Months later, I’m working at a magazine on Sydney’s prestigious Park St, when a Senior Account Manager (who definitely hated my 21-year-old guts) pointed a French-acrylic nail at me and said: “You know what you’d be good at: being a flight attendant for one of those Middle Eastern airlines. You get to travel the world.”

It may have been the only gift that came out of that experience, because it was brutal otherwise. I would describe this job as living on the real-life set of The Devil Wears Prada. I used to punch out emails (yes, email) to my best friend Clare from my purple Motorola Sidekick keeping her updated throughout the day, using code names for the office bullies.

As the universe would have it, my office bully had the intuition of an angel because not long after, I was preparing to relocate my entire life from Sydney’s lush Double Bay to Abu freaking Dhabi, after getting the “golden call” to join an airline as Cabin Crew.

The fact that I signed a contract and got on a flight is just crazy, because this was long before any content or even images of Abu Dhabi, a newly built city, existed.

There were no reels about “Top 10 Cafes in Abu Dhabi!”. No Abu Dhabi or even Dubai influencers whose coffee spots and nail salons I could steal. No Google Maps images. No pictures of the apartment I would live in. I knew nothing of this place and I couldn’t have done the research even if I tried.

So I went, blindly. At 21. I quit my media job and left Australia, moving to a country I knew almost nothing about. Just that there was “oil money” and Beyonce had performed at that same birthday party. I was already burnt out from my 9-5, and knew even then that surely this had to be better than office life.

In January of this year, back in Dubai, I reunited with my airline friends from 15 years ago, many of whom still live in the UAE, and we collectively agreed: there had to be something majorly wrong with you to move to a country in the Middle East at that age. We were not normal young adults. Our naive 20-something brains trusted that it would work out, and for many of us it was the single greatest, yet grossly uninformed decision we could have made.

All these years later, I’m in my 30s and I find even the simplest of decision-making to be an arduous process. I know too much, have witnessed too much, and get so caught up in researching the thing instead of doing it. We just don’t blindly move to countries like that anymore. That kind of nescient move would land you at a psychiatric evaluation appointment and have your friends texting “we’re just really worried about you, babe”.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know so much. I wish I hadn’t let the world harden me. Moving through life with an expectation that life is about getting what you want and things working out, and then when it doesn’t, you blame yourself. You use a failed situation as evidence to confirm that you really don’t know what you’re doing. That you can’t be trusted to make decisions in your own life.

click here to buy me a coffee :)

We live in that space and spend hours watching the lives of other expats who have “made the move”, we subscribe to their family vlog channels and follow them on IG. We pay $100 for a “pick my brain” call (I have done this) and continue to gather any shred of advice that would confirm this was the single best decision we could make. Without that certain, total confirmation, we stay put. Because it’s much safer to not make a big decision and to stay the same. It’s comfortable, and you won’t have to be held accountable for fucking your whole life up. Not this time.

But if we remain paralyzed in our decision-making, in not wanting to make the “wrong” one, that’s how we find ourselves late at night stumbling across a wellness influencer’s feed. She’s living the exact life you wish you could live. But it’s not her car or her house or her wardrobe, or her designer dog or her vacation in Corfu. It’s her essence. It’s that she shows up. She posts content without concern. She is fluid in her delivery. She doesn’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks, and she wants you to know it. She lives in total liberation and ultimate self-trust. She has built her own world, and you’re just visiting with no return ticket, because your world doesn’t exist in this way (yet).

She stirs something in you. She triggers you. She is you before the world told you that you can’t be trusted to make decisions, because look at how the last one turned out!

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You think of your 20-year-old self and the agency you carried with a naivety that you would now pay adult money to get back. But once bitten, twice shy. You carry the baggage of failures around with you, and when it’s time to make a decision, those failures tap you on the shoulder and, ahem, remind you of everything in your life that hasn’t worked out up until this point.

That one relationship. Where you opened yourself up to trust someone new, because maybe it was real this time, but it wasn’t, and it made you question if you’re even worthy of being loved. A few bad dates and you wonder why you would ever subject yourself to that again. And when things are going well, you don’t let yourself get too excited. Unsure if your nervous system can handle another slow fade, leaving you to make sense of the pieces and pick yourself up off the floor.

But you also don’t want to be on the other side of it either. Being responsible for someone else’s feelings, having to be the source of their light and joy, that carries an equal heaviness.

Please, just don’t fall in love with me. I don’t want to carry it.

If the relationships aren’t painful enough, there’s the friendship that ended, and now out of protection, you don’t allow that depth of friendship in anymore. You tell yourself it’s okay to let friendships dissipate, but you do so in a way where everyone is disposable, and you probably could have repaired things if you just had that one uncomfortable conversation.

But instead, you go through life just waiting for that friend to forget your birthday or not acknowledge your continued grief from when your dog died so you can dispose of her just like your last “best” friend disposed of you.

In order to live a life that feels authentic and lived to the brim, we must not let the past “failures” inform where we’re headed. But we do. Now, in our 30s and 40s, we are more cautious, more hesitant, and understandably more protective of ourselves, having endured so much, we can’t possibly think there could be more.

But if for one day, you could tune in to that 20-something version of you. Before you knew what you know now. When the world was an open field of who you wanted to be. A field from which you would pluck and pick what you were curious about, what called you. It was simple. Decide and go.

Because that version of me all those years ago, who moved to Abu Dhabi, only knew the little sparks of curiosity she carried. She didn’t know to be afraid. She hadn’t listened to 1000 hours of true crime podcasts, or seen documentaries on Tinder Swindlers. She didn’t have the intricacies of everyone else’s life plastered on social media to remind her of everything she is not. She barely even knew herself, and was still figuring that out. But she knew how to go after what she wanted, without question, not without fear, but without doubt.

Without using the entire internet as a measuring stick.

If only we could see what comes next, then maybe the current void wouldn’t feel so grand. But no one is coming to save you, or stroke your head and tell you everything will be alright.

You ache for someone or something to promise you, “yes, it’s worth it!” but that doesn’t exist either.

So, go blindly anyway. Go without anything at all.

Love you so very much.

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Before we jump into this Tuesday’s edition of tellement cute, I have something exciting to share: I’m launching a messaging mastermind this September (!!!), scroll down for all the details + to get on the waitlist. It’s TIME to tell your story, get comfortable with being seen, and share your voice. The world is ready for you <3

It’s a balmy Sunday morning in the midst of a heat wave in the east of France, and I’ve been standing in line for at least 15 minutes. My neighborhood holds their farmers markets three times per week, and I’ve watched the same line wrap around the market entrance every Sunday, people queueing for what I later name as the Peach People. We all know that if there’s a line, then it must be good.

I study the attire of my fellow line dwellers, armed with their market roller-bags, vapes in hand, a sea of salt and pepper hair, trendy black-rimmed glasses and flowy summer linens. My brain decides then and there that good marketing really is just having the world see people lined up outside your storefront. I’m rehearsing my order in my head: “Bonjour! je vais vous prendre quatre pêches blanches, s'il vous plaît”, and I glance down at the lock screen on my iPhone 17.

