We are wired for it. We need to feel seen, loved, appreciated. We need a purpose, or we drift and find ourselves empty, untethered, lost.

I’ve been single for four years now, and I genuinely never understood the urge other people felt to date — the impulse to keep meeting someone new. But living alone finally let me feel that craving for connection from the inside (even tho dating still isn’t a priority for me) but I somehow felt the need to connect, and now I get it.

So this year, for the first time in my life, I downloaded dating apps myself to see what it is like, and to “join” the experience for myself.

Spoiler: it’s not for me and I deleted them all, but at least I’ve experienced it for myself now, and my initial thought that dating apps are not for me got confirmed haha.

Growth over comfort, always

Back in February, I made a decision I wrote about in my last piece: I wanted to actually visit the cities I could imagine building a life in, instead of deciding right away. By May, that had turned into a real move — Hamburg it was — and I stayed until August.

I never expected that moving to Hamburg — six hundred kilometers from my family, my cats, everything familiar — would change me the way it has. I knew growth was coming. I welcomed it. Because my number one priority in this life has always been growth, and I’ve never let myself hold too tightly to a place or a person, no matter how much I loved them. When I feel the pull to grow, I know I have to go. So I went.

In three months, I visited my parents three times, and every single visit felt SO different.

It’s strange to realize how much the same experience can shift depending on where you are internally.

The first two visits felt like leaving my “real” life behind, because for the first time, I felt like I had “arrived” in my own life. Excitement everyday. New friends. A new workout class every day. Long walks through a city I was falling for, and enjoying the new version of myself I was becoming. Life finally felt exciting again. For the first time in a very long time I felt truly alive.

Staying true to my values, no matter what

Since I quit my job, I’d been receiving a start-up grant, and it’s running out now, in September. So I had, in a sense, a deadline: a point by which I needed to be making a living from social media. That deadline has come and it is NOW.

But that pressure also brought me a realization: monetizing this was never actually my main priority, at least not if it’s for things that don’t genuinely feel right to me and feel pressured and fast. Of course I want to monetize my social media channels, of course I want to make a living out of what I love, but “making fast money” has never felt right to me.

I value giving things the time they need, taking it step by step, even if that means it takes longer.

I value quality, longevity and sustainability so much more, so much, in fact, that I’m willing to go back into a full-time job, even though I thought I was completely done with that and only wanted part-time work.

But that’s shifted too, because I want to live a life that feels good, and I’ve come to appreciate the security that comes with being employed, as long as it still leaves me the time and space to grow, myself and my creativity.

But I only had a limited time window to turn social media into an income that could cover my rent, my life, and the pressure started creeping in. Not just about money, but about the next steps: finding a part-time job, and an apartment that felt like my actual home, one I feel comfortable in and enjoy every second of being in, without the need to escape. The timeline kept shrinking, and the pressure kept mounting, because it hit all at once.

The funny part? None of it worked out. The apartments said no, the jobs said no, one rejection after another, until the pattern was impossible to keep ignoring.

I'm done trying to think my way through this. I'm choosing to trust the universe to deliver, as it always does, and to believe that sometimes things don't work out because we deserve something better. I also realized that I was in my head too much again, and that I was acting out of scarcity instead of abundance, and I also let go of that.

Unlearning is as liberating as learning

What I didn’t see coming was the stress I would experience from the pressure I put on myself. The past version of myself that I left back in my twenties would compensate being stressed with eating, a LOT. That way, I catapulted myself into a depression multiple times over the past few years, because I was eating so much to soothe my nervous system that I gained a lot of weight in such a short period of time.

But it was necessary for the internal shift that came with it. I decided to tap into the pain, the stress and the anger that is still stored in my body from the past years in the form of body fat, and release it. I want to get rid of it, not only because I want to feel comfortable in my own skin and feel like myself again, but because I want to go through this spiritual experience, tap into all of it, and release it.

I’ve since learned something that reframed all of it. I heard it on the Heart-Led Wellness podcast, and it hasn’t left me since: we don’t compensate stress with food or drink because we’re weak-willed. We do it because our nervous system doesn’t have the capacity to hold what we’re feeling, and it doesn’t know another way to release it. Think of a cup. Pour in more than it can hold, and it overflows. That’s the nervous system under chronic stress. Until we learn to expand that capacity, until we find another channel for what we’re carrying, we stay stuck in the same patterns.

This topic is so layered, but that’s just a sneak peek of what has initially created the shift within me, at least one of the things.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been here. Something similar happened once before, at eighteen, when I had my first full-time job (actually every time when I threw myself in a system I was unhappy in and my soul was feeling boxed in). But the deepest fall came at the end of 2023, sliding into 2024, the year I lost myself completely. The worst point I was ever in. Which also led to committing myself to a full year of healing, calling 2024 my self-love year: twelve months dedicated entirely to healing. It was during that year that I realized that over the past twelve years, I had developed an eating disorder. And in the time since, I still haven’t found my way back to feeling at home in this body, or to losing the weight I’ve carried since.

Detachment is the key

My birthday has always been a big event I was looking forward to. It started as a birthday, became birthdays, and eventually evolved into a full Birthday Week (I’m a Leo, obviously haha).

This year, for the first time, I planned nothing. My parents couldn’t come to Hamburg, so I went home instead. All I wanted for my birthday was being with my family and feel the love and connection I was missing when being in Hamburg and I’m grateful it happened exactly that way, because I don’t think I’d be where I am, mentally or spiritually, otherwise.

I arrived and, for the first time since moving, I felt like I was on vacation. The mental load, the anxiety of the past months, had taken a toll on my wellbeing in every possible way and coming home felt like a breath of fresh air, like my nervous system could breathe again, stepping into the countryside, I felt relieved and I was able to be present again.

Because as much as I loved my life in Hamburg, what I missed every single day was connection. My family, my cats, my friends. The kind of closeness you cannot recreate or replace, no matter how beautiful the city around you is and how perfect the circumstances seem.

The Messy Middle

Do I miss the lifestyle? Yes. Do I miss meeting new people? Yes. Do I miss the beauty of this city? Yes. Do I miss the possibilities? Yes. But being home reminded me of the part I was missing there. Even while it felt, on paper, like the perfect place to build my life.

For the first time, I planned nothing, and my entire birthday week unfolded on its own — with ease, without the slightest bit of effort, without a single ounce of forcing it.

It confirmed something I keep re-learning: things take care of themselves when we let them. No need to grip. No need to force. No need to plan everything. Just release, and trust.

I celebrated for seven days, in seven different configurations, with the people I love most — and I can say, without hesitation, that it was the best birthday week of my life. No party, no glamour, no external circumstance could have replicated the actual luxury: being surrounded by people who love you unconditionally.

Since turning thirty, I’ve noticed I no longer feel the compulsion to do. I don’t set an alarm. I sleep in. I take care of myself without turning it into another task to perform or optimise.

When I did so before I felt like I was losing control over my life but this time it just feels different. It feels right. It feels like true balance. It feels like the life I actually want to live. Slow mornings without any rush, productive work days and an evening walk in nature to end the day.

I’m just feeling good, without the need to change or optimise something. I love working on my things. I love being surrounded by family while still having the space to let myself unfold. I love being alone without being lonely.

What I still struggle with internally is the tension between that ease and the abundant, expansive life I want to build — one where I can give back, enjoy fully, and simply be, without hustle culture dictating the terms.

No rigid routines. No overpacked calendar. Just a soft structure, a grateful heart, and presence.

Building From Within

I haven’t been this present in a long time. And I’m starting to think the life I actually want isn’t built by focusing outward, it’s built by turning inward and developing a deep understanding for myself and my values. It’s built by joy, by happiness, by truly enjoying my life, by doing things that fulfil me and nourish my soul. By feeling and attracting, rather than endlessly doing and planning. By tapping into my feminine energy and let it guide me.

Maybe it is about building this life from the inside out — from depth, purpose and feeling, so it can reflect my internal world on the outside.

Right now, my focus is stability: finding work that leaves me the mental bandwidth to keep building my personal brand, moving out of my parents’ place and into my dream apartment in a new city.

I’m curious and excited where this chapter takes me and for how the rest of the year unfolds. I thought about setting goals but I won’t. Every time I’ve tried to work from a rigid plan, something in me resists, blocks, screams against it. So instead, I’ll write down a few things I want to move toward, that’s it.

Home Is Where Your Heart Is

Age is just a number, that’s what I always believed, and mostly, I still do. But turning thirty shifted something in me anyway. Since that day — that week — everything has felt different. Now I understand, finally, what people mean when they say: home is where your heart is. It’s not necessarily a place on this earth, but where you feel connected, loved, safe and supported.

That’s exactly how it is.

With love,

Meliha

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I made the most of my twenties, I think. I went through heartbreaks and identity crises. I burned out. I lived through depression and an eating disorder. I had more fun than I can count, made friends, lost friends, and — slowly, imperfectly — healed. I learned a lot about myself and about life.

So, in light of this new chapter ahead of me, I want to share the lessons that shaped who I've become, and the intentions I'm carrying into what comes next.

I. Spirituality

What isn't meant for you will disappoint you a hundred times, until you learn it. Every soul on this earth has its own themes, chosen before it was born into this life. Our challenge here is to find and follow the path that's meant for us. Behind every trigger, every heartbreak, every disappointment lies a soul lesson waiting to be worked through. Once you've worked through it, the universe — or god — will test you again. Pass the test, and you'll be faced with new soul lessons and new themes. If you don't, more tests will keep coming until you finally do (Spoiler: it gets harder every time you ignore the lesson.)

The body speaks when the soul is ignored. If we refuse to listen to our intuition — or have simply unlearned how to access it — our bodies will tell us instead. When we get sick, or something shows up as a symptom, that's basically our soul telling us to listen: that something needs to change, or that we're going in the wrong direction.

Everything in your life is a mirror. If a person or a situation unsettles you, don’t look away — look closer. Ask yourself: What is this teaching me? How does it make me feel? What can I change within myself to attract something different next time? Always remember: everything is happening for you, not to you.

Trust the universe. It always has your back. It works in miraculous ways. When we choose from the head instead of the intuition, we close ourselves off from the miracles waiting for us on the other side. Follow your heart — it always knows the answer.

The tighter the grip, the further the outcome. The more you force something, the less likely you are to reach it, because you’ve made yourself too attached to the result. Detachment — real, trusting surrender — is often the exact thing that lets it arrive.

II. Health & Wellness

Eating healthy does not mean protein bars, low-fat everything, or eating as few calories as possible. And eating healthy does not automatically mean you’ll lose body fat. Fat loss comes down to one thing: consistently eating in a calorie deficit — consuming fewer calories than your body burns. Technically, you can lose weight eating nothing but processed food. But that’s not the point.

Nourishing your body is a long-term investment in your health. Whole, nutrient-dense foods naturally keep you fuller for longer, stabilize your energy, reduce cravings, and make staying in a calorie deficit much easier. More importantly, they give your body what it actually needs to thrive: healthy skin, stronger hair, balanced hormones, better digestion, stable energy, and a body that feels good from the inside out.

For nearly ten years, I thought I was eating healthy without realizing that most of what I bought only looked healthy. It was highly processed food, cleverly marketed as “clean” or “healthy.” Real nourishment starts with eating more whole foods and paying attention to ingredient lists. The shorter and less processed they are, the better. Hidden sugars, additives, and ultra-processed ingredients are everywhere, which is why learning to read labels is one of the most valuable health skills you can develop.

I gave up soft drinks entirely and now mostly drink water, tea, and kombucha. And instead of cutting out entire food groups, I actually brought them back in. My gut has never been happier.

Understanding what we put into our bodies is one of the greatest forms of self-care. Your body works for you every single day — the least we can do is learn how to fuel it well.

Stable blood sugar matters more than we think — and so does the order you eat in. Fiber + protein, then the carb. You'll notice fewer cravings, and your energy won't crash after meals.

You can do everything “right” and still not see results if your nervous system is dysregulated. Clean eating, daily movement, 10,000 steps, every supplement — none of it matters much if your body is stuck in fight-or-flight. A nervous system under constant stress floods itself with cortisol, and cortisol shows up as puffiness, inflammation, and bloating, no matter how disciplined the “glow-up” routine looks on paper, you’ll experience a glow-down instead.

