Rewriting

About the power of words

CARE check*: What if Life wanted to send you a word as an invitation, a promise, a preview, a message?

What would be the ideal conditions for you to receive it?

Would it be through writing, praying, meditating or talking with a friend?

Can you let yourself look for it?

Can you trust that there is a bigger plan that only Life can see and that you’re truly being guided, supported, and cherished?

I hope that this week’s letter will feel like a reason to trust that we’re not alone and that we’re allowed to ask for some pointers on our way home.

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In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)

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Hi CARE friend,

How are you?

How did your first dates with 2025 go? Are you in love? Are you triggered?

Are you cautiously optimistic?

Or are you feeling in dire need of support, tenderness, gentleness and care—and if so is there any room for you to give it to yourself?

One of the magical parts of my journey on Earth now is watching the unfolding of my word of the year.

I started this practice in 2021.

I had just completed my first extended end of the year review, having discovered life coaching and enrolled for my coaching certification three months before. I was waiting for my VISA to clear out, amidst a worldwide pandemic, so that my lifelong dream of moving to New York could manifest and I was finally ready to go all in for my singing again. So I chose the word INTENTION.

I had no idea how deeply it would change my life.

That was the only time I chose my word.

And in hindsight I’m not sure I truly did… Could that lovely word have found me and actually gotten me to start that practice?

In any case that year taught me the power and trustworthiness of my intuition, as well as the awe inspiring magic of intentions set from an embodied heart.

So I welcomed wholeheartedly—even if feeling a bit apprehensive—the word HUMILITY that revealed itself to me a few months later, offering its service as a guide and assignment for 2022.

The lessons I received after that were not at all the ones I had anticipated though… (Are they ever when Life is back in charge?)

That year did not bring me to my knees, that year taught me that humility can only stem from the healthiest and most sturdily rooted sense of self-esteem. That year Life urged me to stand up even taller at every corner and to reconnect with the self-respect I had forfeited in the name of safety growing up.

It was gut wrenching, transformative, empowering and terrifying. It changed my inner programming forever… for the better.

So of course I listened when I heard the word INTEGRITY stem from the bottom of my heart, a few months later in September, while I was in line to visit St Peter’s basilica in Rome.

And 2023 turned out to be my year of integrity for sure.

I started my Substack. I renewed my commitment to my singing and finally recentered my life around my songs. I gave myself permission to fully KNOW that loving my parents in a way that made me hate myself was serving no one. I applied for my green card. I said goodbye to a lot of friendships that were not in alignment with who I really was and was meant to become. I finally became in my mind the artist I had always been in my heart. I deepened my trauma work—and I committed entirely to the journey of embodiment that would lead me to surrender to Love the armor of trauma I had always thought I couldn’t live without. I told myself the truth like never before. About what was not working AND, just as importantly, about what was.

I then received the word RECEIVING at Thanksgiving.

Thank goodness I had no idea what it truly meant—I thought it would just be about dealing with the discomfort of receiving gifts and proof of affection. Ha! The innocence…

If I could hug that version of me right now, I would tell her that this is the only deal that she came blindly into that I am deeply grateful to her for taking on.

2024 was harrowing in many ways. On the world stage, in my inner world, under my surgeon’s baby knife.

I learned what it means to live in receiving mode. I learned that, as with feelings where you either feel it all or feel nothing, you’re either receiving your entire experience or you’re casting a repelling spell on all that is trying to enter.

I did receive tons of magic, boundless love, amazing news and the friendship of Earth angels I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to know, love and feel loved by. I received songs, beautiful opportunities I would not have dared hoping for, bottomless inspiration and awe inspiring guidance. I received beautiful gifts and probably more hugs and support than ever before!

And that was a good thing because I needed them… I needed them because on top of a few life-redefining events, I also received my grief this year. I received my sacred anger and distorted self-perception. I received the depth of my internalized self-hatred. I received even more memories of a childhood that I was glad to have mostly forgotten.

I received my body, with her timeless wisdom, her ability to connect and create joy and love, and her ability to shake in burning pain that no one believes anyone can survive.