August 16 flashes back at me.

I pause. My stomach curdles, and suddenly I’m not so excited about my four white peaches. A flood of emotion rushes to my chest. I feel a bit hot. I stuff my goods and a last-minute-panic-decision heirloom tomato in my market tote, and make a beeline for home. As I walk back, I note how still the air feels. I feel the dull ache of everything that could have been. Everything that once was. Everything that was meant to have been.I’m alone, but happy. At peace, but alone.

I’ll probably just stay inside today.

Oh, but there was a time…

Exactly six years ago, I walked myself down the aisle to Adele’s “make you feel my love”, toward a kind, handsome man, beaming at me from underneath a floral archway. It was a micro-zoom-covid-wedding, that I re-planned in two weeks, but it was beautiful, and overly extravagant for all of 14 guests. My primped Shih-Tzu’s were adorned in fresh flower collars and had leashes made of string pearls. The cake was one-tier too many, decorated with a custom Etsy cake “topper” cut-out of a man, a woman, and two little dogs. The bottom tier, a decadent vanilla-bean buttercream chocolate cake, with a whipped chocolate ganache and raspberry filling. It was SO good that we had a standing order with the baker for a mini version of that cake for each anniversary after. I wondered if she wondered about us in 2024 when no order for an anniversary cake hit her gmail that year.

Maybe in another timeline, maybe in another life

I reference this timeline and others, frequently. I think about how there are alternate versions of us, living multiple timelines, all running simultaneously. And about how we have the power to create new timelines through our significant and thoughtless decisions. But all we can truly know, in this physical reality, is the current timeline we’re on now.

Today, in an alternate universe, my husband and I are spending our anniversary at a Spa Hotel on the Northern-Californian coast, with our two dogs, both who are very much alive. I know his mother would have sent an abundant floral arrangement to the house. I know we would have been too tired to leave the hotel, and dinner would be at the modern-American restaurant, cheers-ing to six years of marriage. I know we would have spent that dinner slightly pressed, discussing our future in hushed tones, with resistance dangling in the air.

I know I would have had to have been very specific about how I wanted to celebrate our anniversary. I know he would have been reluctant to go away for the weekend, but once we were settled in to the plush hotel-room sheets, would say something like “I’m so glad we did this, see, it all came together in the end!”. And in this timeline I drink alcohol, so feeling sleepy from a glass of Caymus, I would have turned over on my side and scrolled until I fell asleep.

Buy me a coffee

Something is not quite right

Even in this “happily married” scenario, there would be an underlying pit in my stomach, a hum of anxiety, telling me something is not quite right. When I say that, in my mind’s eye I see a flash of a scene with Miss Clavel, a character from the children’s series, Madeline, whose signature move was to wake up in the night and exclaim “Something is not quite right!”. Okay, Miss Clavel, girl, with your strong intuition! Good for freaking you.

There’s that familiar feeling

I look back at my life, and see a montage of Miss Clavel moments. Sometimes they’ll wake me up at 3:33 AM and I’ll immediately know what the issue is, and sometimes, they’ll linger in the background, becoming the very thing that I’m avoiding. In the many timelines of my marriage, I don’t see an alternate timeline where we would be happily married. The only timelines I see existing in this scenario are ones where I make a painful decision early enough for both of us to restart our lives, and one where I continue to ignore what my body tries so desperately to tell me.

But ultimately, the feeling stays the same, because through all these timelines, I am still me.

This feeling of something not being quite right has followed me around not only in relationships, but also in my career. I landed a remote position in the industry I was “passionate” about, being paid mid-high six-figures. Getting positive feedback, praise, money that I get to spend. A title that tells me I mean something. It looks good, it should be good, it feels good for all of 5 seconds, but yet, something is not quite right.

The feeling is enough

I know it’s not just me. I’ve shared this sentiment with many women, spanning the course of our friendship. When we start to feel this feeling, that something is not right, we question it. We question ourselves. Especially if we look at our life from an outsiders POV and think, well, if I have “everything” I ever wanted, why do I feel a tightness in my chest? Why don’t I feel like I’ve arrived yet?

The thing to remind ourselves of in this moment is this feeling is all the data you need to know that an area of your life is out of alignment. As women, we are taught to question ourselves. To outsource our agency. We speak to our therapists (excellent). We ask our friends for advice (okay, sometimes), our parents (I wouldn’t advise it), we resort to rando’s on the internet in reddit threads and facebook groups (okay, for quantitative surveying) and the bleakest, we outsource our inner compass to Claude or ChatGPT.

Look, AI is for many things. I love AI! AI ALL DAY! but as a friendly PSA from your wise friend Mya: PLEASE do not outsource your feminine wisdom, intuition, and relationship with yourself to a machine that could only dream of what it might feel like to get to experience the world in all of your human essence.

The business of decision making

Somewhere along the way I came to learn that not making a decision is a decision in itself. And to make decisions quickly. I exercised this just this week when I let a client go after 7 weeks of work together. The energy spent on “weighing up’ a decision when in fact, maybe you are just seeking permission, is a drain. The kicker is, you don’t need permission to feel how you want to feel or to choose yourself. You don’t need permission to go after your dreams. You don’t need permission to get your needs met. You don’t need permission to quit your job or release a client.

The only permission is self-permission. You probably just need a plan.

To love and to lose

When I reflect on timelines, it’s not that I picture them as separate realities. It’s the feeling, the hesitancy, the resistance, and whether I choose to listen to it. It shows up in work, in friendship, in dating, or in a pattern I keep repeating.

The current reality I’m living, spending the Summer living in France, is a direct result of paying attention to all the many moments in my life that felt off. The more I ignored this feeling, the more it tried to get my attention in other ways. I look back at photos from around that time and I don’t even recognize myself.

There will always be many timelines, but I know myself enough to know that I remain me in all of them. What changes is whether I make the decision, take the uncomfortable step, or choose differently.

The hardest part in all of this which I barely, barely touched on is that getting what you ultimately want, can mean losing something first. I hate to tell you, but it’s true. I don’t see a version of my life where I have the exact same friends from a decade ago, the same marriage, where my dog is alive, and where I have the most success I’ve ever had, all at once.

We want the outcome. Our highest timeline. But we don’t want to pay the price of getting there.

I hope you enjoyed this Tuesday’s edition of tellement cute. Thank you for reading my little corner of the internet. In case no one has told you lately, you’re amazing and I love you!

Xx

Making casual conversation, I asked, “So, is Bali home now?” She looked at me, knowingly, and politely scoffed, “I mean, HERE is home,” as she brought her hands to her heart, gesturing at her chest. I finished my breakfast and laughed about it after, because 1. that’s so Bali, and 2. it was a simple question (girl, I’m just making conversation!). One that at the time I couldn’t comprehend why it required an esoteric answer. But that interaction has stuck with me since, and you know what, she was on to something

Two years ago, I moved out of my home in Los Angeles and put all my things in storage. The following year, I returned to sell my car and offload more belongings. The more time I spent outside of LA, the more I realized that items like clothes, shoes, bags, and household decor were really just things that took up mental and physical space. They weighed me down, and it started to take a toll on me. Having to pack, organize, and store items every other month, planning for each destination and multiple climates (going from Mexico City rain to Bali sun) for months at a time, I can guarantee will make you want to get rid of everything you own, too.

