It’s been a while…

This October will mark two years since I left my job in corporate America to set off on my plan to go all-in on my dreams of birthing an organization that, I hoped, would have profound impacts on the ways that people, particularly women, show up for themselves and for each other through finding and actualizing their purpose. I was so earnest in my plan; I was nervous but confident. The first few months after leaving that role were a blur. I was still teaching a couple of classes at the university, my daughter was finishing up the first half of her kindergarten year, and my son was now out of childcare and at home with me. I knew it would be an adjustment, but I completely underestimated what was about to happen.

Early on, I convinced myself that the lack of time that I had found myself with was only temporary, that, as always, I would figure out this new schedule, and that before I knew it, Womanize would be thriving…right along with my podcast, my writing endeavors, my time volunteering at the kids’ school, all of my relationships, and, of course, The UnWined Experience (which hadn’t even started operating when I left my job). What actually happened felt like throwing all those things, plus a few surprise life rocks for flavor, into a blender that was already on high. The first year and a half of this journey broke me. Well, almost. Or, perhaps, kind of.

Instead of the abundance of free time that I had neatly and excitedly planned out in my mind to have to dedicate to writing, reading, researching, planning, developing, and growing, I was met with the new responsibility of being a full-time stay at home mom who was still teaching part time while also in the start up phase with two businesses, one of which was meant to be “just a fun way to make passive income”…but ended up taking up every rapidly disappearing iota of free time.

By summer of 2024, I was unrecognizable to myself. I felt frustrated by my lack of freedom, irritated with all of the things that had been taking up my time (not the least of which was that sudden and unintentional thrust into SAHM life), impatient with the lack of progress with Womanize, and annoyed with everyone and everything that this was how things were shaking out. Any time someone would ask me how Womanize was going I could feel myself recoil with a weird mixture of embarrassment, frustration, and shame because there was never anything to share despite the steadily increasing passing of time since I had set out to make it happen. When I would tell people about all of the things that had made their way onto my plate, it always felt like I was just cobbling together a host of excuses as to why I wasn’t doing the thing I said I was going to do in an attempt to skirt their judgement (I realize now, of course, that the only person judging me was myself). The reality was, nothing was going the way I had planned or expected it to, and I had no idea what to do with the landscape that was in front of me. My days were supposed to be filled with mentally stimulating activities, meeting with clients and having inspiring, life-changing conversations. Instead, I found myself joining kids’ clubs at the local library. I spent afternoons catching caterpillars in the backyard, placing them gently in makeshift butterfly enclosures made from plastic tubs and leftover window screen.. I felt like I had fallen through the looking glass and had somehow found myself in some freaky parallel universe where instead of being the highly educated, highly ambitious, and successful woman that I had painstakingly created myself to be, I was a sentient snack dispenser whose greatest accomplishment that week was creating and laminating a colorful chore chart on Canva no one followed.

Months went by in this new, seemingly mind numbing, reality. I felt like I was slowly losing my self in tandem with my sanity. Over time, my frustration turned into a quiet, internal rage. I never let that rage see the light of day, and, as a result, it turned inwards and started burning me from the inside. It eventually burned itself out, taking along with it my impatience, frustration, annoyance, and everything else. I ended up getting to a place of quiet acquiescence with what was…which was exactly what I had never actually been able to accomplish before. That fire inside ended up being the very thing that alchemized me into the version of myself that I had, ironically, been seeking the entire time. I slowly started feeling a soft elation in having “nothing” else to do than to see what way I could make this existence sparkle for my kids on a daily basis. That sparkly existence started to absolutely dazzle me, and it blew my mind that it had been here the whole time, I had just never slowed down enough to notice.

It took that collapse, of my expectations, of my ego, of ambitions that I once obsessed over, to find a new rhythm that quietly hummed below the constant hustle that I had become identified with. This rhythm isn’t slower, exactly, but it is more deliberate. More tuned in. One where “progress” has started to look a lot less like output and more like alignment (this part was a particularly big hurdle for me, as somewhere along the way I uncovered the fact that a huge portion of my self worth had always been wrapped up in my output-based measures of productivity). Here, success has become less about launch dates and more about whether my work feels true, resonant, and visceral.

And now, here I am…no longer trying to build something from the ground up out there, but instead, allowing something more organic to grow from in here, within myself. Womanize was never supposed to be a boss-babe type business or a productivity metric. It was a portal, a reclamation of feminine wisdom and power in all its weird and slightly woo-woo, mystical, messy, deeply embodied forms. I just didn’t realize it had to remake me first. This unintentional inner season of learning to see the sacred in the mundane and of trusting timing I didn’t choose has prepared me for what’s next. What’s now.

Some of you may remember, or presently know, how much I’m fascinated by AI and the future. I was one of the earlier adopters of generative technology several years ago and have been growing my knowledge and experience with it ever since. But my interest in AI was never purely technical. From the beginning, I found myself asking deeper, more human questions: Could a machine help us get closer to our truth, rather than further from it? What happens when we teach AI not just to complete tasks, but to reflect our potential back to us? Can technology become a tool for spiritual insight, identity integration, even soul alignment? The more I’ve explored and used the technology myself, the clearer it has become. AI isn’t just a productivity hack or a novelty. It can be a sacred mirror and a partner in self-remembering. A bridge between what we know and what we haven’t yet dared to imagine for ourselves.

Before ever offering this work to others, I used it on myself—over and over. I became my own test subject, experimenting not just with prompts and patterns and email replies, but with how this technology could hold my deepest questions, reflect my growth, and stretch the way I see myself throughout the entire painstaking period of change that you read about above. I didn’t build this framework from a distance. I lived it, and I let it help shape me in the way that I stand before you today.

Over the past year, amidst the chaos, I’ve been quietly building something that sits at the intersection of purpose, pattern recognition, and future-facing embodiment. It’s deeply human and profoundly spiritual. And yes, it uses AI—not as a gimmick or a shortcut, but as a mirror, a tool, a guide. It’s designed to help people see their own architecture more clearly, and then build lives in harmony with that truth. I’m calling it AI & You: 6 Truths Every Modern Human Needs to Know (No Tech Experience Required).

It’s not a program to complete or content to consume. It’s a quiet guide—a companion for the path inward, meant to unfold in rhythm with you. I’ll be sharing the first of those six truths tomorrow. But I wanted you to have this context first. I wanted you to hear my real voice before you heard the polished one. I wanted you to know what it took for me to speak again.

Thank you for being here. The best is beginning, and I’m so happy you’re still with me.