Our gut is our second brain, and prioritizing gut health matters SO much. A healthy gut means our body can metabolize excess estrogen — especially important as a woman. A large part of our body’s serotonin is produced in the gut, which is why gut health can influence our mood, stress response, and overall wellbeing. Take care of your gut, and you'll notice clearer skin, less brain fog, fewer mood swings, happier hormones — basically, a happier life.

Living according to your menstrual cycle as a woman is one of the best, most natural things you can do. Many systems we live in — from work structures to productivity expectations — were historically designed around male biology, which means many women were never taught how to understand and work with their own cycles. We know so little about our own bodies. Which makes it even more important to educate ourselves, to love and respect ourselves, and to feel worthy enough to prioritize our health and wellbeing as women, working with our cycle instead of against it.

Healthy habits are there to support you — not to become your whole life. Don't forget to have fun while you become the healthiest, happiest version of yourself. There’s nothing to obsess over, really :)

III. Mindset

You can only give 100% to one thing. Every additional priority you take on quietly steals focus from the one that matters most.

When the goal is the experience, everything becomes a win. No one is rushing us but ourselves. The moment we stop racing toward the destination and start noticing the beauty of the road there, the goal becomes secondary and it feels so much more fulfilling, because we actually enjoyed getting there. That's what life is about.

Nothing lasts forever, and nothing in life is guaranteed. Work on yourself. Focus on your healing, your growth, your work, and nourish the relationships with the people you love.

No success is worth anything without someone to share it with. As Tony Robbins puts it, success without happiness is the ultimate failure. To me, someone with achievements but no depth of character isn’t truly successful at all — a successful person is someone with values, who keeps striving to grow, and who genuinely cares about the people around them.

Don’t lose yourself while trying to become successful. You’ll end up feeling empty, depleted, unhappy — probably burned out.

Don't take anything personally. Understand that people are at war with themselves, not with you.

If we always follow our minds, we'll never make new experiences. Our brains are millions of years old, wired to keep us safe — not to help us reach our fullest potential. So if you want new outcomes, new experiences, real change, you have to follow your gut — Your intuition, the first quiet thought before your mind starts negotiating, always knows the way. Follow it.

Don't listen to people you wouldn't switch life’s with. Often, people — even your friends and family — will try to keep you small, because they're afraid that if you change, your relationship will change too. Don't listen to it. Their insecurity has nothing to do with your capability, and everything to do with their own fear. Do what your heart and soul tell you, and go all in. Believe in yourself and your vision — you have it for a reason.

The less you plan and the more you flow, the more you'll actually get done — because you're not stressed out by stressing yourself out.

NEVER SETTLE FOR LESS. Know your worth. Know your standards. Show up for yourself, and meet them yourself. Your worth is not negotiable — and neither are your standards. Keep them high, and let people rise to meet them.

Sometimes clarity starts with what you don’t want. Knowing what no longer fits eventually leads you to new standards, new experiences, and figuring out what you truly want.

Becoming better, and healing, is the most rewarding work there is. Never stop investing in yourself. The relationship you have with yourself is the foundation for every other relationship in your life — so nourish it enough that your cup overflows, because you cannot pour from an empty one.

IV. Relationships

Unhealed insecurity is a red flag. People who are insecure tend to seek validation from outside themselves — which, in a romantic relationship, makes infidelity more likely, and in a friendship, tends to make for a instable one because insecure people do not have a strong foundation within themselves.

Not every relationship is built to last, and not every person is meant to stay. You will experience more goodbyes than you expect, and that is simply life. Outgrowing relationships, friendships, places, and jobs is part of growing up — the sooner you make peace with that and learn to detach, the easier your life becomes.

No one in this world is responsible for your feelings but you. Outsource your happiness to something outside yourself — most commonly, a partner — and you’ll spend your life waiting for someone else to hand you something only you can give yourself. Realizing you are already whole is freeing. It doesn’t mean you can’t share your life beautifully with someone else — it means you walk into that relationship as two whole people, each still responsible for their own joy.

V. Healing Journey

If we don't have boundaries growing up, we'll seek them out as adults. Kids naturally look for their boundaries — and if their parents never show them where those are, they'll go looking for them later in life instead. (You can read more about my own experience with(out) — boundaries here.

Whatever triggers you is pointing at something unhealed. Don't ignore it — dive into it, and embrace everything that comes with it.

If your intuition tells you something, listen to it. Your first gut instinct is always right. Everything that comes after that is just negotiation with fear.

Well, I guess that's it — my most important life lessons in a nutshell. I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones that came to mind right away. I hope they help you with something you might be struggling with, or shift your perspective a little.

Either way, I hope it inspires you <3

With love, as always,

Meliha

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With that said — here is what I’ve noticed shifting, in my behavior, in my thoughts, in the general texture of my days.

Silence

First things first: I felt so lost, and so alone. No colleagues to talk to — still don’t. No deep friendships here I can fully trust, fully rest in — my comfort people, elsewhere. No family down the hall. No cats curled somewhere in the apartment. I come home and no one is waiting for me. It’s a strange feeling, when you’ve had the opposite your entire life.

A small aside: I used to think I could never live with a partner (I’m single — this is purely hypothetical). Now, I think I understand it. Living alone is a completely different reality, one I’m still exploring. I go out far more — to work from cafés, to be around people, to connect. It’s a craving I’ve never felt before, because I always had my family around me, someone always talking somewhere in the background, the simple fact of not being alone at home. Now that I am alone, now that there is silence, I crave company far more than I ever expected to.

This is also why building a business alone, while living alone for the first time, feels like such a particular kind of challenge — it is, quite literally, me, myself, and I, all day, every day. And for the first time in my life — I never thought I’d say this — I miss work. I miss the office. I miss being around ambitious people, building something as a team, receiving feedback, having conversations. It’s why I’ve decided I want to work part-time while I build something of my own — I need that counterbalance to being alone twenty-four hours a day. It makes me a little unhinged, honestly, and it has shown me just how deeply social a species we really are.

Appetite

The second shift is in my eating habits. At home, surrounded by family — four of us under one roof — there was so much variety of foods in the kitchen, and I craved more elaborate things: more toppings in my breakfast bowl, more variety while cooking every single day, more everything. But living alone, buying groceries for one instead of four, I’ve kept it simple. And I love this kind of simplicity, this minimalism, for the first time in my life — I, who have always been a maximalist. I crave less sweetness now. Simpler meals. Less food altogether — which I find genuinely fascinating, philosophically.

At home, I think I used to compensate for the boredom of that place, my lifestyle there, and all that unstructured time, with food. Isn’t it interesting, how the body tells the truth before the mind catches up?

Connection

Third: I am meeting new people almost every day, and I love it. But these fleeting, random conversations also make me miss the real, deep, fulfilling friendships I have at home — and they’ve made me appreciate those friendships even more.

Reset

Because I’ve had to face this feeling of aloneness for the first time — at home, solitude was something I chose and loved; here, it is simply my reality, and connection is something I now have to actively choose — I decided to try dating apps for the first time in my life. Not to meet the love of my life, but to connect with people. And I found myself doom-scrolling there, which is somehow worse than social media. I felt drained, distracted, less invested in myself, outsourcing my energy to strangers. Drained from craving connection, from forcing it. I felt like I was losing myself.

So I did a full reset — a way of refilling my own cup.

Here is how:

1. No phone for the first and last hour of the day. Do something for yourself.

2. Focus on your work — your business, the thing you’re building — without distraction.

3. Put your phone in another room for the day.

4. Go out into nature and walk without distraction. Look around. Acknowledge where you are. Watch people. Listen to the birds.

5. Respect yourself — eat clean, no sugar.

6. Set the tone each morning: write down three things you’re grateful for the moment you wake, and how you wish the day to feel.

7. In the evening, before sleep, name — or write — three more things from that day you were grateful for.

That's it. Try it for a single day, and you will feel the difference. If it suits you, string a few days together — and if it feels good, let it become part of your daily rhythm.

Let me know how it feels, and how it goes for you — I would love to know!

With love & care,

Meliha

What followed in those early years was a quiet kind of solitude I never quite knew how to name. I loved kindergarten for its activities, but I never felt truly connected to the other kids. I always felt like a loner — existing in my own world, parallel to everyone else, never quite inside the circle.

That feeling carried me through middle school, through high school corridors, through lecture halls in college. There were people around me, always — but rarely anyone I felt the deep pull to connect with. So I made a choice, again and again: I’d rather be alone and be myself than be surrounded by people I don’t align with and pretend to be someone I’m not.

The One Thing Successful People Have in Common

Looking back now, I think that feeling wasn’t a flaw. The most extraordinary people rarely fit seamlessly into their surroundings. They’re too specific for that. And yes — it can be lonely. But loneliness and solitude are not the same thing. The moment you stop running from your aloneness and start actually embracing your solitude, something shifts. You find beauty and peace there.

The Urge to Expand

For the past few years, I've felt myself outgrowing the place I was living in. Slowly, quietly, undeniably. I was craving something bigger, something more exciting — a different city, a different version of myself, a different life, a different career. I wanted to expand, to get out of my comfort zone, to live up to my fullest potential. And a few weeks ago, it hit me fully: I literally don't have a life here.

I’m 29 years old. And my days look like this: wake up, yoga, gym, walk in nature, work, eat, sleep. Repeat.

I want to be clear — I love a simple life. But there is a difference between simple and boring. Between calm and stagnant. I don’t need late nights or chaos to feel alive. But I need something. New people. Different sports. Cafés I’ve never been to. Variety. Conversations that inspire me. Days that surprise me. A city that has more to offer than the same daily routine over and over again.

I also came to the realization that because of this missing excitement in my day-to-day life, I had established so many healthy habits and made them my entire life — to the point where I burned out from focusing on them so much.

I had always romanticized the idea of moving to a big city. So during college I moved to Berlin for my internship for six months. And Berlin made me realize something important: I can’t live in a city that’s loud, overwhelming and chaotic. As fun as it was, it drained me. I need a city that lets me breathe and feel alive at the same time. A place to ground myself without disappearing.

That’s when Hamburg became the answer.

Alignment

At the beginning of the year I had a lightbulb moment. I knew I wanted to move but I didn’t know where. I just knew that I wanted to keep a base in Germany.

Sometimes we get so caught up in how things are supposed to look — like moving out only once you know exactly where to. We forget that there are so many different forms and so much room for experimentation. In my case, it was in February this year when I thought to myself: Wait a minute. Why do I have to figure out where I want to move before I actually move? Why can’t I just explore different cities and then decide where I like it best?

And that’s when I decided to spend time in different cities this year — starting with Hamburg, the only city in Germany still on my list of places I could imagine living.

I had been to Hamburg twice before, just short city trips of two to three days. I liked it, but it didn’t move me.

This time was different. I felt so warmly welcomed by the city — like it had been waiting for me.

From the very first day, it felt like magic. I started experiencing sides of myself I had forgotten, and glimpses of the version of me I am becoming. My extroverted side — the one I had nearly forgotten I had — came back to life. I talked to strangers. I tried new sports. My eating habits shifted, my rhythm changed, and for the first time in years, I felt genuinely full of life.

It’s fascinating, really. How much a place can do. How a different city, different air, different people can unlock versions of yourself you didn’t know were still in there. Hamburg didn’t change me. It reminded me of who I already was.

People always say there’s no right time. I disagree. I think there are moments in life that are right — not perfect, but aligned. Places that weren’t right for you before can feel entirely different once you’ve lived enough to receive them properly.

I felt that. In my heart and in my soul.

The Portal

Since coming home, something has shifted that’s never shifted before. I’ve always loved coming home. Always looked forward to it after every trip. But this time, for the first time, I feel the need to leave.

My physical and mental health are suffering from staying. My soul is telling me, clearly and without ambiguity, that it’s time.

Sometimes life opens a door and you have to walk through it before it closes again.

This year, I stopped playing it safe. No savings cushion, no plan B, no backup route — just me and the life I’ve decided to build. I genuinely believe that if you’re holding onto a plan B, you’re not fully committing to plan A. So I’m posting, creating, planning, and moving. All in.

Create Your Dream Life

This is your sign.

Be honest with yourself about what you’re waiting for — and whether that waiting is wisdom or fear.