After living in LA for 10 years, I had been dreaming of a multi-locational lifestyle. One where I got to spend entire summers in Europe, and escape to Asia and other destinations popular with the “digital nomad” crowd. It’s all very alluring; this lifestyle promises lower-cost living and an abundance of gyms, wellness activities, and spas. And year-round good weather and hot people.

But as soon as I left behind the social and financial pressures of LA, which come naturally when living in a big city, a new pressure set in. To find a home, a new base. To be settled. To have stability. I have since lived in Egypt, Bali, Mexico, and France, with trips to LA and Australia scattered in between.

I wasn’t consciously searching for a home, but it lingered in the back of my mind. I was a walking, breathing emanation of that “should I move here?” trend on social media. Being constantly on the move, never in one place long enough to truly breathe or set my things down and relax into a space. My nervous system was constantly on high alert. Always planning, booking flights, changing flights, strategizing, burning mental energy simply on the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The “search for home” became debilitating at times. I spiraled and put a deposit on an apartment that would have made no sense, and canceled the Wise transfer just in time. I oscillated between feeling liberated and free, booking one-way flights, extending in places just because I felt like it, and leaving countries for simple reasons, like it was raining just a bit too much.

There were times I wished I could go “home”, with no home to go to. There were times when I thought I had found “home” but just as I allowed myself to get comfortable, some wild, unplanned occurrence of events unfolded, which meant I had to pack up and move again. Looking back now, the universe did not want me to settle. I’m sure because it knows me too well.

I hit rock bottom a few times, severely around January of this year. Exhausted and at a loss, I returned to the only place I had known as home, Los Angeles. But when I returned, nothing felt quite right. I toured apartments. I stayed on friends’ couches. I dog-sat. I did anything but find a home in a place that could no longer hold me. I went to networking events, made new friends, and rejoined my multi-concept, high-end gym. But everything felt hollow. Each day felt like I was throwing myself at a wall.

I was trying to squeeze back into a reality that had expired. A game that I had already opted out of. But my nervous system was shot; I was so depleted and needed to settle somewhere, anywhere, and this was all I could manage at the time.

The only thing that kept me sane during the first half of this year was knowing that on July 3rd, I would get on a plane and return to Normandy, on the North-West tip of France, to live in a 12th-century château for the month, just as I had done the year before, with what were once last year’s strangers, and now this year’s old friends.

The moment I landed in Paris and stepped onto the tarmac, I let the sun warm my face and felt the life rush back to my body. I had taken so many steps towards building this new chapter, steps that were so hard they almost broke me (and others). A part of me felt guilty for leaving my old life behind, and I was terrified to let go of the only physical place I called home.

Because who would I be if I completely let go of the only home I’ve ever known?

As I drove up the allée, the tree-lined drive that signals you're entering the grounds of a château, I had an overwhelming sense of calm. After a year of moving from country to country, I was back in a place that had brought me so much peace, where I get to feel safe and let my guard down, even just for a bit.

How I ended up here the first time was a divine mistake. In January of 2025, I was sitting in Zest cafe in Ubud, Bali, planning out my year. Most months were loosely planned (this is not unusual for a multi-locational lifestyle), but I knew there was one experience so high up on my list that I wanted to secure. So I found the Chateau booking site, chose July for no particular reason, and returned to my life.

That day, I was sure I was booking a retreat at an all-women summer camp in France that I had seen on TikTok. But a month before I was due to arrive, we had an orientation Zoom call, and seeing the faces on the call, I realized it was NOT the all-women summer camp with horse riding and jam making I had seen, but it was a co-gendered, month-long co-living experience.

I hesitated. I am used to being in all-women spaces. Group trips for women. Women in Business. Female Entrepreneurs Society Club for Women in Female Pursuits. This was not that. I was terrified. What if I hated it? What if I felt uncomfortable living with a bunch of…men? A month was a long time, but it was too late to cancel, and knowing that I have trust in the unfolding of life, even when it doesn’t make sense, I packed my bags.

Last year, my time at the Château was memorable for so many reasons. It was the place where I started my Substack. It was where I fell in love with the French way of life and the joy of community living. And this year it was all of that and more. But it was different this time, because I knew it would be the very last time I would spend my summer here (the chateau is being sold).

I wrote the following while I was there last month, and even reading it now takes me back to that dreamy place.

I’ve been sitting with what it is about the Château that fills every inch of me.

Yes, it’s the fact that I wake up each morning in a 12th-century castle in France.

But it’s that Thursdays are our market days. We go to the cheese lady, stop by the bakery that yells at us in English, and the fruit stand, where I get to say “à la semaine prochaine!” (see you next week).

In the evenings we play board games, have family dinners, and take canoes to the riverside bar to watch the sunset and banter with the locals.

We have bonfires that turn into raves, with s’mores and French chocolatey biscuits that melt into the gooey marshmallows. Hershey’s could never. We sit around the bonfire, singing songs to the guitar, not caring that we don’t know all the words.

It’s everything 7-year-old me saw growing up watching American movies, where kids with 2 parents and a golden retriever would be dropped off at a summer camp for two weeks. I imagine this is what that felt like.

There’s a lot of just sitting around, making up games, and laughing. So much laughing. So many jokes and call-backs that fly around the Chateau walls for the coming weeks.

We have impromptu journaling sessions that turn into 2-hour discussions.

The walking crew meets at 7:50 am every morning, huddled by the espresso machine before we set out on a 6-mile walk to the river, where we stop to say hi to Prunelle the Westie and the Donkeys behind the gate.

Each day, there’s a deep topic of conversation on our walk, before we have breakfast outside on the lawn and go off to start our workdays.

Someone is doing a bakery run; there are pastries in the kitchen. A new pot of coffee in the dining room. Pomodoro sessions. Coworking and long lunch breaks.

A sprawling home surrounded by nature, filled with the most incredible, warm people who you feel safe enough to let your real self be seen by.

I close my eyes and take in the breeze, the birds, the swirl of leaves in the air. I create a memory of this happy place. I hear laughter in the distance. I smile. I feel calm, at peace. This is where I get to be still.

I am the version of me before I was told I had to be serious. That it wasn’t appropriate to laugh, or make jokes, or be silly. Good girls are quiet; they are helpful; they are anyone but themselves.

I realize this is the most at home I’ve ever felt in my life.

I no longer question where home is.

What I discovered this summer is that the spiritual baddie in the Bali cafe was right. Home really is here, gestures at chest. It’s not about a place, or a physical Chateau, but I now know home is:

1. A feeling you carry with you and can tap into at any moment

2. The people, community, the ones you feel the most relaxed around

3. Whatever you want it to be.

This year was different because my mind wasn’t occupied thinking about where I would go next, or if I would find a base, or if I would be okay. I know I will be okay, because I always have been okay.

