarely give ourselves the space to stop and ask what we actually need. That's what a retreat with me is for, and often it's also where people first meet me, before going deeper still in a one-on-one RTT session. It's a chance to reset, to re-evaluate, and to re-align with who you truly are underneath it all. My approach is holistic, because you are not just a body or just a mind, you are both, and everything in between. I meet you exactly where you are, and together we journey through your story, from the root cause of what's been holding you back to the full transformation waiting on the other side. You don't just leave with new information. You leave changed, clearer, lighter, and finally, truly you. After more than 20 years in yoga, what led you to bring hypnosis, breathwork, and coaching into your practice? I always felt there was something more to yoga than what I was experiencing. So I went searching for that deeper element I could feel but couldn't quite pinpoint. Training after training took me deeper into new experiences, and I slowly began to understand how the dots of life connected. I discovered that no single modality, on its own, was complete. For example, I suffered from chronic back pain for around eight years, and even as a yoga specialist, I couldn't heal it. It was only when I turned to hypnosis and uncovered the root cause, that my body braces whenever my husband is in a mood, that I was finally able to heal it completely. That's exactly why my retreats and RTT sessions now weave all of these modalities together, rather than relying on yoga alone. Not everyone is drawn to yoga, so why not meet people where their interest actually is? What have you learned from training yoga teachers that changed the way you understand personal transformation? What I've noticed, over years of training yoga teachers, is that people almost always start out simply, wanting to learn yoga, either to teach it or to bring more of it into their own lives. By the end, they're astounded at how much more they get out of it than they expected. Most come to realize the training itself becomes their therapy for life. I've had people tell me that after years of conventional therapy, one weekend of a single modality shifted things therapy never touched, entire life problems, transformed. What this taught me is that we're all more alike than we think. Every human carries the same underlying issues, just in different flavors, different stories. That's exactly what makes a strong, grounded facilitator: their own inner work. You cannot guide someone else's transformation if you haven't faced and transformed your own first. That insight is exactly what now shapes my retreats and one-on-one RTT sessions, real personal work, not just information, is what actually changes a life. Where do you think traditional yoga practice can fall short when someone is trying to change deeply rooted patterns? I think traditional yoga practice only speaks to a minority of people. Not everyone feels a natural pull toward the traditional Indian roots of yoga, the Sanskrit chants, the deities, the rituals that carry deep meaning within that culture but can feel foreign to someone who didn't grow up with them. That's one place traditional yoga falls short. The ancient yoga texts, the Vedas, the chants, they don't really address deeply rooted patterns. They give us guidelines on how we should be, but it's far easier to tell someone how to be than for them to actually become that. What if someone can't, because of patterns rooted deep inside them? People need to understand what's blocking them before they can unblock it. Simply telling them how to behave doesn't hold, it isn't lasting. That's why I believe a holistic approach, drawing on various modalities, speaks to a Western mind in a way it can actually relate to, and it's exactly why I've built my retreats and RTT sessions around that approach, rather than yoga alone. Why do so many women lose connection with themselves while building a life around other people's needs? So many women are raised to measure their worth by how well they take care of others, being a good partner, a good mother, a good employee, a good daughter. Somewhere along the way, "What do I need?" quietly stops being a question they ask themselves. It's not usually a dramatic loss, it happens gradually, one compromise at a time, until they wake up one day and realize they've built an entire life around everyone else's needs except their own. What I've seen, especially in the women who come to my retreats and sessions, is that this isn't a character flaw, it's a deeply rooted pattern, often formed long before adulthood. They learned early that their value came from giving, not from simply being. So they keep giving, even when it costs them their own identity. Reconnecting with yourself isn't about becoming selfish. It's about recognizing that pattern, understanding where it came from, and finally asking the question you stopped asking years ago: What do I actually want? That's where real transformation begins, not in doing more for others, but in coming home to yourself. What are the first signs that someone may be living from old conditioning rather than what they genuinely want? The clearest sign is a nagging sense of "Shouldn't I be happier than this?", even when life looks fine on paper. You're ticking the boxes: the job, the relationship, the routine, and yet something underneath feels hollow or restless, and you can't quite name why. Another sign is chronic over-explaining or over-justifying your choices, even to yourself. If you constantly need a good reason to want what you want, chances are it isn't really your own desire, it's a decision filtered through what you think you're supposed to want. Physical tension is often the earliest signal, long before the mind catches up. Tight shoulders, a clenched jaw, a stomach that reacts before you've even registered a thought, the body tends to know you're out of alignment before you consciously do. Then there's the pattern of saying yes when everything in you is screaming no, just to avoid conflict, disappointment, or guilt. That reflex almost always traces back to old conditioning, a belief formed long ago that your needs come second. Noticing these moments, rather than pushing past them, is usually the first real step toward change. How does your LifeFlow360 approach connect body, mind, nutrition, and energy when someone feels stuck? LifeFlow360 works from one