The universe makes no mistakes. Your heart knows the answer long before your brain is willing to admit it. The brain wants to protect you — and it can only work with what it already knows. But you won't discover new ways of living by overthinking. You'll find them by following your heart. Because protection and growth rarely look the same.

Have you ever had a similar experience? I'd love to hear about it — let me know in the comments!

With love,

Meliha

Lately I have been thinking a lot about friendships. A friendship I had for the past fourteen years has ended — and with it came a flood of questions I had never really asked myself before. What makes a good friend? What do I actually need in a friendship? And what is a friendship, really?

This particular friendship was so intense, so all-consuming, that I never felt the need to look elsewhere. I had everything I needed in one person. One soul. Now, from a distance, I find myself asking whether that was ever truly healthy.

The Irony of Life

I think it was exactly what I needed in these years of my life — what we both needed. Stability, security, connection, growth, the experiences we shared. I would have never thought that this friendship would come to an end, even though I know that not every person is meant to be in your life forever. But I thought she was. This also showed me, again, that nothing in life is certain. Nothing is promised.

This friendship gave me everything I needed at that time. I grew — deeply, undeniably. I was challenged to explore deeper parts of myself. She was honest, loyal, and reliable. We shared the same values. It was much deeper than a friendship — the connection felt different, more like family.

And yet. Our one biggest shared value was growth — as individuals and together. And because this was always our number one priority, we grew apart. Isn’t that ironic?

After two years of being committed to our own healing and the quiet, unglamorous work of self-love, and living in different cities for a year, something shifted. The connection we once had changed. The friendship began to feel more like maintenance than nourishment — more stressful than it was comfortable. Whether what had always been there simply rose to the surface, or whether we had both changed and grown incompatible, or whether it was a mix of both — probably both.

It felt like the right time for our paths to part. And perhaps the clearest evidence of that is how I felt immediately after — relieved.

The Gift of Space

Not loss. Not grief. Something more like expansion.

It reminded me of the end of a romantic relationship — how you are suddenly gifted with time, freedom, and space you had forgotten existed. In the beginning it felt unfamiliar, not because I missed her, but because after fourteen years of such intensity, its absence has a texture of its own.

It didn’t even feel like there was emptiness or a gap within me suddenly — it just felt strange because it was so unexpected. But when I look back, I think we had both already let go of this friendship a while before it actually ended.

Now, slowly, this space begins to fill — not with longing, but with people. New friendships. New versions of myself. New opportunities. Since this friendship ended, I have gained more friends than at any other point in my life. And every single one of them is entirely different. So many interesting individuals and beautiful souls I am grateful for.

What Is a Good Friendship, Really?

That question lives with me now.

Is it that someone is always there for you? That you share the same interests? That you inspire each other to grow? That they have the ability to make you look deeper within yourself and reflect? That you feel energised after spending time with them? That you trust them completely?

I think it is most of those things. Perhaps all of them, to varying degrees.

But here is what I keep coming back to: does every single friend have to embody all of these qualities in equal measure? Or is it enough that different people bring different things — one more of this, another more of that — as long as your values and needs are being met and there is room to grow?

Every person is so unique. Every friendship lives in its own world. And maybe that is the point of it.

The Core of It

For me, what matters most is this: trust, loyalty, reliability, authenticity, genuine connection, mutual support, freedom, and depth. Though I have come to understand that depth — at least to an extent — is not something you can demand from another person.

Maybe friendship is less about finding the perfect person who embodies everything, and more about exploring different parts of ourselves through different kinds of people. As long as our values are honoured, our needs are seen, and there is space for us to continue becoming who we are meant to be.

The Beauty of Variety

What I am discovering now — slowly, with curiosity rather than sadness — is that there is something quietly beautiful about variety. Different people. Different friendships. Different versions of myself coming forward depending on who I am with.

That, perhaps, is the real gift.

With love,

Meliha

It took me a full week to figure out my new sleeping schedule and adapt. So naturally, this past week wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped — or as I’d expected — and I felt super anxious because of it. I couldn’t sleep properly, which meant I couldn’t function properly during the day either. My body craved rest. My mind craved productivity. Finding any balance between the two felt nearly impossible. But I learned so much — and was reminded of things I’d learned before — that I want to share all of it with you as a kind of survival guide for those stressful, unexpected weeks we all have to deal with at some point.

Be Patient With Yourself

We all have a tendency to be kind and loving toward the people we care about when they’re struggling — but when it comes to ourselves, we get mad, disappointed, and start talking to ourselves in ways we’d never talk to a friend.

Today, I want to encourage you to stop doing that — and start treating yourself like you would treat a friend. Be patient with yourself and trust the process.

We all go through different phases — change is the only constant in our lives — and not every season, every week, or every day can look the same. Some weeks I feel completely balanced. Others, I don’t. And that’s okay. We have to normalise and understand that we can’t control our circumstances, only our reaction to them — and how we choose to respond is what determines our outcome and our peace of mind.

We need to stop blaming ourselves for “not functioning properly” and remind ourselves that we are human beings with emotions — not robots.

Treat Yourself With Love & Compassion

On weeks like the last one — when everything feels off, energy is nowhere to be found, and we’re questioning everything — the first thing I do is simply acknowledge it. I become aware of the fact that this day, this week, is not my best. And by naming it, I take away its power. Then I start working with the given circumstances instead of fighting against them.

I try my best without forcing anything. I show up. I do what I can, to the best of my ability and capacity. I try to be gentle with myself and remind myself that what I’m doing is enough.

It's All About Balance

As someone who used to burn out every six months, I truly don’t believe in pushing through — especially not as a woman with a 28-day cycle and hormonal fluctuations that shift my energy almost every single week.

What I do believe in is embracing those phases. Showing up the best we can. Working with our circumstances, not against them. We never really know what a phase might bring us — so embrace the change, give yourself what you need, and take it one day at a time.

The Balance Recipe for A Sunday

Here’s what I do to reset after a week of anxiety, overthinking, and disrupted sleep:

I love starting my Sunday with a slow morning — a yin yoga session, some form of self-care, a walk in nature. Basically, just doing whatever I feel like doing.

If I notice I’m stressed because there are too many tasks I’ve been putting off, I get them done after I nourished myself — and then reward myself with something I actually crave, like watching a movie in bed.

It’s about being soft with yourself. Doing things that serve you, without judgment — and most importantly, without a strict schedule or plan.

Here’s what my ideal Sunday reset looks like:

First half of the day Slow morning: sleep in, make your bed, clean your space, do some self-care → start the day by doing something for yourself. To-do’s (optional): If you’re someone who, like me, gets stressed by unfinished tasks, carve out some time to get them done — so they stop living rent-free in your head.

Second half of the day Time for a reward. Do things you genuinely enjoy: go for a walk, watch a movie in bed, try a new recipe, do something creative, take a nap. Whatever actually serves you. Evening ritual: wind down, read a book, stretch.

Bonus: Social Media Detox — try it.

I’ve noticed that when my Sunday feels balanced and well-rounded — when I’ve taken care of the responsibilities that were stressing me and reconnected with myself, my body, and nature — I wake up on Monday feeling completely recharged and genuinely ready to start a new week.

Did you also feel the shift last week? How were you dealing with it? And what do you do when you feel anxious and stressed out? Would love to know — let’s chat in the comments! 🤍

With love,

Meliha

I existed in a permanent state of dissatisfaction — not because things were necessarily bad, but because I had decided, somewhere along the way, that the “real” version of my life was still somewhere ahead of me.

And oh, was I wrong. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Being Present Is the Key

What I slowly began to realise was that I had never really been here. Not fully.

My mind was always somewhere else — either replaying the past or projecting into a future that hadn’t arrived yet. I was constantly chasing things that weren’t there, constantly wishing I were somewhere other than where I was, without ever stopping to understand something that, once you see it, you can’t unsee:

the present moment is all there ever is.

Our brains are wired to time-travel — backwards into memory, forwards into imagination. And while that capacity is part of what makes us human, it also means we spend an extraordinary amount of our lives somewhere other than where we actually are.

And here’s something worth sitting with: memories have a way of becoming more beautiful the further away they get. We look back and suddenly see the magic in moments we barely noticed when we were living them. But imagine what it would feel like to actually be there — fully, completely present — as those moments were happening. Not remembering those moments as something we vaguely experienced while half-distracted, but to have truly lived them. When we learn to be fully present while creating memories, they don’t just become something we look back on fondly. They become something we actually lived.

We miss the Tuesday evening that was perfectly ordinary and therefore perfectly beautiful. We miss the conversation that was just a conversation but was also, quietly, everything. We miss our own lives — not because they aren’t good enough yet, but because we are too busy waiting for the version we have decided would be better, instead of actively creating it.

True contentment, true happiness doesn’t live in the past or the future. It lives here. Right now. In this moment, exactly as it is.

There is nothing more quietly radical — and nothing more countercultural in the world we live in — than the decision to be fully present. To stop treating now as a waiting room and to start treating it as the destination.

Life Is Only As Good As Your Mindset

Your life began the moment you were born. Not when you move out. Not when you hit your goal weight. Not when your career looks the way you want it to. Not when the apartment is right or the relationship is right or the bank account is right.

It already began. It is happening. Right now, as you read this, you are living it.

And today — this exact day — you are the youngest you will ever be again. You will never get this day back. The people around you, the ones you love, the ones who know your laugh and your silences — you don't know how long you get to have them.
None of us do. And they don't know how long they get to have you.

When that truly lands, something shifts. At least it did for me.

Because as soon as you understand all of that — really understand it, not just intellectually but in your body, in the way you move through a day — you realise that there is nothing left to chase. And if you cannot find happiness in this present moment — with everything that exists in your life right now, with all the experiences, memories, knowledge and wisdom you carry, with the purpose you hold within you and all the beauty that surrounds you — you will not find it on the other side of your goals either. Happiness is not waiting for you there. It never was.

Happiness is not found. It’s created. By you.

You are the creator of your life’s story, and God or the universe — whatever you prefer — is your co-creator.

This is the part that I think gets misunderstood most. Happiness is not an external state that exists somewhere out in the world, ready to be discovered once you’ve done enough, earned enough, become enough. It is an internal state — one that is created, not achieved.

And there is no such thing as overnight success. Being reminded of that time and time again always brings me back to the same truth: the right habits, executed with enough consistency, discipline, joy and drive, add up. They create a compound effect that leads to greatness.

And here is what makes it even more nuanced: happiness is not something you can hold onto. The moment you try to grip it, to lock it in place, it slips away. It isn’t a destination you arrive at and stay. It is a practice. A daily decision. Something you build, and rebuild, and choose again — in the ordinary moments, in the quiet mornings, in the weeks that feel unremarkable and the days that ask nothing of you except to show up.

Day by day, you begin to see it, you begin to feel it. You are exactly where you need to be. You have access to everything you need to start creating the life you want — not once the conditions are perfect, but now, exactly as things are, with presence, joy and gratitude as your foundation rather than your reward.

Because in the end, the journey is the destination. Happiness is not a place you arrive at — it is a way of living. And if we want to truly find it, we have to be willing to choose it along the way. Not at the finish line, but in every single step that leads there.

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With love, as always

Meliha

When Nothing Comes, Let It

I woke up this morning in a slow, cozy mood. First day of the second half of my luteal phase – iykyk, the girlies will understand – and it was raining outside. So I did what felt right: I wrapped myself in my blanket, sank into the couch, romanticised my morning and opened my laptop to write this week’s Substack article. (I moved the task earlier this week from Monday/Tuesday to Saturday, after adjusting my schedule again.)

And then: nothing. No inspiration. No vibe. No thoughts worth chasing.

I scrolled through my content ideas, picked something that seemed promising and started typing. But it felt forced. Unpleasant. Like trying to squeeze water from a dry sponge.

After unintentionally taking a week off from publishing, I felt a quiet guilt creeping in. I thought of something James Clear writes about in his book Atomic Habits: never miss a habit twice, because missing it once is an accident, but missing it twice is the beginning of a new pattern. So I kept trying. Writing has become my creative outlet that helps me structure my thoughts, clear up mental space and come back to myself. And yet – I couldn’t write. Not in that moment. And I refused to force myself to.

What I could feel was a different kind of pull. Something visual, something creative in a different direction. So I followed it. I let go of the plan, moved on and did something I actually felt like doing.

It was over breakfast – sitting quietly, no phone, no noise – that the thoughts finally surfaced:

Why do I believe I have to publish every single week, no exceptions?

