Field Note 001.

Subject seems to have ingested copious amounts of the Hustle under Capitalism Kool-Aid. Near shut down of her aliveness was observed. After 6 years of purging and figuring out her real nutritional requirements, she's ready to try a different way.

It has become very obvious to me that I won't even take the first step to publish if I don't allow myself to show you my mess.

This story pretends to start in 2019, here is the short version of what has unfolded since then:

• 2019 me had an idea. I thought that having the idea meant the idea was ready. No. Having the idea and trying to build it showed me how fucking lost I was because it was SO HARD to show up in a way that felt like me.

• 2020-2022 was figuring this out. Why is this so hard? What started as a practical problem (posting online) became an existential question - who am I?

• 2023 is when I found that I can answer that question if I know what drives me (aka the Reiss Motivation Profile®). When I read that Eating was a perfectly legitimate motivational force, I was sold. My identity was fragmented and compartmentalized, but this...this was the first time I felt seen. I started experimenting with that.

• 2024 I went all in and got certified.

• 2024-2026 was phase two of FAFO. I thought that having a modality to help people was the missing key and the reason I was floundering. Oh no. The modality was just part of my HOW. Now I have to walk the talk and build this business in alignment with my intrinsic motivations. Turns out, I was not done shedding baggage and other people's expectations.

Which brings me to today

I have shedded so much that I am not the same identity that started this process.

The initial identity was the former intelligent child, turned scientist, turned business woman.

This identity did many things and got some rewards. This identity also nearly killed me.

It did not occur to me that perhaps I needed to let that happen. That letting that identity die completely is what needed to happen.

This death was not something I intentionally orchestrated. It was not a planned assassination. It was just a gradual rot, until it became fertilizer for the identity that is starting to bloom now.

I am still a little sprout, which is why it feels awkward, but I know that this is the way, and showing up is how you step into your new identity (or, the identity that was there all along, begging to be seen).

I think most of us crave to just be ourselves, but what we don't understand is that you do not go from acting out of survival and coping straight into living your best life, straight into thriving.

You have literally starved yourself this whole time, living off the crumbs of external validation, and just because you say you are done with it you think that's enough to magically POP!?

No.

You have to take your baby steps, flex your muscles little by little, and let that process be the experience.

I've been in my new identity the moment I decided I was going to eat my way through this problem.

I've been in my new identity the entire time I've molted and pivoted and tested offers, failed to sell anything, and making my first $1,000.

I've been in my new identity every time I stay with the overwhelm and confusion. Every time I chose to see my resistance and procrastination as SACRED instead of shameful, I was respecting the process of becoming.

So, what looks like step 0 on the outside is not step 0.

It's more like step 14,729.

I have brought myself back to life, and I am indeed a different person.

I do not wish to build this as a BUSINESS person.

I wish to build this as an ARTIST.

Claiming that label has taken me 40 years.

This is what the little girl from Panama has wanted.

And I have finally become the adult that she needed.