simple belief: when someone feels stuck, it's never just in their mind, and it's never just in their body, it's in all of it at once. So instead of treating those parts separately, I connect them. Say someone comes to me feeling stuck in uncertainty. We start with the psychology, where they were taught to doubt themselves, where stability or self-worth was missing growing up. Then we move into the body: close your eyes, locate where you're actually holding that uncertainty as physical tension. From there, we move, often through something as simple as cat-cow or child's pose, to physically release what the mind has been gripping. Then nutrition comes in, uncertainty breeds frustration, and frustration usually drives us toward certain foods, so we look at what that pattern is feeding. Finally, energy: how you feel shapes the environment around you, and that environment feeds straight back into how you feel, so shifting the internal state shifts the external one too. When all four move together, "stuck" stops being one fixed thing and becomes something the whole person can actually work their way out of. How has your own experience of not feeling seen shaped the way you meet people in your work? I became a people pleaser very young. I learned early on that I was responsible for how my parents felt, and not being seen as a valuable human myself, not being treated as one, is what shaped that pattern in me. It showed up everywhere: accommodating every guest's and client's needs, always saying yes to whatever suggestion came my way, never really saying no. It showed up in my marriage too. For years I had no real opinion of my own, I simply slotted into my husband's, and over time I became more a version of his personality than my own. It's been a long, interesting journey to unwind that. Walking towards finally being me has been intense, but I feel like I'm getting to know myself for the first time in this life. That's exactly why I meet my retreat guests and clients the way I do now, I see them, really see them, because I know firsthand what it costs when nobody does. What would you want someone who feels disconnected from herself to understand about finding her way back? The first thing I'd want her to understand is that finding her way back to herself isn't a threat to the life she's already built, it's what finally lets her show up fully within it. Without that connection, you're not really living; you're functioning like a machine, running on beliefs you absorbed from other people and quietly mistook for your own. She doesn't need to fear that changing means losing her relationship or her children. What actually changes is how she meets them, with more wisdom, more patience, more finesse than before. Whatever in her life is genuinely solid tends to deepen rather than break, because she's finally showing up as herself instead of who she thought she had to be. This isn't about dismantling a life. It's about rooting it more honestly. Once she does that work, what she gains is something no amount of pleasing anyone else could ever have given her: real clarity, real peace, and a sense of freedom in simply being who she is. For a reader who feels that pull to finally return to herself but doesn't know where to start, what would you say to her? Trust that pull, because you wouldn't feel it if there weren't something real underneath it. Start with a few days on retreat to reconnect, or a one-on-one RTT session if there's something more specific you're ready to face, and come as you are, because I'll meet you exactly there. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Teresa Summer

Written by Brad Rhinehart, Author Brad Rhinehart is an optometrist who loves his profession but believes that one's occupation is only one of many ways to do meaningful work. In his book, Everyday Genius: Principles of Creativity and Innovation for Life, he highlights the importance of recognizing and developing our innate talents and embracing opportunities for growth. Is it ever beneficial to experience a bit of self-deception? When we begin a DIY project, optimism can carry us beyond our actual knowledge and skills. Yet that same confidence can inspire us to create, persevere through setbacks, and discover that the process shapes us as much as it shapes our work. The DIY spirit After my wife and I had been married for about a year, we bought a little house in the city where I was attending college. Home repairs were occasionally needed, though hiring a repairman wasn’t really an option, as a newlywed going to school, my resources were limited. Within a short time, I had to make repairs on the water softener, the water heater, and the furnace. In doing these tasks myself, I really had no idea what I was doing. At that time, Google and YouTube did not exist. Initially, one might say I was a bit delusional about performing such tasks with no pre-existing knowledge or skill. Later, I remodeled the bathroom in that same house. Though many years have passed, I still remember my wife’s impression as I worked on things in our home. It was a revelation to her. She told me that even though her father was a handy guy and a hard-working farmer, household repairs were generally done by professionals in the home where she grew up, and she was surprised to discover that her husband was becoming a do-it-yourselfer, or DIYer. But the DIY spirit is not just for solving problems, it can inspire us to do creative work. My favorite project during that time was repurposing and refinishing a ridiculously heavy cabinet that we got from some friends who had upgraded their furniture. Though it was crudely done, the repurposed cabinet worked in our space, and we even thought it was good enough to take with us when we moved across the country for more school in spite of its impressive mass. Incidentally, we did not think it was worth bringing back when we returned to our home state. Think about something you have made, something that exists because you created it. For some, the phrase do-it-yourself evokes images of home renovations, woodworking, or crafting. While DIYing certainly includes those activities, it is much more, it could be making your own yogurt, bread, clothing, tools, software, or anything else that you didn’t rely on someone else for. Your DIY project could be a baked Alaska, a special quilt, or, in my not-too-distant future, a custom guitar. The muse Picture yourself at the end of a pet project as you behold your handiwork. Assigning value to our work and judging outcomes is a topic for another time, so let’s just assume that your results are similar to what you envisioned. Now, suppose that your creative process was a struggle, a difficult task that required real commitment, dedication, and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, but you stuck to it, and now your project is finished! How do you think you would feel about your project? It’s natural that we should feel good when we have a hand in making something. Even the limited work involved with a piece of ready-to-assemble furniture can provide gratification. In fact, researchers have described the natural tendency to overvalue things we help produce over those made entirely by someone else as “the IKEA effect.”