Who is even expecting this from me – except myself?

There are weeks where I feel like I could write endlessly, thoughts pouring out, new ideas coming up. And then there are weeks like these past two, where I’m more introverted, more internal. Building and growing quietly.

The moment that thought landed, I felt the urge to write – immediately. You know that feeling when an idea hits and you want to drop everything and chase it right now, even if you’re mid-bite? Yes, Exactly that.

I finished my breakfast, sat back down on the couch and started writing. This piece. These thoughts. As always: sharing as a creative outlet, and reminding us – myself included – that life isn’t linear, and we shouldn’t treat it like it is.

Let Life Be Easy

Of course there are deadlines. Commitments. Things that need to happen on a schedule. I’m not writing this as an excuse to abandon structure altogether.

But as someone who has always dreamed of being self-employed – of building her own business, living on her own terms, finally pursuing creativity in a way that belongs entirely to her – this journey is one of the most challenging, freeing, disorienting and beautiful things I’ve ever done.

Life, especially when we're reclaiming our femininity, should feel light, fluid, fun and soft. So let's stop trying to function like men – working with schedules that were never designed for our nature and rhythms, overworking ourselves in the name of productivity, living in our masculine, measuring ourselves against men and contorting ourselves into whatever shape society has decided we should take. Let's stop manufacturing pressure inside our beautiful minds and squeezing the joy out of the very things we chose because they bring us exactly that: joy and softness. The ease that femininity is actually meant to feel like.

Discipline and structure aren’t the enemy here – they’re actually the foundation. The quiet, steady frame that makes all the flow possible. But they’re meant to hold space for your creativity, not to cage it.

I find it so fascinating how often we block ourselves – unconsciously – from receiving abundance. How we hold ourselves to expectations no one else is even placing on us. How we push and force and show up even when everything in us is quietly asking for a pause.

I'm not saying that everything can always feel like rainbows and ease. Not every day will be soft and inspired and flowing – and that's okay. Those days are important too, and we should embrace them fully. But it can at least feel effortless, joyful and exciting. Because the pull towards your purpose is already there. The lightness and joy are already there.

Let go. Detach. Have fun. Inspire. Enjoy.

With love,

Meliha

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Although I don’t like trends, I am very glad that important areas like healing and the health and wellness industry got the attention they deserved. That nowadays it’s considered normal to see a therapist and to work on ourselves — to break free from past trauma, behavioral patterns, and conditioning.

Areas that once felt cringe or weird to talk about, where you felt like an outsider for even bringing them up, now feel like being part of something much bigger. A collective awakening. More people are adapting and rising to that, and more conversations are being created around it every day.

How It All Started

I’ve always been big on self-improvement. It was always my first priority — even if that meant losing friends, saying goodbye to jobs, environments, people. I think I started working on myself and questioning my decisions and life even more around 2021. And I knew at that point that certain things had to change — things I never would have thought of before.

In spring 2022, I started working energetically with a friend of mine. The next day, I ended my relationship of six years. And from that moment, my whole life started to shift.

Fast forward to 2024 — the worst year of my life. I was burned out, depressed, overweight, and I knew I had to do it completely differently this time. You can the full story here.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

The problem with trends on the internet nowadays is that there are so many people out there not creating original content because they have real experience in these areas — but because they want to be a part of it and take advantage of the moment. And that itself, being inauthentic and just creating noise to belong to something, is what bothers me. I’m not judging anyone — everyone should do what they want to do. I just want to express how I feel about it.

That’s when the superficiality creeps into topics that are so wide, so deep, and need so much more experience and honest explaining. Suddenly healing looks like protecting your peace, doing self-care, lighting candles, taking a bubble bath, doing yoga with incense sticks on, manifesting and reading affirmations.

Spoiler alert: it is not.

Self-care can be — and is — a big part of it. But healing yourself is really about breaking free from generational trauma. Letting go of past conditioning. Reprogramming your mind. Reclaiming your self-worth. Re-gaining access to your heart and soul. Rebuilding yourself and showing up authentically and unapologetically as who you truly are. Building your new identity by reclaiming what was always there — removing all these layers of your past, of other people’s expectations and projections — and starting to build from there. Starting on a clean canvas.

The Seven Steps of The Hero’s Journey

Based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey — think the Wizard of Oz as your reference:

The Ordinary World. This is where our hero starts — a place of normalcy and comfort.

The Call to Adventure. Something unexpected happens that disrupts the hero’s life, inviting them into a new, unknown world.

Refusal of the Call. The hero hesitates or is reluctant to accept the challenge, often due to fear or uncertainty.

Meeting the Mentor / Gaining Allies. The hero encounters a mentor who provides guidance, or acquires companions who will help on the journey.

Crossing the Threshold: The Point of No Return. The hero commits to the adventure and steps into a world of trials and challenges, leaving behind the familiar.

The Ordeal / Transformation. The hero faces major challenges — battling internal fears or external forces. This phase tests the hero and leads to real growth and transformation.

The Return and the Elixir. The hero returns to their ordinary world, transformed by the journey, bringing back valuable lessons that benefit themselves and their community.

A few important insights to hold onto:

• If you don’t grow consciously, life comes to you and contributes or eliminates things on its own terms.

• The biggest problem people have is thinking they are not supposed to have problems.

• If you face a problem, convert it into a challenge.

• And the most successful people in life all have that hunger — the base element that drives them forward: the hunger to be, to create, to give, to enjoy more.

  I actually discovered Campbell’s Hero’s Journey after my own healing process — not during it. And the moment I came across it, I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfectly it maps the inner journey of transformation. Every stage, every turning point — I had lived all of it without ever having a name for it. That’s exactly why I wanted to share it here. Not as a guide to follow step by step, but as a reminder that what you are going through has a shape. It has been lived before. And there is a way through.

  ---

  The Wins, Losses, Pain and Rewards

  First, you have to accept that something has to change. That you have to change from within and heal the trauma and old wounds that are holding you back.

  It feels weird and uncomfortable at first — because you have this strong feeling that you know you have to go in that direction, but there’s still a slight resistance pulling at you.

  Then you realize it’s not easy at all. It’s very uncomfortable, and a lot comes up. Feelings and emotions. Past trauma you have to sit with. You have to face reality and understand: this is what happened to you. It is not who you are. This is not your identity. And you have to let go of the past pain in order to move forward.

  You start finding new hobbies, new priorities, new friends. You isolate yourself — because as uncomfortable as it is, as often as you feel the urge to escape those feelings, you have to remind yourself over and over again that this is the only way forward to truly change your life.

  The scariest place to be is the same place you were last year.

  You lose friends. Maybe family members. You outgrow environments, jobs, people. And even though it hurts, even though it’s uncomfortable, there’s this strange contentment underneath it all — because you feel guided. You feel that you are exactly where you need to be. You gain confidence. You reclaim your self-worth, your self-respect. You rebuild trust with yourself, grow self-love, and you never look back.

  And last but not least — you’ll eventually realize that healing is the only constant in life. And so is change. They go hand in hand. As long as we are living this beautiful life, we will have to change, heal, and recreate ourselves. You will still lose friends. You will still outgrow jobs, environments, situations. But once you take that initial ride toward your true, authentic self and start healing — you can never go back. Your soul speaks to you more directly the more you listen to it. Your heart lets you feel feelings with an intensity you’ve never experienced before.

  This journey has been one of the most intense experiences of my life. And it has made me into a new person. I can barely grasp how much everything has changed.

  In June, I withdrew. I deactivated my social media and started observing my thoughts and actions much more closely. Today I am more present. My perception has sharpened. I move through life with more clarity and more confidence. I trust my own decisions — without needing external opinions to validate them. I take better care of my body, I eat better, and I have developed a deeper appreciation for myself that I never had before.

  I am more fulfilled and happier than I have ever been — and I feel a deep love for myself that I used to not even know was possible.

  What healing has given me — and what nobody really talks about — is freedom. The freedom to just be myself, without fear. Detached from trauma. More open, less guarded. More real. Life feels fuller and more intense now — not because everything is perfect, but because I am actually present in it. And because I did the work, I now attract people, jobs, and opportunities that are genuinely aligned with who I am. Not who I was performing to be. Not who I thought I had to be to be accepted. Just me, unapologetically. That alone has been worth every uncomfortable moment of this journey.

  Healing is the most beautiful and most rewarding journey I have ever been on. And I am so excited to keep experiencing it for as long as I live. The one thing I am always praying for is that God — or the universe — removes people from my life who are standing in my way, and replaces them with ones who are helping me achieve my purpose. And that I do the same for them. I’m not even mad or sad about it anymore when people leave. I just accept it. And weirdly, the moment it happens, I always have this inner strength and clarity that it is exactly right. That it is happening for me. I have this deep trust and knowing. And that’s how I carry it.

  Let your heart guide you. It has always known the way — and unlike the mind, it has never been afraid of where that leads.

With love as always,

Meliha

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I view money as an energy. As a tool to make my life and the lives of my loved ones better. A tool to help others. I don't attach any other value to it.

So, after fixing my burnout cycles and healing my eating disorder, becoming good with money was the last area of my life that I had to "fix" in order to stop living in extremes. At least one of the big areas.

One day I was wondering what the experience with audiobooks would be like, since my brain craved new knowledge and I love to listen to podcasts on my walks, but sometimes the podcasts aren't doing it for me since I am very picky with the podcasters and my interests. So I tried it out.

After setting this intention, I went on a walk a few days later and felt like searching for new podcasts on finances. After scrolling through some that sounded boring, I stumbled across a podcast episode of Mel Robbins, where she interviewed Morgan Housel, New York Times bestselling author who wrote the book The Psychology of Money. The interview was about his new book The Art of Spending Money. I listened to it and was hooked immediately.

The funny part is that I don't consume anything from Mel Robbins at all, but on this day, in that specific moment, it was exactly what I needed to hear. And I just love when things align that way.

The Art of Spending Money became my first ever audiobook I listened to and I loved it. It completely changed my perspective and made me understand that finances are not a one-fits-all approach, but instead a very personal one. That freed me and I understood that like everything in life, you have to find a way that works for YOU and you only, no one else.

And because I found it so valuable, I would love to share some of the key insights I got from this book. I can absolutely recommend it to anyone, since it is really about human psychology.

* The following insights and quotes are from Morgan Housel's "The Art of Spending Money". I've summarized and shared the key takeaways that resonated most with me.

In School, Finance Is Taught as a Science. In the Real World, Money Is an Art.

There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former, but spend their life chasing the latter.

Money is a tool you can use, but if you’re not careful, it will use you. It will use you without mercy and without you even knowing. For many people, money is both a financial asset and a psychological liability. Blind lust for more can hijack your identity, control your personality, and wedge out parts of your life that bring greater happiness.

Spending money can buy happiness, but it’s often an indirect path.

Money itself doesn’t buy happiness, but it can help you find independence and purpose—both key ingredients for a happier life if you cultivate them. A big, nice house might make you happier, but mostly because it makes it easier to have friends and family over. And the friends and family are actually what are making you happy.

Enduring happiness is found in contentment. So those happiest with money tend to be those who have found a way to stop thinking about it. You can value it, appreciate it, even marvel at it, but if it never leaves your mind, it’s like you’ve found yourself with an obsession that controls you.

The best use of money is as a tool to leverage who you are, but never to define who you are.

If you’re confused about what a better life would look like, “one with more money” is an easy assumption, but can sometimes mask deeper problems. Money is so tangible that it’s an easy goal to strive for, and pursuing it can become the path of least resistance for those who haven’t discovered what truly feeds their soul.

Everyone can spend money in a way that will make them happier, but there is no universal formula on how to do it.

The nice stuff that makes me happy might seem crazy to you and vice versa. Debates over what kind of lifestyle you should live are often just people with different personalities talking over each other.

All Behavior Makes Sense With Enough Information

If you gain your respect and admiration for who you are rather than what you own, your desire to spend more money on flashy things plunges.

If your expectations grow faster than your income, you will never be happy with your money.

True happiness is when you stop asking yourself what else you need to be happy. When you dream about being happy in the future, you probably dream about being content with what you have. You spend less time asking what's missing and more time enjoying what you already have, however much or little that might be.

The key to happiness is being content with what you have, and its antidote is focusing on what you don't.