Carrying this knowing with me allowed me to be fully present and sink into an experience with a community that I cherish so much.

And that’s what feels like home.

The TLDR of today: The Lions Gate Portal

I’m not going to share a bunch of info here - all you need to know is that today is powerful.

8 is the universal number for abundance, power, balance, and infinity. We’re in a time of energetic portal activation known to my ancestors, the Ancient Egyptians, as their galactic new year.

Think of it like a door opening up to your highest timeline.

What hasn’t felt possible for you up until now is now on the table.

It’s an invitation to dream BIGGER, connect with your TRUE desires (not what your ego tells you will make you happy), and live as the version of you who has it ALL.

It will look different for each of us depending on our birth data, so I’m sharing a prompt that will show you which area of your life is being affected, and also a little recap on how I spent today, as it might spark some inspiration for you.

How I kicked off my Lions Gate Portal

I’m based in Lyon right now, a city in France known as “Little Paris”. It looks like your average European town to the unassuming eye, but really, it’s quite special. It’s positioned at the meeting point of two major rivers: the Rhône and the Saône, which strangely reminds me of Le Nile. It’s known for its architecture and being the food capital of France, which is QUITE the statement, so imagine how good the food is?! I’ll have to get back to you on that, bc I love French grocery stores, the weekly markets, and the local boulangerie; they really do it for me.

I haven’t had much of a chance to explore yet, but so far, I can say the people are kind and very patient with my broken French (ahem... Paris). It’s “Le mois doux” right now, as my pilates instructor told me, which translates to “the soft month”. It’s common for the Lyonnaise to take vacation in other parts of Europe during August or flee to cooler parts of the country (it’s been in the 90’s/40c until 10pm).

I’ve been working extremely late hours, ignoring my Oura Ring clocking in at 10 hours of sleep debt. But this morning, despite my bleary eyes, I knew I had to be out in those STREETS. I’ve written about this many times before, but truly, this is when I’m at my happiest: exploring a new city or part of town, stacking my day with little things I love, with no agenda. It always ends up being the best kind of day! Life really is just about the moments… yeah, cheesy but true!

As an Aries rising, the Lions Gate Portal hit my 5th house of pleasure, creativity, romance, and self-expression. Without intending to, I realized as I was going about my day, somewhere between a flirty text and a new candle, that it was organically filled with little pleasurable moments. Moments that I DO NOT take for granted. Buzzing about my unplanned day, I started jotting everything down in my notes:

Now it’s your turn. Where in your life are you being called to claim your dream life?

Grab your birth time, birth date, and birth place. Use this prompt with Claude or ChatGPT:

“I was born on [date] at [time] in [city/country]. The total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026 is at Leo 20°. Where does this land in my natal chart? What house and area of my life is being activated? What does showing up for that look like? Not spiritually. What are actual things I could do this weekend that align with this activation?"

Once you know where this is hitting you, pick a few things that feel aligned with the future version of you who doesn’t care what people think, no longer plays small, refuses to accept crumbs, and asks for what they damn want. Who’s with me?!

Do those things this weekend and let the universe take care of the rest. It gets to be so easy it’s silly. But you have to activate it in the 3D first.

Love you, obv

Xx M

The last time this astrological event happened was August 18, 2014, so can you think back to what was circling for you at that time?

2014 was my first year living in Los Angeles, and if you were blessed enough to experience life in LA during that iconic time period (up until 2016), you know it was at its peak. LA was as good as it looks on those throwback Instagram-filter pics - it was an intoxicating dreamland of palm trees, drives to Malibu, rooftop pool sunsets, house music, sexy sushi spots, boba cafes, and endless nights of after-parties in the Hollywood hills alongside Paris Hilton.

Our iPhones were tiny, and our dreams were big. For an Aussie girl who won the literal green card lottery and found herself living right off San Vicente in Brentwood in a recently renovated studio apartment, you could say I was living my LA dream. But I digress - let’s get into what’s happening in the cosmos today.

So what is today all about, and why should we care?

The Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer lands today, on June 9, and I don’t want you to miss it. At the end of this post, I’ve included a prompt for you to discover exactly where this hits in your chart.

Astrologers are calling it the most fortunate conjunction of the year. A cosmic reset. Nearly a full year of expansion, magnetism, and ease flowing into one specific area of your life (this is what you’ll use the prompt for!).

This week, reflect on one thing you’ve been hesitant to charge for, stand for, or share openly in your business. What came up for you? That’s where your story lies. This is how you activate today’s energy.

Foundation > Strategy

Something I see a lot in founders I work with is a hesitancy to raise prices, ask for what you want, and to value your work or your product at a rate that feels almost scary.

You’re tired. Second-guessing every decision. Sending out pitches for work you don’t actually want because the money feels safer rather than owning your lane. Waiting for someone -- a partner, a mentor, a client, the algorithm -- to confirm that what you’re building is real and people will actually GAF.

But it’s not about the strategy this time; it’s about looking at the foundation.

And today’s Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer is directly addressing that.

Here’s the thing about luck

It doesn’t show up for the most prepared person in the room. It shows up for the person who decided before they had proof. The person who chose the direction before they had a plan. Who followed the signs that said this is right before a single piece of evidence in the 3D world confirmed it.

That’s Cancer energy. It doesn’t come with a pitch deck or a five-year plan. It comes as a knowing that lives somewhere in your body, that has been trying to get your attention for months.

Be honest. What foundation are you building from?

I say this with so much love! Because I’ve experienced it first-hand. If the foundation is approval, fear, or someone else’s definition of what being responsible or successful looks like -- today is the day to have a total reset and decide what your foundation is. You get to make the call. You are the boss.

The luck isn’t coming from the outside. It’s been here the whole time, just waiting for you to stop asking for permission.

That’s what June 9 actually feels like.

Want to know exactly where this lands in your chart?

Copy and paste this prompt into your LLM of choice (I’m a Claude girlie 💅):

Then reflect on what comes back. Not as a prediction. But as a mirror.

Because that’s what today is really about: not what the sky is doing, but what it’s reflecting to you about what you already know and haven’t said out loud yet.

You are so ready. You are over-ready. You’ve got this.

To your highest outcome always,

Xx Mya

But first - did you feel that? Something in the air shifted this morning. The Sagittarius Blue Full Moon reached its peak illumination, which is a rare, celestial event. It’s one of the most emotionally charged astronomical events of 2026. As a sag moon, I’m feeling it in my 9th house: the house of publishing and broadcasting, so it’s no surprise this issue is being sent out right in the energy of this moon. Being in alignment with the cosmos is really fun.

To find out how this full moon affects you, here’s a prompt you can plug into your LLM:

Birthday recap

I’m a birthday girl, which means I celebrate all month long, but this year I wasn’t feeling it. I’m at an age where it’s not a “special” birthday numerically, and it almost seems silly to gather everyone to celebrate a liminal age in a well, liminal era. I reluctantly obliged my sweet friends wanting to celebrate me and asked to keep it low-key… micro hangs only!