I received the aftermath of a life of self-betrayal and the true consequences of what has been done to me time and time again since I joined the Earth club.

I received the rage of some repressed parts: rage at what happened, but also rage at how I’ve been treating my own wounds for decades. How I misguidedly repressed the cost of pain in my constant celebration of the lesson. How I confused my search for joy with the ability to live in a fairy tale without any tragedy or even heart-centered realism sparking the happily ever after first.

I realized how I’ve used the word self-discipline to justify self-abuse. I received the chilling cries of an inner child that I’ve unconsciously resented my whole life for what happened to us. I received her accusations of bullying, gaslighting, victim blaming and neglect, because I’ve done all those things to her on a daily basis for as long as I could inner talk.

I received MYSELF.

What a gift… what a responsibility.

What a reckoning. What an initiation.

What a relief… What a reward!

What a miracle.

And so 2025 has begun and I’m already feeling the effect of my 2025 word: REWRITING.

I’m ready for that new adventure because I need a rewrite.

A rewrite of how I look at myself and of the monologue I allow my weary brain to harass me with. A rewrite of my self-perception and a rewrite of the way I present myself to the world. A rewrite of the story that a child can ever deserve to have her sense of safety shattered, her skin bruised, her body violated, her boundaries humiliated—and most tragically of all—her ability to trust her dreams stolen and her voice shamefully silenced.

A rewrite of who is a hero and who is a villain because no one is ever either EVER—and that narrative keeps us stuck in fight or flight until freezing and fawning takes over and slowly leads us into collapse.

A rewrite of what it means to be me and to not only be accepted for it by those that matter to my heart… but also LOVED by those who truly know me now.

A rewrite of what I am allowed to do and hope for, without having to sacrifice all I’ve got in exchange—because survivor guilt is something you can have even in regards to your own self. A rewrite of what I am worthy of feeling and experiencing on a daily basis, without having to reach exhaustion, giving what I don’t have or giving what I do not want to give for whatever reason that my gut trusts.

A rewrite of what I allow myself to think that others think about me. A rewrite of what I allow myself to think about my dream, my songs, my writing, my inner knowing and my heart.

A rewrite of the limits I accepted as facts even though they were set by people I do not admire and who themselves have never dared trying to become who I know they were sent here to be.

A rewrite of the narrative that keeps me fragmented because it convinces me that I either have to go all in into my trauma work or all in for my dream—and that I cannot be BOTH grieving a past that only tears can wash away from my shoulders and in awe of the life that I now get to enjoy.

A rewrite of the lies that keep me chained to flashbacks that I get to let go of now. A rewrite of the fears that shadow my dreams thinking they’re keeping me safe… when they’re only keeping me stuck.

A Rewrite.

I feel ready for 2025. I feel ready for my forties to show me how extraordinary and freeing the work I did in my thirties was. I feel ready to find sanctuary also in the outside world—and not only in solitude and at the center of my own heart.

Because I trust that my foundation is now strong enough. I trust my anchor in Love. I trust that my cocooning phase is ending and that it’s time now to rub my budding wings against my shell, so that I can have the strength to fly when the shell opens and reveals to me that this resilient caterpillar survived long enough to become a butterfly—and that this once traumatized ugly duckling has grown into a healing singing and deeply loving swan.

I am ready for the growing pains because I have witnessed time and time again that there is a rainbow born in every cloud and that the darkness… is a nursery of stars.

So let’s do this, dear CARE friend.

Let’s choose the words that heal and serve and let’s rewrite the book of our lives into one of wonder, softness, awakening fire, and awe—even when the outside world is in in pain, even when our inner world is in disarray, even when… ESPECIALLY when hope feels hard to grasp and hold on to.

Let’s rewrite it all into a book dictated by our hearts, dedicated to our sacred dream, grounded into the beauty and suppleness of Now and written in the words of a Love so UNCONDITIONAL, TENDER and STRONG that it brings us back into the temple that we were given at birth and into each other’s arms.

Onward!

With kindness, love and light—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not need to fear anymore.

leo