Invest in your relationship with yourself and build a
life that excites you.

I come from Chinese heritage. In my family, excellence and efficiency were valued above all else. Love was pragmatic; it was shown through clothes on your back and food on the table.

And when emotions like sadness or fear showed up, the response was, "don't cry — it's fine," followed by fruit, peeled and sectioned and presented with a toothpick.

What I longed for were sweet words of encouragement and reassuring touch. For someone to pull me close and invite my tears of sadness, frustration and disappointment out.

But what I got was oranges — and for a very long time, I didn't understand that those oranges were love too.

What I did understand, even as a small child, was that feelings were not something our family did. So I tucked mine away and performed instead. Being good at things got me noticed. Being capable got me praised. And praise, in my family, was as close to "I love you" as it got. So I chased it.

By my mid-twenties I was an international tax consultant in Vancouver, rising faster than most. On paper, everything looked right. Inside, something was quietly dying. I would feel okay for a few weeks and then gradually sink into a fog I couldn't explain. I cried sometimes without knowing why. I wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn't I just be grateful?

So, when I found myself in a new relationship, I dove in headfirst and moved to the Netherlands — I thought this was the big change that would fix everything. But it didn't.

I tried hard to make it work. I even polled my colleagues to find out how they managed. They told me they found joy elsewhere, and that the security and lifestyle were enough — so I tried that too. It held me over for a few weeks…but then the fog came back.

Then one day, sitting in the middle of it, I realized: I wasn't broken or bad or wrong or ungrateful. I just wasn't wired the way my colleagues were.

That was both a huge relief, and valuable information that felt worth listening to. So I quit, and went back to school to start over. I was certain this would be the big change that changed everything. And it did, until it didn’t, and the fog returned.

Years later, now married and back in Vancouver, my husband and I had built a life that, once again, looked right on paper. We'd had two sons, and he was a good man — kind, reliable, a wonderful father. But, quietly, something inside me was dying.

I went back and forth in my own head for months, desperately wanting it to work, wishing I could will myself into feeling differently. I felt guilty for wanting more, and I didn't know what to do. Until finally, my husband asked me one question: what would you do if we didn't have children? The answer was immediate, devastating and clear.

What followed were months of soul searching, sitting with the weight of two questions that felt equally true: how do I show my children what it means to honour your word and your commitment? And how do I show them what it means to honour yourself and what's true for you? I didn't take any of it lightly. I still don't. But eventually, with more care and courage than anything else I've ever done, we let each other go.

Can you see the pattern? This was another big change, and it was the right thing to do — but it didn’t actually solve the problem. In fact, it highlighted the problem.

After my marriage ended, I fell hard for someone who seemed to see everything good in me that I couldn't yet see in myself. That relationship broke me open in ways I wasn't prepared for. And then one day, without warning, he was gone.

In time and with a lot of work I came to understand why he had held so much power over me: he had walked in and filled every crack my childhood had left. The not-good-enough crack. The too-sensitive crack. The smart-but-not-quite-enough crack. And when he left, those cracks were exposed again, more raw and vulnerable than before.

It was thanks to this that I finally saw the pattern for the first time: every time something in me was dying, I had looked outside myself for the answer. A new job, a new country, a new relationship. And every time, the ache came back because the thing I was looking for was never out there. It was always inside me.

So I made a decision. I was going to fill those cracks myself. Learn to love and accept every part of me, the parts I was proud of and the parts I had buried and made wrong. One lost piece at a time, reclaimed and celebrated. I called it getting my PhD in self-love. And it was the most life-changing journey I've ever been on.

Years later, I went on a date. He was kind and funny and a little quirky. And he said: you know, you're delightful and warm and full of joy and so smart. Once upon a time, words like those would have swept me away completely. I would have handed him the keys to my heart on the spot.

This time I just smiled and said thank you.

Because I already knew. I knew it in every cell of my body. And I didn't need him to say it for me to know it. That felt like coming home.

The practices I teach are the ones I built in the gaps between work and kids and life, when I was trying to give everyone the best of me and somehow still take care of myself. They're small enough to fit in a breath. Simple enough to do at a red light or in the ten seconds it takes to walk from the living room to the screaming kids' room.

What I know for sure is this: 

They work. These simple, embodied practices that bring us back to ourselves, to the essence that existed before all our protective patterns and masks took over. And they take us somewhere good.

Now, I have work that lights me up every single day and a relationship that feels so deeply aligned it still catches me off guard sometimes. Not because I got lucky, but because I did the work of learning myself, telling the truth about what I need and trusting that I’m allowed.

That’s what I want for you too.

If you've read this far, something in this story must have resonated. Maybe you recognise the high-achieving exterior with the quiet ache underneath. Maybe you've got everything right on paper but still feel like something essential is missing. Maybe you've just started to suspect that the version of you the world sees isn't nearly the whole story.

Believe me when I tell you, you're not broken or wrong. You're ready.

And my pompoms are ready too, to celebrate you as you emerge.

With love,
Georgianna