[1] Although the type of creative work we do varies, most of our creative projects start the same way. Someone we know did something, and we thought it would be great to try it, we read something that inspired us, or we saw a video that showed us how something could be done. Whatever it is, the muse sings to us, and we feel like we can move a mountain. We get excited, conclude that a project is doable, and decide to have a go. So far, so good. We need impulses like this, or we would never start. We’ll soon be confronted with the reality that our assumptions are flawed. Whether we really don’t know that we are overreaching or we just don’t want to know, we move forward because all we hear is the muse. The anticipation of both a good outcome and the positive subjective experience that we expect from our creative work combines to form an intoxicating elixir that inspires us to leave our comfort zone. Why our aspirations seem delusional To be clear, being delusional doesn’t necessarily mean that something can’t be done or that we can’t do it. Most of us have enough self-awareness to keep us from becoming quixotic, though we still bring some naivety and inexperience to novel tasks. During the course of a given project, however, we can feel as though we’ve set ourselves up to fail when our grand expectations collide with reality. We might wonder what we were thinking. This inner drive to journey into the uncharted landscape of some novel interest or activity is part of human nature. The impulse to stretch and reach is in us. We humans do not aspire to something we’ve already done or know how to do. We aspire to things we’ve not yet achieved or obtained, and there lies the challenge. New ideas move us to higher levels of understanding, greater depth and breadth of knowledge. New tasks involve new skills. In the development of knowledge and skill, we naturally encounter a learning curve. I’ve certainly displayed my share of overconfidence in different projects by starting something I thought was doable, only to find myself in deep water later. My experience is not unique. I’ve observed this phenomenon with other people and in a variety of circumstances. In his book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli states that “hardly any major projects exist that are completed in less time and at a lower cost than forecasted. Some delays and cost overruns are even legendary, such as the Airbus A400M, the Sydney Opera House, and Boston’s Big Dig. The list can be added to at will.”[2] Why do such incorrect and often comically inaccurate estimates occur? What is it that causes us to get our plans and our cost, labor, and time estimates so wrong? While Dobelli’s analysis points to many challenges inherent in complex collaborations, we will focus on his first reason, “the classic overconfidence effect,”[3] which is common in groups and in individuals. Psychologists refer to a specific form of overconfidence as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is “a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area, because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills.”[4] This confidence vs. capability disparity can vary greatly from person to person and task to task. Some creators might come up woefully short of their expectations while others might have no significant challenge. It is likely that most of us reside somewhere between these two extremes where, for a variety of reasons, we operate from a starting point of relative overconfidence. Perhaps we are prone to overconfidence and resultant delusions because certain ideas are presented in ways that miscalibrate our expectations. Reality is fraught with limitations, variables, and unknowns that can range from a strict budget to the presence of a load-bearing wall. Varying levels of individual knowledge and skill also impact each person’s process. Because we really can’t know everything that a new endeavor will require, the gap between expectations and reality can produce feelings of disappointment, frustration, and worry about being exposed to judgment and criticism. Jesus acknowledged the humanness of failure and also our tendencies to judge others on their work when he said: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish." – Luke 14:28-30, KJV While it’s important to acknowledge and manage our feelings about the potential for judgment and criticism, this is not our only consideration, and it’s certainly not the most important. While Jesus’ larger message points to the commitment that discipleship requires, his teachings here also demonstrate the importance of realistic planning, wise preparation, and the ability to finish what we start. When we begin any worthy endeavor, we should expect challenges. We also need to consider the options available to us when we hit a roadblock. The first option is to keep going. Next, we have to consider whether our project will be a continuation of our original approach or whether we will alter our process and even our outcome so we can keep working despite factors that might otherwise halt our process. We also have the option to quit. In such cases, we have to decide if we are just bored, tired, or frustrated, or if it really is wise to terminate the project because it is not feasible to continue. Because we can plainly see and appreciate completed work, it is natural to feel that aborting a project is a failure even though that is not necessarily the case. There may be something for us to gain even when we call it quits. If a given project turns out to be unworkable in spite of our best efforts, we can keep what we learned even when we decide to terminate the work. Furthermore, we may be able to salvage some of the material resources and repurpose them for other projects. Many famous paintings by artists, including Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso, were painted on reused canvases from previous works.