On the morning of my birthday, my wish was clear: to grab a matcha and croissant from my favorite bakery in LA and see where the day took us. These are my kind of days. The ones where you don’t have an itinerary, but you let yourself be inspired by your environment. These in-flow days always end up more magical than you could have planned them. Especially in a city like LA, there’s a brand activation, pop-up, or a new matcha spot at every corner. This day had an extra glimmer to it. The universe surprised and delighted me with messages and little gifts throughout the day.

We began the day at SERIES A COFFEE (yes, they are raising), and I started chatting with the woman I met in line. She tells me she met her boyfriend at 76 (!), and they have been dating for four years (!!!). My single friends and I, in our 30’s, were taken aback. You mean, we haven’t missed our chance at love? Apparently not.

She offered to buy my drink, which was such a sweet gift to start the day with. I opted for a matcha-cream-top-matcha and matcha date scone, which I’ve already returned twice for. Then we headed to the boulangerie, a 40-minute drive away, not unusual to drive across town for a pastry in LA. On the way, as we drove through Beverly Hills, we passed the Kabbalah Center. I have been contemplating wisdom from Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) for close to 2 years now. It’s this knowledge and spiritual practice I credit to helping me make sense of life and loss, through major transitions in the past year.

My very open and adoring friends know this and offered to pull over and park so we could go in. I resisted, “but I have Suki with me!”, “Are we even dressed appropriately?!” But they insisted, and we entered the Kabbalah center, a place I had engaged with from my own little world, through podcasts and courses and studying, and here I was standing in the physical emanation of this wisdom.

The TLDR; of my visit to the Kabbalah center is that it’s no coincidence I ended up there on my birthday. We were welcomed with warmth and invited to stay for Michael Berg’s lecture. I was gifted a tiny pocket version of the Zohar that I keep on my bedside table. I want to share the theme and essential message from this lecture, regardless of what your faith or belief system is, because it is such a good reminder and one I needed to hear:

When we appreciate and show gratitude for the smallest things (a sunny day, a note from a friend, our health, a small win, a refund), we signal that we are ready to receive and hold more. To be in desire and gratitude is the key. Momentum with appreciation. This is the abundance unlock.

We missed the bakery altogether, but it didn’t matter. Brimming with new wisdom, we headed to LA’s sexiest new shawarma spot (with the line around the block to match). We devoured our lunch, the founder sang happy birthday to me in Arabic, and then I spent my evening at a Shih Tzu meetup where over 200 people gathered to share in their love of Shih Tzu’s. I founded this micro community back in 2023. At our first one, we had 7 Shih Tzu’s, and last Saturday, I counted 75+. You never know what seeds you’re planting, so don’t get discouraged when starting out small.

Aside from the day of my birthday, which just so happened to contain all of the things that mean so much to me (matcha, spirituality, friends, Shih Tzu’s, my culture) I continued to be spoiled and celebrated by the most wonderful people I know. I’m very grateful. I felt a shift on the evening of my birthday and noticed that this liminal era has come to a close. I know who I am, I know what I want (and what I don’t want), and I’m not afraid to be seen (trying). Visibility is a theme I have been exploring in my business, and I’m excited to share more on this.

When it clicks that the only validation that matters is self-validation and you begin the process of identifying where emotions and patterns originate (hot tip: it’s childhood), you can make space for all the versions of you wanting to keep you safe. I expand on this in this issue, where I share five things I know for sure.

Five things I know for sure

At this age, there are beliefs I hold so strongly to my core, that you couldn’t convince me otherwise. I don’t often share intimate details of my life or the journey I’ve been on over the past few years, where every detail of my life, identity, and relationships has evolved. But after so many phoenix rising moments that I have survived moved through, I feel qualified to share five things I know for sure.

1. You will never regret choosing yourself.

Sometimes life will ask you to make a hard decision. That decision almost always includes choosing yourself. Two things can be true: you can choose yourself and it will feel like you’re splitting in two. Choosing yourself can result in hurting others, letting people down, and disappointing people you love and care about. The bottom line is that it’s either your comfort or theirs. So choose you every time and watch the universe and the people who truly matter, choose you back.

2. Action creates clarity

I spent a lot of time in the personal development world, and let me tell you: there’s a lot of waiting for clarity, waiting to feel ready, and waiting for things to be perfect before sharing them or yourself with the world. Launch before you’re ready. If you’re building, the only way you can improve or pivot is if your MVP exists in the world. Action creates clarity, not the other way around.

3. Curate your circle

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” and this could not be truer. If you’re not content with where you’re at in life, start auditing the people you spend the most time with, and your diagnosis will be clear. Are you surrounding yourself with people who stretch you, support you, and most importantly SEE you? Do you feel energized or drained after spending time around them? I can promise that you will never lose anyone who is meant to be in your life. It can be uncomfortable, but it’s always worth creating space to find your most aligned circle who you don’t feel like too much, or too ambitious around. You shouldn’t have to justify or explain yourself, ever. Either they get you, or they’re not your people. Move on.

4. External validation is a trap

Think about what you’re working towards right now. Is it a title? Financial goal? Material goal? Why do you want the things you want? If you are ticking boxes as a way of seeking praise or approval from your friends, family, or vanity metrics on social media, then you’ve already lost. The crux of external validation is that it feels so good, it’s like a drug. But it will never truly satisfy you, and success without fulfillment is failure. When we use external validation as a measuring tool in life, we’re constantly outsourcing our worth. It’s a losing game. The cure is self-validation and reminding yourself of your inherent self-worth at every stage of life.

5. Have certainty, even when it doesn’t make sense

I saved the best until last, because if you can master having certainty without logic, you’ll find true freedom. You never know what life is going to throw at you, but I can guarantee you’ll find yourself in situations you could never have planned for. You could shift directions and see your life change within an instant. My observation of myself and others is this deep desire to have all the answers before we let ourselves feel certain. We have a fictitious set of beliefs and a timeline that we’ve created in our minds to measure ourselves against. These are all acts of torture. If I look back on the last year, I realize I worried way more than I needed to, and cared far too much. What if, instead of having worry and anxiety for the future, we acted as if we knew everything was going to work out? See what you can create in that energy.

Share tellement cute with Mya Dalton

Things I’ve been loving

• This month, I attended a longevity for women event with the founder of Arrae supplements, Sif Haider. They asked the room who was taking creatine, and almost every woman in the room raised their hand. My current stack: magnesium, probiotics, and now, creatine. Simple!

• Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products. I met with a product marketing manager who worked on the profile LLM for Hinge, and she recommended this book. With AI, we’re building very cool things, but what’s the use if we don’t know how to take them to market?

• Making a comeback on IG. I realized how many connections I have around the world. Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing. So, be visible!

• Big Desk Energy the playlist on Spotify. It’s perfection in a playlist, to write or vibe code to.

• I’m quite literally obsessed with my DreamClient AI tool, which I built to help you find your ICP. Go test it out and let me know your thoughts!

• Chaga in my coffee. Adaptogen anything.