All happiness in life is just the gap between expectations and circumstances. The person who has everything but wants even more feels poorer than the person who has little but wants nothing else.

When you don’t appreciate what you already have and only focus on what’s missing, nothing ever feels good enough. Happiness remains elusive.

Not needing wealth is more valuable than wealth itself.

Nothing is as desired as much as the thing you want but can’t have. Desire is a hidden form of debt that must be repaid before you get to feel any happiness.

Happiness is the state where nothing is missing, regardless of the lifestyle you’re living.

Dopamine

Our brain wants dopamine, that’s it. Dopamine is the chemical of desire that always asks for more. More stuff, more stimulation, and more surprises. In pursuit of these things, it is undeterred by emotion, fear, or morality. From dopamine’s point of view, it’s not having that matters—it’s getting something, anything that’s new. Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.

Contentment

When you’re content, you’re no longer chasing, which is a prerequisite to being in the moment. When you have a complete absence of expectations that things would have or could have been better than they are now, then you get to enjoy what you have, what you’re doing, what you’ve created, and who you’re with.

Once you view contentment as the ultimate psychological mountaintop, your goals change. You recognize that the dopamine game can never be won. There’s always the next level you’re striving for, and so the only way to win is to stop playing—to be content.

Desiring less can have the same impact on your well-being as gaining more money, but it’s not only more in your control—it’s a game you can actually win, leading to durable contentment instead of fleeting happiness.

To be content with what you have is the deepest way to enjoy the house you’ve purchased, the clothes you wear, and the vacations you take.

Would you rather be a billionaire who wakes up every morning anxious about what you don’t have and jealous of those who have more, or an ordinary person who wakes up so content, with so much pleasure, able to appreciate what you have—regardless of how much that is?

Never Focus on What Money Can Do for You Without a Clear Understanding of What It Costs to Acquire More of It

The most valuable financial asset is not needing to impress anyone.
The ability to not have to prove yourself to strangers is priceless.

Ask yourself: Are you spending money on something because it makes people think differently of you, or because it actually feeds your soul and makes you happy?

What actually brings happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you are just experiencing. The most mundane things can feel incredible when they are a contrast to what we’re used to.

The thing that is least perceived about wealth is that all pleasure in money ends at the point where economy becomes unnecessary.

Having all the money in the world won’t fix you if you’re already miserable.

What Makes People Actually Happy

A good life is everything you need and some of what you want. If you have everything you want, you appreciate none of what you have. The contrast, not the amount, is what makes you happy. The change of circumstances from one period to the next is what makes purchases feel valuable.

The richest you will probably ever feel is when you have your first paycheck and your bank account goes from $0 to perhaps $500. The contrast that generates might be greater than going from $10 million to $20 million. Going from nothing to something can be so much more powerful than going from a lot to even more.

The gap between struggle and reward is a big part of what makes people happy.

Later in your career when you’re used to earning your own money, it’s not that spending won’t make you happy, but it won’t be as thrilling as it was when there was more struggle and contrast behind every dollar.

Everyone is jealous of what you got, no one is jealous of how you got it.

So much of a good life is about what didn’t happen. It’s the fights you didn’t have, the illnesses you avoided, and the unhealthy desires you didn’t feed. It’s the unaffordable lifestyle you didn’t choose to live, the mistakes you didn’t make, and the regrets you don’t have.

The purpose of life is to experience things for which you will later experience nostalgia.

So much of the reason you do the right thing is because it makes occasionally doing the wrong thing responsibly feel so much better.

Jealousy

Being jealous of what others have and assuming your life would be better if you were like them is misleading because you’re not getting a full picture of their lives. If I want what you have, I overlook that you want what someone else has and therefore you feel exactly like I do, and that someone else wants something another person has, on and on like one continuous chain of social envy.

Who you socialize with can have as big an impact on your material happiness as how much money you make and how much you spend. When you think of it that way, you choose wisely who you spend your time with.

Wealth Without Independence Is a Unique Form of Poverty

The simplest formula for a pretty nice life is independence + purpose.

The independence to do what you want and the wisdom to want to do meaningful things.

The trick is viewing every bit of savings as having actively purchased something, even if it doesn’t come with a receipt. You have purchased the ability to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want—and it is priceless.

Debt can be cheap capital, but it keeps you beholden to strangers that own a piece of your future decisions.

Social Debt

Social debt creeps up everywhere in its own way. For normal people, the more your identity becomes attached to your physical possessions, the more other people’s thoughts about you influence your spending decisions, and the more eager you are to constantly wow those people with something newer, bigger, better, and more expensive. It’s a realization that once money goes from being a tool you can use to make yourself happy to a symbol of what other people measure you by, you’ve lost the game.

Make the Most of Anything

Expose yourself to lots of Inputs and have a strong filter. The filter should be ruthless. Know what to ignore.

It’s impossible to know what you’re going to like until you try it, so you have to try everything.

But the only way to try new things is to have a strong filter that immediately rejects what isn’t for you.

What does a rich life look like to you? I would love to hear in the comments!

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Why a Calm Nervous System is Essential

A regulated nervous system isn’t a luxury—it’s mandatory.

By the end of 2023, I had gained significant weight again due to burnout and depression. I’ve always had this pattern: when unhappy with work, I’d compensate for the inner void with food, seeking instant gratification. The irony? It made everything worse in the long run. Weight gain led to discomfort in my own body, which fed the cycle further.

I’ve written an in-depth piece about my burnout cycles—you can find it here.

By the beginning of 2024, I was in the worst state I’d ever been in: burned out, overweight, depressive. I couldn’t recognize myself anymore, and I knew something had to change. My period disappeared entirely because my hormones were completely dysregulated. This was my rock bottom—and my turning point.

Searching desperately for answers, I discovered something crucial: our hormonal health and nervous system are inextricably linked. Especially during stressful times—and especially as women—regulating our nervous system becomes paramount.

Back to Basics

I felt like someone living in a body that wasn’t hers. That’s how disconnected I’d become from myself. I had lost myself completely.

So I started doing yoga. Something I’d tried before but found so boring I quit. But that very “boringness”—the stillness, the sacred space it creates within ourselves through our bodies—helped me reconnect over time. I still practice every day, even if just for ten minutes. It grounds me in the morning or helps me release the day in the evening before bed. It helps me stay present during practice, and I love when my intuition speaks to me during those moments. I feel calm, warm, and connected with myself in a way I can’t imagine life without anymore. My favorite creator is Jess Yoga. She has free videos on YouTube, but since I practice daily and need variety, I’ve switched to her app and cannot recommend it enough. It has truly enriched my life, calming me deeply.

I also started Pilates for the first time, focusing on activities that help you stay present and connect with your body. Pilates became special to me because you mainly use body weight or minimal weights, allowing you to focus on breathing and form. I started feeling my body better—parts I didn’t even know had muscles began to burn, and I fell in love with it. The duality of feeling calm during exercise because you’re so focused and present, working with your breath, while simultaneously thinking you might pass out because it’s so challenging—it got me hooked, and still does. I love Move with Nicole’s videos on YouTube, and Lean with Lilly—their work has genuinely transformed my practice.

And last but not least: daily walks in nature. I was never a “walking girl.” I always chased the highs—the sweat, the burn. But I didn’t know that running or HIIT workouts actually raise cortisol levels, making you hungrier. So I gave it a shot. Desperate enough to try anything, I started walking in nature. And what can I say? It’s one of the habits I still maintain. To this day, I aim for 10,000 steps daily. I never expected it would help so drastically with weight loss, reducing water retention, and calming my mind and nervous system. It’s the most low-impact thing you can do—you don’t even realize you’re doing something good for your mind, body, and soul (especially when exploring new cities and walking like 20,000 steps a day haha).

I also started a gratitude journal, reading affirmations daily, and EFT tapping during this time. It all helped tremendously.

I switched from chasing highs and instant gratification through food to slow, sustainable habits and activities. I’m glad I did. I’d recommend them all, ten out of ten.

These practices became my foundation—but I wanted to understand why they worked. The science behind nervous system regulation revealed something profound:

The Science of Survival Mode

Our nervous system and hormones exist in constant conversation—when one speaks, the other listens.

The autonomic nervous system operates in two primary states: the sympathetic (”fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (”rest and digest”). When we’re chronically stressed, our sympathetic nervous system remains activated, flooding our body with stress hormones, primarily cortisol and adrenaline.

Here’s where it gets interesting: chronic stress and elevated cortisol directly disrupt our hormonal cascade. High cortisol levels interfere with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates everything from thyroid function to reproductive hormones. Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism has shown that chronic stress can suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, leading to irregular menstrual cycles or complete amenorrhea—exactly what I experienced.

Cortisol also triggers insulin resistance, making it harder for our bodies to regulate blood sugar and facilitating fat storage, particularly around the midsection. A study in Psychoneuroendocrinology found that women with chronic stress had significantly higher cortisol levels and greater difficulty losing weight, even when following the same diet and exercise protocols as their less-stressed counterparts.

Furthermore, when we’re in a dysregulated state, our body prioritizes survival over reproduction. Progesterone, essential for menstrual regulation and mood stability, gets converted into cortisol—a process called “pregnenolone steal.” This is why chronic stress can lead to hormonal imbalances that manifest as irregular periods, PMS, low libido, and mood disorders.

The beautiful revelation? When we regulate our nervous system through practices like yoga, walking, breathwork, and adequate rest, we signal safety to our body. The parasympathetic nervous system activates, cortisol levels decrease, and our hormonal balance can restore itself naturally. Research from the International Journal of Yoga has demonstrated that regular yoga practice significantly reduces cortisol levels and improves overall hormonal balance in women.

What Actually Works

The Chinese New Year is approaching—only eight days left. We’re entering the year of the fire horse, a symbol of passion, transformation, and forward momentum, after the snake has shed its old layers in a year of introspection and release.

I recently found an article that reminded me, again, that everything is interconnected. I’d been feeling anxious the past week—overwhelmed, overstimulated, almost burned out. Then I came across this post (I love how things appear exactly when we need them), and it all clicked. This was my reminder that regulation isn’t a destination but a practice. We don’t arrive and stay there—we return, again and again, especially during periods of change and stress.

How to complete the year of the snake through your body.

There’s something profound about this transition that speaks directly to nervous system regulation: if the nervous system doesn’t get to complete the shedding in its own timing, it carries old vigilance forward. That’s when momentum feels forced, urgency creeps back in, and the horse’s energy becomes burnout instead of movement. Supporting the final shed looks like slowing down, reducing stimulation, allowing rest, and letting grief and relief coexist.1 Right now, that means reducing unnecessary stimulation—the constant input, the noise, the rushing—and creating space for our systems to integrate what we’ve already released.

Here’s what I’m coming back to:

Daily walks without multitasking. Not listening to anything except birds singing and environmental sounds, staying entirely present. No podcasts, no music—just me and the world around me.

Less time on social media and outward energy. I wrote about it here. Not communicating excessively with others, but being present with myself—creating space for my own thoughts to emerge.

Training in the gym without music. It’s fascinating what a difference this makes. Fewer reps, more intentional and slow, more focus, better mind-muscle connection, a deeper burn. This is about connection, not just repetition.

Stop stressing and overthinking. Anxiety and stress cannot coexist with gratitude. Focusing on gratitude and positive thoughts throughout the day, anchoring myself in the present moment.

Journaling before bed. This has become a game-changer for decluttering my mind and all the thoughts that wave over me when I finally want restful sleep.

Yoga before bed. Perfect for winding down and signaling to my body that it’s safe and we’re going to rest now.

During transitions, when life feels chaotic and uncertain, these are the non-negotiables. Not because they’re easy, but because they work. And because our nervous systems deserve the consistency, even when—especially when—everything else is changing.

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With love, as always,

Meliha

The truth? Repeating the same thought patterns and behaviors will keep you exactly where you are. And if you’re reading this, chances are you’re ready for something more.

Why Time Feels Different When You're Actually Living

The past weeks have been intense—not in a destructive way, but in that challenging, growth-inducing, utterly exhausting way that signals transformation. January always feels interminable, and now I understand why.

Our brains function as meticulous archivists, constantly writing scripts of our experiences. When we repeat the same routines day after day—same coffee shop, same route to work, same evening ritual—our neural pathways become so efficient that our brains essentially stop paying attention. There’s nothing new to record, nothing to process. Time collapses. We blink and find ourselves five years later, wondering where our life went.