[5][6] A scientific experiment that is inconsistent with the hypothesis is not a waste of time, researchers and the larger scientific community can still glean information from that experiment. If a cake you baked falls apart, you don’t toss it in the bin, you make a trifle. Finally, there is also a hybrid approach in which we might step away from our creative work for a defined time frame in order to rest or regroup. Setting a limit to our rest period keeps our pause from turning into a hard stop. Why our aspirations are beautiful Principles of hope and faith are integral to our desires to do something worthwhile. Without the impulses and thoughts that prompt us to engage in creative work, we wouldn’t aspire, we wouldn’t plan, and we wouldn’t work, we wouldn’t even try and, consequently, we wouldn’t achieve. We wouldn’t even fail, which is not as great as it sounds. Possessing hope, looking forward to something good, and reaching for something that requires effort, and yes, even failing in that quest, are essential to our growth and happiness. That growth and happiness are facilitated both by what the work directly yields and by what our process creates within us. All creative work, including various do-it-yourself projects, has the potential and power to transform us. Such work can change us from unlearned to informed, from unskilled to proficient, from dull to interesting, and from uncertain to confident. It expands our minds, enlarges our souls, and fills our whole being with substance. American novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote that “Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.”[7] These are some of the ways that our aspirations are beautiful. The struggle is real, but not unworkable We love stories that involve some initial struggle and eventual triumph, fictional favorites include The Little Engine That Could and Rocky. Real-life examples include young David, Seabiscuit, and Nelson Mandela. We naturally connect with these examples and, even though we might see ourselves as underdogs in certain situations, we generally like to avoid hardship and prefer to experience trials as observers rather than participants. While encountering challenges is a natural and universal aspect of life, many of us think it unfortunate when we are cast as the struggling protagonist from time to time. Perhaps our natural impulses to avoid discomfort cause some of us to avoid the self-inflicted challenges that are part of doing things that are not absolutely necessary, even when it is possible for us to overcome them. Perhaps in addition to the abundant optimism and excitement we feel at the beginning of a new project, we can add just a pinch of flexibility and a dash of realistic perspective to help us remember that challenges can be frustrating. When we acknowledge that any new project will likely require more than we initially anticipated, it can take the sting out of setbacks, like getting punched in the gut, it doesn’t feel as bad if you see it coming and can brace for it. We should also remember that, though frustrating, challenges in our creative work can be good for us. This is an important point to remember at all stages of creative work, challenges are a natural part of our process that provides opportunities to zoom in to better examine and understand the nature of our problems and also to zoom out and gain helpful perspective on our work. Furthermore, opportunities to pause, to critique, to ponder, to ask questions, to ideate, and to do research and experimentation expand and deepen our intellect, and the exercise of traits like curiosity, patience, diligence, persistence, courage, hope, and faith can expand our souls in ways we could not otherwise experience. Make it personal Now, let’s return to that project you envisioned at the beginning, the one that was challenging but which, in the end, brought you such satisfaction. Imagine that, instead of being challenged and compelled to work through difficulties to get it done, you found it less work-, time-, and cost-intensive than you expected. How would you feel about it in that case? How would you feel about yourself? I’ve never had a project go that way and, if one did, I would take the win. Maybe I’d feel some modest sense of accomplishment or esteem. But I think I would know inside that I needed to set my sights higher for my next project. I would need to be a bit delusional, for those delusions are the origin of any worthwhile endeavor. They set the stage for many real things to follow, real courage, real persistence, critical thinking and problem-solving, accomplishment, and a more complete version of the real you, and that, my friends, is beautiful. Follow me on Facebook and visit my website for more info! Read more from Brad Rhinehart Brad Rhinehart, Author Brad Rhinehart is the author of Everyday Genius: Principles of Creativity and Innovation for Life. He is a graduate of Idaho State University and the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (now part of Drexel University) and has also studied at Liberty University. His education has spanned several disciplines, including instrumental music, history, microbiology, visual science, optometry, and English literature. He is a forever reader, part-time podcaster, and lifelong learner who loves discovering and sharing powerful ideas with others. References: [1] Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, “The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 22, no. 3 (2012): 453-60. [2] Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, trans. Nicky Griffin (New York: Harper, 2014), 45. [3] Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, 45. [4] “Dunning-Kruger Effect,” Psychology Today, reviewed April 24, 2026. [5] Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function,” in A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings IV: The Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 96-97. [6] Annelies Rios Casier et al., “Towards a Classification System for Modernist Painters’ Reworking Practices Illustrated by James Ensor’s Revised Paintings,” npj Heritage Science 13 (2025): 411. [7] Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, ed. Daniel Simon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), 24.