• This basic tank top I have in many colors and always get compliments on.

Marketing, Branding + Social hot takes

• The DWP 2 was a lackluster mess. I left the cinema feeling empty. I wish they sold through more brand integrations, because if more product placement meant a stronger storyline, I would’ve taken it. I did love this activation on Hollywood Blvd, though, felt very reality-breaking to take a copy of Runway home.

  

• Vulnerability as a performative strategy is ick. We can tell when you want views. You can’t fake authenticity, and it shows.

• I saw a TikTok about creators asking to be paid to attend events. That is part of the job. You are there to build relationships, so if you don’t understand this basic principle, maybe you’re in the wrong profession.

• FINALLY, follower count as a leading metric is dead. No one cares how many followers you have. The most brilliant people I know have hardly any. I know creators with 1 million+ followers who aren’t monetizing and aren’t particularly interesting.

• Newsflash: marketing girlies have had a rebrand. We are now known as Women in SPAM (social, PR, marketing, advertising). The term was coined this month, and it just highlights how brilliant the women in this industry are.

Don’t sleep on

• Learning and practicing a new language by immersing yourself in content, such as shows and podcasts. I’m flooding my psyche with French as I prepare for my trip.

• Travel insurance for your Euro summer and beyond: I love Faye. When I contracted bronchitis in CDMX from partying too hard, they reimbursed me for my medical expenses within days.

• Setting up your Claude with context files. Work smarter, not harder.

• Building your personal brand. LinkedIn is extremely basic, and you can build it with ease. It’s so cringe, I know. But if you want clients, opportunities, new connections… I’ll see you over there.

• Ordering your summer outfits from Australian designers. As Australia enters its winter season, you can find summer pieces on sale! Check out DISSH, VRG Girl, Nude Lucy, Kookai, ASTR the label.

• Spotify recently capped audiobook hours, even for premium users. BUT if you have a library card, you can download audiobooks from the Libby app, for free!

That’s all for this month’s tellement cute! This June, I’m looking forward to more LA adventures before I head to France for the summer. I’m reflecting on the year so far as we’re at the halfway point, and I can honestly say it feels like things are finally starting to shift in a positive direction. I don’t see it yet, but I feel it internally, and that’s all that matters.

I sincerely hope the second half of your 2026 is even more expansive than the first. You deserve it, and so so much more, friend.

From my heart to yours,

p.s if you find typos that’s because Tellement Cute is human-generated, always!

P.S. Let me know what you think of this issue! Comment, DM, it’s my favorite thing in the world to hear from readers! Thank you for supporting this little corner of the internet.

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If you don’t know how to answer this question, it’s likely because you’ve minimized that talent over time, thinking everyone else is also good at that thing, so it’s invisible to you. If even on a good day, you feel that everyone else has figured it out, and knows more than you, is more experienced than you - I promise you, you’re giving strangers on the internet far too much credit.

This isn’t about what you like doing, or what’s on your resume (please, my LI profile makes me cringe), but what you can unequivocally, even if it’s only to yourself, admit: “Oh yeah. I’m really good at that.”

Fitting out > fitting in

Yes, we know, the world is shifting. Maybe you’ve been impacted by it. We’re in the era of AI adoption, and mass layoffs and portfolio careers are on the rise. You can't afford not to be super clear on what your strengths are. Miss this, and you miss your moment to shine.

Here’s how I am interpreting this shift:

Old way: we mold ourselves to fit into roles and companies.

Now: we identify, define and articulate our gifts and find the right companies, people or projects to partner with.

Essentially, we are no longer fitting into structures, roles, and functions that were created for us in the industrial era. Now, we get to lead with our talents first. We find the right distribution channels for our work. No more masking. No more fitting in. We are in the era of fitting out.

You cannot go another year without being super clear on this. The world is a strange place right now. You set yourself up by having options, freedom, and choices. And that starts with knowing your value so clearly that no algorithm, no economic shift, no job market can take it from you.

We need your skills, talent, and POV

That 'jack of all trades, master of none' thing? If you're genuinely good at multiple things, why would you choose one and burn out? (Highly recommend looking into your human design)

I identified as one of these people and carried so much shame around it before I realized that I have mastered being good at multiple things, and doing all of them in a way that only I can, with my unique essence. If I’m multi-talented, why wouldn’t I want to pursue that? That's why so many similar businesses exist, and creators share the same content. There is room for everyone, because only you will resonate with your audience and have your unique POV.

If you asked me what I’m good at, it’s this: I see people deeply. I see the truth they’re avoiding. Then I craft a brand story that turns that into sales and community.

I write. I speak. I connect. I lead. I make predictions others miss and spot growth where it’s invisible. I’m a personality hire, aka I bring light to rooms. I know the origin story of the founders behind your favorite products and companies. Travel hacks. Growth hacks. And apparently, I’m funny (am I allowed to say that?).

It’s all the things that come naturally.

The things that energize me instead of draining me.

The point is, you have a version of this list too, you just might not have let yourself say it out loud yet.

A prompt I loved recently: if work didn’t exist, how would you categorize and articulate your value? If your skills weren’t technical. Maybe you’re really good at listening, or diagnosing problems, or you’re the friend that gets called when your friend is in a legal drama in a foreign country.

As Jeff Goins writes in The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do: "One way of knowing our gifting is when something that seems easy to us doesn't seem easy to others."

You won’t come to me because I know every marketing strategy. You'll come to me because it's… me. Because we connect. Because I see you, and the way I work resonates with you.

Like the time I taught a personal branding workshop intensive to 20+ female entrepreneurs, and as my slides were projected, I realized I could not see my speaker notes and had to wing it. I was also coming off a stomach flu and preparing for a cross-country move the next day. But from my years of improv “training”, industry experience, love for speaking and connecting, and genuine passion for women in business - I can do that shit with my eyes closed. And I did.

The world wants you to be confident

It’s not just about knowing, but it’s about having the confidence and conviction to own it. The world wants you to own your gifts. Your clients want to know that they are working with someone who considers themselves the best.

Would you hire a graphic designer who tells you they are "just okay" at graphic design? No. You're hiring the person who tells you you won't find a better designer for this project. I want the best. I want to work with the best. And I need you to know that you're the best.

But babe, you do know

The truth is, you do know. You’ve always known. It was likely evident when you were a child. But maybe your gifts have been shoved deep down and disregarded because you don’t know how to monetize them, or because it feels like just a hobby.

If you say, “I’m not good at anything,” you haven’t sat with yourself. You are still living for the approval, validation, and acceptance of others. You are letting the world tell you what skills and talents are worthy before you decide they are and own them. This act hinges your worth on the validation of others and it’s a lose-lose path.

The only thing that will give you clarity is momentum and action. Clarity comes after action, not before. Don’t fall into the “waiting for clarity” trap.

Go on an inner child journey. Ask the little version of you what they want to do. Maybe it’s play, write, dance, sing, paint, laugh. Find ways to do more of that in your current day.