But when we introduce novelty, our brains wake up. They have to form new neural connections, process unfamiliar information, encode fresh memories. Suddenly, time expands. Days feel longer, richer, more substantial. This is why childhood seems to last forever while adult years vanish—children encounter newness constantly, while adults calcify into routine.

This phenomenon is rooted in neuroplasticity: our brain’s remarkable ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. When we expose ourselves to novel experiences, we’re literally rewiring our brains. Each new pathway represents a small revolution, a micro-transformation in how we perceive and interact with the world.

Because here’s what I’m building toward: a complete renewal. New people who align with my evolving path. New experiences that challenge my perspective. New cities that inspire me. New hobbies that ignite dormant passions. A new career that honors my authentic self.

And for that level of transformation, I need my brain to remember that change is possible.

Why Ancient Wisdom Still Matters in Modern Life

I've always believed in astrology, but since I started working on myself energetically and opened myself up to more consciousness, I've noticed something profound: I feel astrological events more intensely now—not just mentally, but physically. They move through me with a force I never experienced before, as if becoming more aware has tuned me into frequencies that were always there, just waiting for me to listen.

There’s a reason ancient civilizations structured their entire worldviews around celestial movements. The universe operates in cycles: the moon waxes and wanes, seasons shift, planets move through their orbits. And we, as part of this cosmos, are not separate from these rhythms—we’re embedded in them.

From a psychological perspective, astrology offers us a framework for self-reflection. When we know a full moon is approaching, we become more attuned to our internal landscape. We notice our emotions with greater acuity. We create space for introspection.

The same gravitational forces that pull the tides affect the water in our bodies—we are, after all, approximately 60% water. Our circadian rhythms respond to light and darkness. Our hormones fluctuate with lunar cycles. We are biological beings inextricably connected to natural rhythms, even if modern life insulates us from this awareness.

When we work with astrology consciously, we’re not being superstitious—we’re tuning into patterns that have existed long before us and will continue long after. We’re acknowledging that we are not isolated individuals but interconnected parts of a vast, rhythmic whole.

The Full Moon Before the Shift: Preparing for a 36-Year Cosmic Cycle

Yesterday, February 1st, 2026, brought the full moon in Leo—and as someone with both sun and moon in Leo, I felt it viscerally.

What makes this particular lunation even more profound is its timing: we’re standing at the threshold of an incredibly rare astrological event. On February 20th, just weeks from now, Saturn will meet Neptune at 0° Aries—a conjunction that hasn’t occurred since 1989, and not at this specific degree since 1702. This cosmic alignment only happens every 36-38 years, and it’s being called “The Great Reset.” It marks the beginning of a completely new era, a restructuring of how we dream, what we believe is possible, and how we bring our visions into tangible reality.

The Leo full moon is the energetic opening act to this massive shift. Leo full moons are powerful on their own—they illuminate our relationship with self-expression, creativity, and authenticity. This particular full moon asks us to release anything that dims our light—whether that’s self-doubt, the need for external validation, or the fear of being too much. It’s a cosmic invitation to step fully into our power, to own our radiance unapologetically, and to let go of the people-pleasing patterns that keep us small. Leo energy is about courage, passion, and living from the heart—and this full moon amplifies all of it, sometimes uncomfortably so.

But with the Saturn-Neptune conjunction looming on the horizon, this full moon carries extra weight. It’s not just about personal transformation—it’s about preparing ourselves for a collective awakening. We’re being called to get clear on who we are and what we stand for, because the world is about to shift in ways we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.

The days leading up were marked by strange exhaustion. Sleep became elusive, my mind churning with nameless anxiety. I felt confused, unbalanced, overwhelmed by nothing in particular and everything at once. The day of the full moon itself felt cursed: nothing worked the way it should, tasks that should have been simple became impossibly complicated, my energy drained faster than I could replenish it.

By evening, I was done. I wanted to abandon everything, retreat to bed, surrender to the chaos. But then a small, persistent voice emerged: If you go to sleep now, without doing something for yourself and nourishing your soul, you’ll wake up tomorrow and feel like a mess. And you’ll have missed the opportunity to manifest.

Full moons are about release. They illuminate what we’ve been avoiding, bring shadows into the light, create intensity that demands our attention. This is why they feel so draining—they’re asking us to let go, and letting go requires energy.

So instead of collapsing, I showed up for myself.

Burning Bridges: What I Released (And What Came Back)

I began with journaling, then decluttered my physical space, recognizing that external disorder reflects internal chaos. With each item I removed, I felt lighter. I finished the unfinished tasks that had been weighing on my mind, creating completion where there had been loose ends.

Then I wrote down everything I needed to release.

I burned the list, watching the smoke carry these burdens away.

Finally, I wrote affirmations—not as desperate wishes but as declarations of what I’m calling into my life for 2026.

When I woke this morning, I felt reborn. My energy had returned, my focus became sharper and clearer than before. I had my spark back.

Why Showing Up for Yourself Is Never Optional

Here’s the realization I keep returning to, the lesson I need to learn again and again: The moments when you least feel like showing up for yourself are precisely when it matters most.

When exhaustion tells you to skip your practice, that’s when your practice is most essential. When overwhelm suggests you abandon your rituals, that’s when ritual becomes sacred medicine. When you feel you have nothing left to give, that’s when giving to yourself replenishes everything.

Nothing is more sacred than your energy. Nothing fills your cup more than honoring yourself, even—especially—when it’s difficult.

This isn’t about toxic productivity or forcing yourself through burnout. It’s about recognizing that self-care isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it’s writing when you’d rather scroll. Sometimes it’s sitting with difficult emotions instead of numbing them. Sometimes it’s completing what needs completing so you can rest with a clear mind.

And it’s also important to remember that hard days are supposed to be there, so acknowledge them, lean into the unpleasant feelings, and know that with the rise of the sun on the next day, a new life begins. Most of the time when I have challenging days, I need to be gentle with myself—and anytime the next day comes and I have honored the day instead of pushing myself and ignoring my feelings, trying to be positive in a toxic way, I get rewarded with energy, focus, and joy.

Your Life Won't Change Until You Do

We live in patterns we’ve inherited or outgrown. We cling to routines that once served us but now confine us. We stay in jobs that drain us, relationships that diminish us, cities we’ve outgrown—all in the name of comfort, stability, predictability.

But comfort is overrated. Comfort is where dreams go to die quietly.

You are not a tree, rooted permanently to one spot. You can move. You can change. You can reprogram your entire operating system and install new software. You can live in different cities, try on different versions of yourself, discover entirely new ways of being.

That’s your job.

Push yourself out of your comfort zone regularly—not recklessly, but intentionally. Do things differently every day. Talk to strangers. Book the plane ticket. Apply for the dream job. End the relationship that’s been over for months. Move to the city that calls to you. Try the hobby that scares you because you might not be good at it immediately.

Mix it up. Spice it up. Make life joyful and unpredictable and full.

The rigid routines that once provided structure can become prisons if we’re not careful. What worked for you last year might be stifling you now. Who you were six months ago might not be who you’re becoming.

And that’s not just okay—that’s the entire point.

Become Who You Were Always Meant to Be

This is your life. Not a rehearsal, not a rough draft—this is it. The only life you’re guaranteed to have.

So be unapologetic about designing it exactly as you want it. Stop settling for less than what sets your soul on fire. Stop making yourself smaller to fit into spaces you’ve outgrown. Stop waiting for the perfect moment because there is no perfect moment—there’s only now, and what you choose to do with it.

Release what no longer serves you. Build new neural pathways. Honor the cosmic rhythms. Show up for yourself when it’s hardest. Create the life that you’re excited to wake up to every morning.

I’m with you in this. I want to hear your stories of transformation, your moments of courage, your experiments in living differently.

Let 2026 not be another year that we watch our lives go by. Let’s get back into the driver’s seat of our lives—let’s make this year the best we’ve ever had yet.

Did you release during this full moon? What life are you building? I would love to read about your journey in the comments, so please share it with me! <3

With love, as always

Meliha

After chronically burning out in the past because of my hidden behavioral patterns—always searching for extremes—I honestly felt afraid to approach goal setting and planning again. I had repeated this mistake for years. Now, after one year of not working a regular job including nine months of simply finding my way back to myself and unlocking my creative side again, the thought of structured planning felt triggering. You can read the full story on this here.

For almost a year, I swung between extremes (again)—from super rigid planning, being structured and organized, to being completely flexible with my schedule. I called this “being flowy.” But I realized this couldn’t be it either. Without any structure, I wasn’t productive at all. I lacked drive, direction, and purpose. And honestly, I felt like a loser, like my life was drifting out of my hands. I didn’t feel in control of my life anymore.

Structure, planning, and organizing simply didn’t work for me anymore. At some point, I had to delete all my calendar entries because they stressed me out so much—I felt trapped, suffocated. I started ignoring my Todoist, deleting all my tasks because even those overwhelmed me.

Redefining Productivity: The Space Between Structure and Flow

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I should organize myself in the best way possible—how to not plan too much, but also not too little, so I could be productive while still maintaining my mental health. 2025 was the first year since middle school that I didn’t use a physical planner, and I knew it wasn’t the right time for it. Instead, I focused on figuring out what tools I needed and how I could use them in ways that truly supported me and my productivity.

And for that, I completely stepped away from my tools like my digital calendar, Notion, and Todoist, and allowed space to just be there.

What I’m really proud of, though, since my last burnout and depression, is that I’ve made my health and mental health my number one priority. For me, that includes a regulated nervous system, time with my friends and family, time with myself, and self-care. My business comes second. Because if I’m not healthy and balanced, I won’t be able to succeed in my business.

Switching to a more flowy approach was, looking back, the best decision I could have made at that point in my life. That’s when I found my creativity again, and I needed that time for myself.

I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason and that if you follow your path, you’ll always be in the right place at the right time. So I trusted the process. I was also working on a creative project with a friend during this time, and since she’s very creative and flowy, I absorbed that energy and lived in it for a while.

Why I Don’t Set Goals in December Anymore

I have never experienced the month of December so intensely as I did in 2025. I really felt like slowing down, finishing what I had started, and setting the tone for 2026. Since the “real” new year doesn’t start in January—like we’ve all been taught our whole lives—I mean, it doesn’t even feel like it does—I think we should embrace this beautiful time in December when everything and everyone is slowing down. So I decided to do a two-day retreat over the new year—which turned into three days—with myself at home, simply reflecting and gliding softly out of the calendar year.

Instead of goal setting for 2026 like I’d done every year before, I just sat down and reflected. I looked back and asked myself: What were my biggest wins? What were my highlights? What do I want to start doing, stop doing, and maintain doing in the next year?

So in January 2026, I didn't set intentions right away, and for the first time, I didn't feel stressed about not having set goals by January 1st. Instead, I felt a really clear path unfolding for me—one I felt confident walking. And I realized that sometimes a shift in perspective is all we need.

Very interesting read why January was never meant to start the year and how we forgot to live seasonally.

The Chinese New Year doesn’t begin on January 1st. It starts on February 17th, with the new moon—the official beginning of the year of the fire horse. Exciting.

2025 was the year of the snake: A year of introspection, shedding skins, strategy, and inner truth.

2026 is the year of the horse: A shift from inner work to movement, action, and freedom. What you clarified in silence is now meant to be lived out loud.1

Confidence comes from clarity.

I’ve never felt so confident and clear in my life about my career path as I do now.

One Goal, Not Twenty

I started setting intentions and ONE clear goal as my main focus for this year. That’s it. Not complicating it. Not planning out the entire year.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in the past with goal setting was doing it rigidly—the way every entrepreneur on the internet tells you to: set your goals, break them down into bite-sized pieces, map out your quarters, track your progress, check in regularly. The whole productivity gospel. And I got so overwhelmed by it. Even though you're supposed to break down your big goal into small, measurable, and tangible goals, I started self-sabotaging myself every time before I was about to reach a goal. It seemed so big because I made it big by planning my whole year out!

There’s truth to that approach, but it never worked for me. Especially because you simply cannot plan life.