Now, it’s your turn

Do this: Copy and paste this into ChatGPT and answer each question as honestly as you can. Don’t overthink it. Just reply with whatever comes to you first.

The last thing I will say on this, for now, is don’t dig too deep. It shouldn’t be that complicated to identify, and that’s also why some people struggle with this.

It's what comes naturally to you. What you think no one would pay you for. You're using it every day.

So go, find it, and share it with the world.

Love you sm!

You and me both.

How is it that we crave freedom and flexibility, full control of our schedules, yet have no control over our time?

I’m currently reading Sahil Bloom’s The 5 Types of Wealth (highly recommend reading, it gives you a whole new perspective on what it means to create wealth and abundance in our lives), and the first type is Time Wealth: the ability to control how you spend your time and who you spend it with. He calls it the most critical, non-renewable resource. And he’s right.

The dream of time freedom was sold to us hard. Quit your job, go remote, build your own thing, never have to answer to anyone again. Entrepreneurship and the digital nomad lifestyle became the ultimate status symbol, and the flex was freedom itself. So many of us chased it, built it, got it. But are we actually living what we fought so hard for?

Because here’s what nobody tells you: freedom without structure becomes the antithesis of itself.

Are you a victim of decision fatigue?

If you’ve created your own schedule yet you feel like you never get anything done, you find yourself wondering what you’ve actually accomplished all day, the creative energy just isn’t there when you sit down to work, you blink, and it’s 1pm, and somehow you’re already exhausted… you’ve been burning your mental energy on the wrong things.

In this economy, your mental energy, just like your attention, is $ currency $. Having options is cool until you have so many options that they become paralyzing, and the very act of making daily decisions drains the energy you could have directed toward your actual work.

Your morning thoughts alone might look like this:

Check my sleep score. Get up now or meditate in bed? Stretch or walk? Journal or read? Work out now or later? Which class? Breakfast at home or a cafe? Sweet or savory? Juice or coffee or both? What’s the weather? What should I wear? Should I wash my hair today? Where should I work from? What should I work on?

Exhausting just to read, right?

I thought structure was the enemy. Why go to all the effort of creating a life where I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, and then discipline myself back into a container? I wanted to flow through my days like a feminine energy-wielding sorceress, solely based on how I felt. No routine, no commitments, total flexibility.

I kept rolling tasks to the next day. Things that deserved my energy weren’t getting done. Time was passing. Life felt stagnant. I couldn’t tell you how I was spending my day.

And then I read this:

*Follow your plan, not your mood.*

That was it for me.

Structure is not the opposite of freedom. Structure is what makes freedom feel like freedom. Discipline sounds restrictive until you realize it’s just a decision you made once, so you don’t have to keep making it. Boring is the move. The most productive people aren’t winging it every morning; they’re following a plan they already made so their brain can focus on what actually matters. Less ambiguity, less mental noise, more output. Boring is what gets shit done.

Here’s how to reclaim your energy:

Your Decision Fatigue Detox

Food: Plan your meals at the start of the week. Keep ingredients ready to assemble so you don’t have to cook every day. Hot and busy girls don’t have time for all of that. Have the same breakfast most days (I make a batch of chia pudding, add fruit, yoghurt, protein, and I’m done), a simple lunch rotation (prep 2 types of protein and have salad ingredients ready to go), and have dinner be something that can be heated up.

If it fits your finances, spring for a meal delivery service. I had this last year, and it was a game-changer to not have to think about food at all during the week. We’re not trying to do everything alone and all at once anymore.

Movement: Plan and schedule your workouts at the start of every week. Know what your target areas are and build from there (i.e 3 x strength training, 2 x pilates/yoga, 10K steps per day)., If you mostly take workout classes, add them as a recurring event in your calendar, even if you haven’t booked them yet, this will serve as a reminder.

Work: If you work remotely, choose 2 locations (cowork or cafe) and alternate between them. One thing that helps me is pairing a task with a location. I know on Monday I’m going to be in the coworking space at my wellness club from 11am-2pm, and while I’m there, I will draft and edit a Substack post (which is exactly what I am doing right now!)

Getting dressed: Have you seen a stylist’s pull rack? Idk what the real name for it is, but it’s a fun concept that you can adopt easily. Check your schedule and, based on that, pull from your closet as you plan your outfits for the week. I start with a hanger, add a base outfit (bottom and a top), and then hang accessories like a belt, sweater, earrings, bag, etc.

Bonus points if you have a capsule wardrobe and “uniform” as your go-to each day.

Decisions (in general):

I’ll say this loud and clear for my solopreneurs in the back: TRUST YOURSELF.

Half the fatigue comes from second-guessing choices you’re more than capable of making. Make the call, commit, and don’t look back.
Limit what you’re deciding before noon and watch what happens to the rest of your day.

There’s a reason why Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck every day. Why Anna Wintour plays tennis at 5:45 am every single morning without exception. Jennifer Aniston ate the same salad for lunch almost every day on set. None of them were short on options. They were just protective of where their energy actually went.

You didn’t create a life of freedom so you could spend your mornings searching for cafes that are dog-friendly, have wifi, and offer a specific variety of matcha.

We have to start being the time operator of our lives, and efficiently directing our mental energy is the start.

BTW - if your content isn’t converting and you can’t figure out why, I built a free AI tool that tells you exactly who your dream client is, so you can refine your messaging and reach your target audience. Get it here: www.thedaltonsuite.com/dreamclientai

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The global shift is already happening. And it’s not slowing down. So if you’re feeling like the old way just isn’t working, you’re not alone. But we’re not at the height of it yet. Old structures are burning down. And the people like you and me, who find themselves in this in-between, feeling extremely confused, feeling like everything has shifted, you’re the ones who are meant to lead this next era.

That’s why it feels stronger for you than most. That’s why the old way isn’t working. Because now, it’s almost as if you don’t have a choice. You’re being forced into a role that feels new or unsafe. But the old options and fall back plans no longer exist. So you find yourself here, in the in-between.

Now, I won’t lie. It’s going to be a challenge. But I’m absolutely here for it. Because we’re not in the industrial age anymore. The five-day week, the 9-to-5, it’s all a construct. Schools and educational systems were designed to breed worker bees. And who actually wants to live like that?

I’ve been experiencing this firsthand. I moved back to LA almost three months ago and immediately thought: okay, I’ll do what I need to do. The system rewards people who fall in line, get a job, and show consistent income. So I’ll do that. I’ll get a job, get my place, do it all.

So I started interviewing. Sending out my resume. Applying for hundreds of jobs. I got two interviews. I spent weeks anticipating them, filling out applications, pouring time and energy into these roles, and then neither of them went anywhere.

And it made me think back to two years ago when I was in the same position. And I’m a big believer that if something’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If it’s not happening, it’s because there’s a bigger purpose for you. A higher reason why it’s not happening.

In my case, it was because there was something greater out there for me. And I realized that getting a job was a pattern of mine - it was a way for me to not have to actively pursue the work I’m meant to do and show up in the way that I’m actually designed to show up in the world.