Instead, what I'm doing now is setting my focus and intention. I reflect weekly, but not only on my goals—I stay aware of what's working and what's not on a weekly basis, and I adjust and optimize my workflow accordingly. And guess what? I don't plan when I'm reflecting! Sometimes I do it on a daily basis, sometimes weekly—the day varies.

My Current Anti-Burnout Framework

I recently discovered the 3-3-3 method—a daily focus system that keeps your work balanced so you don’t spend all day “busy” while moving nothing forward.

Each day, you define:

3 hours — MOST IMPORTANT PROJECT
Deep, focused work that moves your main goal forward. No emails, no multitasking, no admin. Examples: writing, scripting, strategy, recording or creating core content, building or refining an offer. This is your highest-energy block.

3 hours — MAINTENANCE WORK
Work that keeps things running but doesn’t require peak creativity. Examples: editing, content scheduling, planning, systems and organization. Still focused, but lighter.

3 hours — ADMIN TASKS
Low-energy, reactive work. Examples: emails, invoices, booking, uploads, DMs. Batch it. Timer on. Minimal brainpower.

I find this framework really helpful—it helps my brain categorize tasks so I don’t get caught up in busywork that does nothing except keep me occupied.

But I wouldn’t be me if I adapted it exactly as written.

Here’s my version:

4 hours — Maintenance (Health & Wellness)

• My morning routine

• Yoga

• Workout

• Shower

• Daily walk

4 hours — Most Important Project (Building My Business)
I simply set my timer and work on my most important project with deep focus. After I’ve finished, I do my daily midday walk. Since I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning during the week and need my 8-10 hours of sleep (yes, I’m a sleepy baby and I prioritize that), I need to go to bed between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. So in the evening, I like to read a book and do something for myself. Big on self-care over here. And that’s a regular, productive day of mine from Monday to Friday.

Admin Tasks
I either dedicate one hour a day to admin tasks if something urgent comes up, but I prefer batching these on a separate day—usually Saturdays—because they require extra focus. I prioritize spending my weekdays on my most important project and my maintenance block instead.

Being ambitious, driven, and disciplined doesn't mean you can't have fun, love your life, and feel good while you're working towards your goals. In fact, you should make the journey as beautiful and enjoyable as possible.

I refuse to burn out or feel miserable again and need a break from everything. This is my sustainable way of doing it, at least for now. I’ve just started, so I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going!

Working With My Body, Not Against It

I pair this framework with syncing my menstrual cycle and focusing my tasks accordingly.

I set intentions for each month at the beginning of the month, and I write down the most important insights from my weekly reflections in a Notion sheet so I can review them anytime. I also journal, but things I need regular access to, I keep in Notion.

January, for example, was simply about setting everything up for success. I started writing on Substack (which wasn’t planned at all), but I just felt it and went for it. If I hadn’t gone with the flow, this month would’ve looked so different! That’s why I’m not a fan of planning ahead. Instead, know your goal, know your purpose behind it, and start moving in that direction. Everything else will unfold along the way—the universe has a miraculous way of making things work. If you plan rigidly and unexpected things happen, you get stressed out and unmotivated. That was me until 2024.

Of course, you should understand your monthly and weekly structure and your daily tasks, but leave room for change, improvement, and miracles. You’ll need it!

This is my un-gatekept approach to goal setting in 2026—a blend of structure and flow, ambition and self-care, planning and trust. I hope it inspires you to find your own rhythm.

The Sacred Art of Doing Nothing

My screen time hovers around one hour per day, and I'm genuinely proud of that number. I'm deeply interested in my own life, my own growth, my own thoughts—so much so that wasting time consuming other people's curated realities feels disrespectful to myself. Don't get me wrong, we all scroll sometimes, and occasionally it sparks something, inspires something. But I'll take music, art, cinema, any form of "slow art" over doom-scrolling through my TikTok feed while I feel my brain cells deteriorate in real time and I feel drained and uninspired.

It's such a thin line, such a dangerous trap to fall into this vortex of overconsumption and lose control of your own lifestyle. I decided to take ownership of my life, and reaching my goals requires that I not be distracted this way. When I want inspiration without consumption, I seek out time with my friends, new hobbies, experiencing real life and noticing the beauty of it.

The Principles I Live By

My phone never enters my bedroom. It lives on another floor entirely. This prevents distraction while I’m working, and even more crucially, while I’m sleeping.

Since my private phone is social media-free, doom-scrolling when boredom strikes isn't even an option. Every time I feel that pull, that brain craving its next dopamine hit, I notice it and say to myself, 'Put your phone away and do something meaningful.' And so I do.

I don’t follow people on social media. I maintain a separate profile for creators who inspire me, but my private and business profiles remain clean. Create more than you consume—it works wonders when you keep your space uncluttered, in every sense of the word.

I create space for my own thoughts. I spend significant time in silence, and sometimes when I feel like it I'll take my hot girl walks without podcasts or audiobooks.

No phone for the first hour after waking up, no phone for the last hour before sleep.

When I’m waiting somewhere, I fight the urge to reach for my phone. Instead, I notice my environment. Same when I’m alone anywhere and feel uncomfortable—I don’t soothe that discomfort by disappearing into my screen. I try to engage with my environment and stay present.

Less Is More

Sleep quality. Creativity. Relationships. Mental clarity. The ability to concentrate on deep work. I gained all of these when I implemented these boundaries. The image of my life became sharper, more vivid, more mine.

And suddenly I noticed something: I had been striving for things, wanting things, doing things because I was so influenced by other people on social media. None of it belonged to me. That's why it's even more important to reflect and separate your own thoughts and being from what's presented to you—to consume very consciously and much less. My creativity flourished because there was finally space for original thought instead of my mind constantly regurgitating what I'd consumed.

Redefining What Matters

The only FOMO I experience now is the fear of missing out on my own thoughts and time with myself. If I want to truly experience something or connect with people, I do it in real life. When I consume people’s lives on social media, it feels so out of reach and I start feeling anxious and disconnected from myself.

Here’s what I discovered: the more I turn inward and nourish my relationship with myself, keeping the promises I make without getting distracted, the deeper I can connect with others.

Questions Worth Asking Yourself

You don’t need two phones. But you do need boundaries.

Ask yourself:

• What kind of boundaries could I set to reduce my screen time and become more mindful and present?

• Why do I feel the urge to watch other people’s lives instead of creating my own?

The answers are yours to discover. This is simply an invitation to begin asking the questions.

What Real Connection Looks Like

My friends and I value quality time, and that shows when we talk for five hours straight without checking our phones. There’s no pushback because we’re all aligned on what matters—being together, being present and enjoying it. Not physically present while mentally scrolling through someone else’s curated reality. What a waste of precious time together.

When you set these boundaries, the right people will understand. The right people will match your energy. And those deep conversations are worth infinitely more than any notification you might have missed.

This is what it means to reclaim your attention in an economy designed to steal it.

With Love,

Meliha

Maybe people aren’t leaving you, maybe the universe is making room in your life for people who are worthy of the love you share. — Closer to Love, Vex King

This realization didn’t come to me gently. It arrived in fragments over the course of a year, deliberately questioning everything I thought I knew about love and connection. What I discovered was both humbling and liberating: I had been so focused on the fantasy of love that I’d never stopped to understand what love, especially what it takes to maintain a loving, healthy, romantic relationship, actually requires of us.

The Fantasy vs. The Reality

I’m a big believer that we all have someone meant for us as a romantic partner, our soulmate. But at the same time, every person you’ve been in a relationship with, your best friends, your parents, they’re your soulmates too, just not in a romantic way. The word “soulmate” has been so narrowed by our cultural obsession with romantic love that we’ve forgotten its fuller meaning.

A soulmate is anyone who helps us grow into who we’re meant to become, whether they stay in our lives for a season or a lifetime.

I’ve never been the person who wanted a relationship as a goal or dreamed of being married with kids by a certain age. I was never interested in dating for dating’s sake. I’ve always had the mindset that when the right time comes, I’ll meet the person who’s meant for me anyway. So I never felt like I had to put myself out there on the dating market to find true love.

When I first learned about love languages and attachment styles, I immediately knew which one I was and how to rank my love languages. The frameworks made sense. They gave names to patterns I’d observed in myself and others. But when it came to love and relationships themselves, I always thought that if you’re with someone, everything matches perfectly and there’s nothing to fix, probably because of all the romanticization in the series and movies I grew up watching.

No one tells you that a relationship requires work. Not the exhausting, soul draining kind of work, but the daily practice of choosing someone, of seeing them clearly and loving them anyway, of staying present and working through issues together. That if we don’t put time and effort into nurturing a strong committed bond through our actions, love can’t sustain itself. That’s the part they leave out of the fairy tales.

Re-Learning to Love in the Age of Swipe Culture

Since I’ve committed to and been on an intense self-love journey in 2024, working through layers of conditioning and trauma from my past and ending up with a beautiful feeling of love and intimacy within and towards myself, I felt 2025 was finally the right time to learn more about love and relationships without necessarily experiencing it firsthand with another person. I love being alone, and besides that, I realized I don’t really know much about relationships at all.

This admission felt vulnerable to make, even to myself. We live in a culture that treats relationship experience as social currency, as proof of our desirability and emotional maturity. But the truth is, most of us are navigating love with a broken compass, using maps drawn by people who were just as lost as we are.

What I was aware of, though, is that you can’t look for happiness or fulfillment in someone else or expect them to save you. Both individuals have to work on themselves continuously, maintain their autonomy, and invest in themselves and each other, among many other factors that matter in a relationship. And relationships, no matter which kind, act like a mirror of ourselves as well as a glimpse of our potential that we hold within us, and the other person, which I refer to as a soulmate, is helping us to unlock that.

Although I've never been part of the dating culture myself, online or otherwise, I've noticed that digital dating is blocking us from learning how to build long-lasting, fulfilling relationships. Instead of exercising patience and understanding, we're tempted to choose instant gratification over lasting connection. We overlook what's in front of us while searching for something better. That's why you need to take action in love, because love is action in itself.

What I’ve noticed is that everyone is so sick and tired of today’s dating market: the apps, the toxic and unhealed people, the non-existent commitment. But I also wonder, have you ever reflected on yourself? Like truly reflected?

• How do you handle relationships when they get serious?

• How do you show up for yourself and the other person?

• Are you able to commit to yourself in the first place?

• What’s your primary attachment style, and where does it stem from?

• Are you truly ready to enter a relationship right now and take responsibility for it, or do you need further healing to get there eventually?

• How do you handle emotional intimacy?

• Do you understand your emotions and know how to manage them?

• Why are you dating in the first place?

• Are you comfortable being alone without feeling empty or attaching your worth to your relationship status?

There’s so much more to unpack here, but what I want to emphasize is that we always tend to blame others and rarely look at ourselves with real depth. Even when we think we aren’t the problem, we often carry unhealed wounds that need attention. Otherwise, we carry our problems like a backpack from one relationship to another without even noticing. I also had the unpleasant realization that I was very toxic in my past relationship. This realization was really uncomfortable to accept, but I personally prefer truth over comfort because that’s the only way out of the disaster and the only way for us to make true changes within ourselves and therefore change our lives for the better.

We need to strip away the ego and all the conditioning we’ve formed through experience. We have to reconnect with our inner potential to love freely and find fulfillment in the act itself. In that sense, it’s not about being dependent on the other person. It’s about us and how we share that love with others. When you love yourself deeply, you’re able to love others more authentically and with less judgment. Self-acceptance naturally extends to accepting others as they are. This inner love heals us and allows us to love unconditionally.

Breaking the Cycle by Unlearning Old Patterns

For years, since my puberty, I’ve handled situations the same way, especially with men. Even though I’d already concluded that my behavior was sometimes toxic in the past, I thought that was it, that I was behaving the right way now. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes our wounds span different areas and times of our lives that need further healing. The wounds will show up when it’s the right time for you to heal them. Before that, you’ll be unable to notice them because you aren’t ready yet.

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of healing: the non-linear nature of it. You think you’ve dealt with something, moved past it, grown beyond it. Then life presents you with a similar situation, and you watch yourself react in the exact same way you swore you’d outgrown. It’s humbling and also necessary.

Love is not the problem, it never was. In fact, love is the only thing that matters and that heals us. Our old wounds are the problem, our trauma is, and how we respond to situations based on past conditioning and trauma is where the real work lies.

In the past, I always had the tendency to run away when things got hard. I’d cut people off. I didn’t want to deal with hardships. When people hurt me, I did the same to them. Emotional intimacy seemed too scary because I thought that if I let people into my heart, I’d become weak and they’d be able to hurt me.

Well, yes, they are able to hurt you. But if you remain closed off, you’ll never experience the true beauty of life and love, the kind of love that opens you up to the brightest and fullest expression of yourself. You’ll forever strip yourself of the chance to experience life to the fullest. Do you want that? Love exists within us and is part of our being. In fact, we are love. Treat yourself with the compassion and love you would like to receive from others and watch yourself flourish. When you truly love yourself, the world becomes a beautiful place. So learn to love yourself and let vulnerability guide you.

The emotional wall we build to protect ourselves becomes a prison. We think we’re being strong by keeping people at a distance, by leaving before we can be left, by never letting anyone see the parts of us we consider too broken or too much. But real strength is staying open to love, no matter how much you’ve been hurt in the past, and remaining vulnerable. It’s allowing yourself to be seen. It’s trusting that even if someone hurts you, you have the capacity to heal.

“When we avoid pain, we become fragile. Because pain is a universal constant.”
— Mark Manson, Everything is F*cked

Letting Go as an Act of Love

Another person can definitely be beneficial for your healing journey, especially at certain points. But you should also keep in mind that we can’t control people’s actions, only our own. How people act is merely a reflection of their inner world, and we have no control over that.

If there are any unresolved conflicts within you, your partner will probably bring them to the surface, often unintentionally. Instead of reacting (even if that’s our first impulse), we need to notice our primary emotions and lean into them. What’s beneath the surface? Why do we react that way? Why did this behavior trigger us?

Our reaction is just our secondary emotion. If we keep reacting and absorbing instead of reflecting and observing, we remain the same version of ourselves and will never be able to heal these parts.

This is the work that no one wants to do. It’s easier to point at our partner and say, “You made me feel this way.” It’s harder to turn inward and ask, “Why did I feel threatened by that? What old wound is this touching?” But this is where real transformation happens, in the space between trigger and reaction, in the moment we choose to pause and inquire rather than defend and attack.

Sometimes, people can’t be the version you need them to be. Seasons change. Circumstances change. And so do we. Don’t expect someone to act or behave a certain way. Change is the only constant in life, and if one day we realize that the relationship has fulfilled its purpose, the most loving thing to do for them and yourself is to let it go.

Unconditional love isn’t about holding on no matter what. It’s about making choices rooted in your authentic self, even when they’re difficult. When you love from a place of inner wholeness rather than inner lack, it transforms everything. You’re not taking to fill your own cup. You’re giving because your cup is already full and it overflows.

This is perhaps the hardest lesson I’m still learning, and I think we all have to learn at a certain point in our lives. It’s a universal experience: that loving someone doesn’t mean you’re meant to be with them forever. That walking away can be an act of profound love, for them and for yourself. We’ve been taught that giving up on a relationship is failure, that true love means fighting through anything. But sometimes the bravest thing you can do is acknowledge that what once worked no longer does, and release each other to find what you truly need.

With this kind of inner knowing as your guide, you stay grounded in who you are, free to love fully without fear, and open to whatever unfolds in return.

What I Am Still Learning

Relationships thrive on continuous care, not perfection. What matters isn’t someone being flawless. It’s them being reliable, committed, and willing to put in the work. The early stages are simple; anyone can charm you for a few months. (Note to self) But maintaining that dedication over years takes a lot of love and commitment.

I’m learning that authentic connection requires us to go deep, to trust ourselves enough to be vulnerable, to stay present even when it’s uncomfortable. Self-love isn’t just bubble baths and affirmations. It’s recognizing who deserves your energy and who doesn’t, and acting based on your self-respect, self-worth, and the realizations you have. What is shown to you, and just let me tell you here, if they are showing you their true colors, believe them. Don’t try to romanticize anything or stay in love with the potential you see in somebody. It’s their life, it’s their choices, and at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with you. It’s committing to your own healing so you can show up as the right partner instead of endlessly searching for one.

Not everyone you feel an initial spark with is going to be the one. We need to work on ourselves constantly, stay flexible, overcome tests from the universe, and be brave enough to let go in order to receive what is truly meant for us.

A Wish for All of Us

I hope we all commit more to ourselves and our healing journeys. I hope we focus on becoming the right partner instead of looking for one, because then we'll automatically attract the right partner with ease. It's an energetic match when we're vibrating on the same frequency, and when the right time comes and we are on the right path, we'll meet the person who is meant for us. And I hope we all treat ourselves and others with more love and compassion.

If you’re interested in exploring these themes further, I highly recommend the book Closer to Love by Vex King. It’s been a source of inspiration for me and my own journey toward understanding love more deeply.

Love, Meliha

The Goals I Kept Missing

I set goals the way most people do—aggressive, ambitious, specific. Lose weight, get my finances in order, advance in my career. But here’s the thing: I kept missing them. Not because I wasn’t trying hard enough, but because I was approaching them in an unsustainable way that was completely disconnected from who I actually was.

Yet ambition has a way of making you double down instead of stepping back. Instead of questioning my approach, I just set more goals in the same broken way. The cycle kept repeating: unmet expectations turned into self-doubt, which turned into anger, which turned into harsh judgment against myself. I became my own worst critic without ever realizing I was doing it all wrong.

Note to my younger self: Your goals weren’t set sustainably. They came from the wrong place, the wrong reasons. These two things combined created the perfect recipe for failure.

The Six-Month Curse

In 2022, fresh into my first “real job” while finishing my studies, I hit a wall at the six-month mark. Complete burnout. At the time, I blamed it on the toxic work environment—an easy scapegoat that felt entirely justified.

Then came 2023. New job, new energy, new hope. The first three months were exhilarating. Month six? The walls came crashing down again.

I decided I’d had enough of working for others. I took time off, picked up freelance projects here and there, told myself it would only be a few months. (It became five.) And like clockwork, at the six-month mark, there it was again: burnout.

I kept blaming my jobs. The companies. The demands. The toxic cultures. But then something shifted: I hadn’t been working for over six months, yet I felt exactly the same way. That’s when it really hit me. The realization was uncomfortable—it wasn’t the external circumstances making me feel this way. It was me. A behavioral pattern I’d been blind to for years.

By the end of 2023, I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I got really depressed, gained weight, and had multiple areas of my life that needed serious attention. I had completely lost myself. When I realized that 2024 wasn’t the right time to start building my personal brand—that I needed to prioritize my well-being and mental health first—I made self-love my number one focus for the year.

I’m not going to lie: 2024 was the toughest year of my life. I felt so lost, like never before. But I knew there was a bigger reason behind it, that I needed to follow this path and fully embrace whatever came with it. I had never felt so uncomfortable in my own life, in my own body, within myself. But I’ll save that full story for another day.

The Realization That Changed Everything

It wasn’t until mid-2025, sitting across from my therapist, that the truth finally surfaced. We were discussing my behavioral patterns, my relationship with work, when she asked about my childhood.

I lit up. I was proud to tell her about my beautiful, loving upbringing—both parents present, supportive, safe. I felt blessed. When she asked about boundaries, I told her there weren’t any. I thought this was a good thing.

She looked at me and said something that would fundamentally reshape how I understood myself:

“That’s exactly why you’re always seeking boundaries and going to extremes.”

Suddenly, everything clicked.

Here’s what I finally understood: I was striving for an abundant, luxurious, high-quality life—but I was trying to build it through scarcity. The goals I’d set, the ones I thought would lead me to my dream life, were completely misaligned with my soul’s purpose and authentic self. I was constructing a cage, systematically stripping away fun, joy, love, connection—everything that makes life worth living, everything we humans need to survive.

The irony? The tools I thought would help me—habit tracking, rigid planning, daily check-ins—were suffocating me. They transformed activities I genuinely loved into obligations. Eating nourishing food, moving my body, reading, creating, cooking—these weren’t joys anymore. They were boxes to tick. I felt constricted, trapped by the very systems I’d built to “optimize” my life.

The math wasn’t mathing.

Every six months, like clockwork, I’d had enough. My body, my psyche, my soul would rebel against the prison I’d built. I had this overwhelming desire to break free—so I’d burn out. Then I’d start over, unknowingly rebuilding the same cage with slightly different bars. I did this for years without noticing.

This is why I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, that there’s a right time and place for everything. If things hadn’t unfolded exactly as they did, I might never have found myself in that therapist’s office. I’d never been to therapy before, and I’m not planning to return (though it was invaluable). But that moment? That was my pivot point.

The Many Faces of Boundary-Seeking

The pattern showed up everywhere, manifesting in different areas of my life:

Goals: I approached them in extreme, obtainable-but-unsustainable ways rather than with long-term viability in mind.

Work: Overworking became my default mode, leading to predictable burnout every six months—almost to the day.

Food: I developed binge eating disorder, though I wouldn’t recognize it as such for twelve years.

Behaviors: Addictive and excessive patterns emerged during puberty.

Finances: I was irresponsible with money, living in debt for roughly a decade.

Seeking boundaries and embracing extremes can wear many masks. Once I understood this about myself, I could finally begin the work of establishing healthy boundaries and behaviors.

What I’ve Reclaimed

I’ve overcome my eating disorder after twelve years of not even realizing I had one. I’ve stopped romanticizing hustle culture and punishing my body in the name of productivity. Instead, I’ve learned to work with my natural rhythms as a woman, aligning my activities with my cycle.

I started reflecting on what was actually happening. For the first time, I understood that I was subconsciously putting myself in this situation every single time. I was taking away everything that gave me freedom, joy, and happiness—all in service of achieving goals that didn’t even align with who I truly was. I was stressed and exhausted from routines that were supposed to support my health and well-being.

So I dismantled my four-hour morning routine block. I broke it into individual elements and started listening to my intuition each day. What did my body need today? I began to understand that not every day is—or can be—the same. I let go of the idea that my morning routine needed to be a rigid four-hour commitment. (Though I still prefer handling health and wellness in the morning; I’m naturally a morning person.)

Here’s the revelation: The world doesn’t stop spinning when you switch things up. Going for a midday walk instead of 7 a.m. doesn’t cause the universe to collapse. Seasons change. And especially for those of us who menstruate, our energy levels and moods fluctuate.

The internet is saturated with content about routines, discipline, habit tracking, goal setting. But no one tells you that these exact tools can become harmful. As with everything in life: the dose makes the poison. It’s simply not healthy to approach everything in extremes, at least not for extended periods.

Pressure creates counterpressure. When we force things, energy becomes blocked, stuck, unable to flow. We need to return to ease, to flow.

These crossroads in life—these breaking points—they’re not accidents. They’re pivot points. They’re where we evolve and get to choose a different path than the one we’ve been walking.

I’ve traded cheap dopamine hits for slow, meaningful activities. Simplicity has become my richest asset. And I’ve finally tackled the financial mess I created over the past decade—the one that kept my nervous system in a constant state of stress.

What This Taught Me

Ambition and discipline are blessings—when used intentionally. Without awareness, they become weapons we turn on ourselves.

Rigid routines can do more harm than good. When we operate on autopilot, checking boxes just to feel proud, we lose our sense of self. We disconnect from ourselves and others. And when we finally reach that goal we’ve been chasing? We feel depleted, somehow hollow, because we didn’t enjoy the journey.

Set sustainable goals, not obtainable ones. There’s a crucial difference. Obtainable goals might look impressive on paper, but they cause harm in the long run. If we want to build something that lasts, we need to stop looking for quick fixes.

Here’s the crazy thing: I didn’t realize I wasn’t lacking discipline. What I needed was to become more authentic, to reconnect with myself. I needed to align my vision—and the way I pursued it—with my most authentic self. I was trying to match the productivity standards of men, who live by a sun cycle (24 hours). But as a woman, I live by the moon (a 28-day cycle). I was operating on the wrong operating system entirely.

Do yourself a favor: Think differently. Talk to people who are completely different from you. Switch your environment. Try things you’ve never tried before.

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with love,

Meliha

Coming up in future posts:

• The development of my eating disorder: how it manifested and how I healed

• Why I felt so stuck in 2024—and what being forced to stop relying on my appearance taught me about inner work

• How to set goals sustainably (and why most goal-setting advice is broken)

• How living in alignment with my menstrual cycle completely changed the way I approach my life