Which is terrifying, because it’s so uncomfortable for me to show up this way. I have hidden behind companies and people and brands, even in my marriage, always having a buffer between me and the world. It’s a mechanism of protection. Something I did to keep myself safe.

But I did it so much, to such a detriment, that I’m actively stopping myself from living the life that I want to live. Because I’ve kept myself so hidden and protected myself so much that I’ve protected myself from the good things, too.

This is our life.

So we’re here to create something new. To usher in a new way. And now is the time.

If this resonated, I’m building something for exactly this moment.

You’ll want to be first. Get on the list.

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We love to create narratives about pretty people we see on the internet. We use their lives as a measuring tool against our own. We trick ourselves into believing that These People on the Internet hold the metaphorical key to success. That they’ve cracked the code. That they somehow know something the rest of us don’t.

We want to believe that death doesn’t just happen to these people.

After hearing of her passing, I pulled up her Instagram profile. I didn’t follow her; I hadn’t in years, but I had spent hours watching a series on her YouTube channel where she went ‘All In’ - allowing herself to eat whatever she wanted after being rigorous with diet, in an attempt to reset her hunger cues. Watching this tiny, perfect woman consume calorie-laden foods sans guilt or restriction, increasing her body size by choice, fearless in the eyes of the societal female beauty standard, satisfied a hunger of my own that I couldn’t name.

But what I could name was this: I watched her, and others in her lane for years, perhaps, because part of me didn’t trust that my own life was worth watching. Or trust that my body knew how to function on its own. I pedestalled the lives of strangers on their journeys, losing sight of the journey that lay in front of me. The more I admired the lives of others, the more I abandoned my own, letting my attention be harvested in the process.

It takes something as finite as death to remind us of this. Death holds a mirror up to us. It makes us stop in our tracks and audit our lives, our behaviours, our relationships, and demand to know what we’re devoting our energy to. We ask if we’re living enough, authentically. Are we breathing life in to our desires? Or are we on the hamster wheel of consuming and numbing and soothing. Anything to not have to sit with the pain of a reality that reflects a mild approach to life.

In memory of her “All In” series… I wonder, what would it look like to go all in on your life, exactly as it is today? All we have is this moment right now. What if we opted in to presence, instead of trying to reach a state that doesn’t exist?

Wake up, babe. Your life is happening and you’re missing it. You’re giving all your attention away, forgetting what a privilege it is to be you, in this body, at this time.

Go feel what it truly feels like to be you. Get in your body and out of your head. Pull the attention and focus back to your own life.

Each one of us has a role to play. And right now, with the way the stars are aligning - congrats - you just got cast for a new role. We’re very much in the era of Pluto in Aquarius, and with Saturn entering Aries, this energy translates to the parts of you that you once felt were “too much” or “too vague”, are now your money 🤑 maker.

The era of proving your worth is over.

The era of getting paid for your POV has begun.

When you start to feel like you have nothing to offer

What you really mean is: I haven’t yet identified my value and what makes me - me. Sometimes, in brief moments while you’re working, creating, and in conversation with others, you see your brilliance reflected to you.

You feel a spark of excitement.

You think to yourself: I am so in my element right now, if only I could get paid to do this.

Then, before you know it, a voice that is not your own but takes up space in your head (rent-free, mind you) tries its hardest to convince you that it’s not possible for someone like you. When that voice appears, even just for a few seconds, you start to believe it. But you mustn’t believe it. And just like your situationship that you should have called time of death on months ago, you should not let it linger.

You must challenge this voice, because you might accidentally start to believe it. This voice isn’t bad - it wants to protect you. It likely served you at one point. But we don’t need to be protected from our authenticity.

If you still don’t think this is available to you, I’ll be very direct in what I’m about to say as to why you haven’t cracked this:

1. You’re operating inside a system that.wasn’t.built.for.you. The you that is creative, multi-layered, and beautifully complex. It’s not you, it’s them (in this case).

2. You don't have real-life human evidence of others who are doing this successfully. We call these people expanders, and the best thing you can do for yourself is expose yourself to these expanders. Maybe you share some traits, but then you chalk it down to them having something you don’t. Believing that it’s available to them but not to me.

3. You’ve been in the wrong room! Something I learnt a few years ago is that if you start to doubt your worth, ability, direction, or value, the chances are that you’ve taken a seat at a table you probably don’t even want to be at.

I believe so strongly in what I’m sharing here that I am sure I’ve lost friends over it. Because no one wants to be told that they already possess everything they need to create the life they want. No one wants to believe it’s only ourselves holding us back. That the key was in our pocket the whole time.

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I’m big on monetizing the silly little things we love doing.

I’m obsessed with not having to contort yourself to fit a mold or a role. That is old thinking. I’m big on owning it, believing (in yourself, so cliché, but that’s over 50% of it), and offering it to the world.

Something I remind myself of often is not to reach the end of your life and leave experiences on the table. Money on the table. Things that could have been. It’s scary, but it’s real. Do not leave this earth with unactualized potential. You don't want to reach heaven and be shown a montage of what you could have been. F that.

If I had to leave you with one last piece of advice

Not solely in the context of believing in what you have to offer, but for life in general, it’s to accept and surrender.

Release the old rules you once had to play by. Write a new set of rules. Choose to see things differently, and the things you see will change (I can’t take credit for this one, but it’s so good, isn’t it?).

It’s not that you don’t have anything to offer, it’s that:

1. You are so close to it, you don’t see how special your gifts are

2. You genuinely forget, and it’s only when someone reminds you that you remember how valuable and unique what you have to offer is

3. You don’t know how to speak about what you do, i.e your personal elevator pitch

4. You haven’t figured out how to package up what you offer

5. At your core, you don’t believe it’s possible. I hate this one because you can have everything else going for you, and this one subconscious belief will block everything.

Final notes from Moi

Create a new guidebook for who you are today and how you operate moving forward. Let these new rules guide you in every situation where your worth is on the line.

We’ll only ever be given what we are a match for and what we allow in.

As always, I love reading your comments and hearing how this publication resonates with you, so drop me a little note below if you enjoyed this. And if you have someone in your life who you feel would benefit from a little mya, and a lot of tellement cute, please share this post with them <3

I love you tellement, obviously!!!

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The collective year and your personal year. The collective year is based on what the world is experiencing on a macro scale, and the personal year is based on your birthdate and current numerology cycle.

In 2025, the collective was in a 9 year. The 9 year is the end of a cycle, think of it as the season finale. You can expect endings of physical things, energetic ties, patterns, jobs, structures, and relationships.

It’s like everything is winding down and being wrapped up.

If your personal year is aligned with the collective year, which in 2026 is a 1 year, the energy you’ll feel from that year will be twice as intense. Don’t know what personal year you’re in? Use this prompt for ChatGPT: Here is my birthdate mm/dd/yyyy, in numerology, what personal year am I in?

I’m one year ahead of the collective (so Aries of me), having experienced a 1 year last year in 2025, so I wanted to share my experience, and give you a heads up on what is in store for you.

Here’s what you can expect in a 1 year

My experience of the 1 year is that anything I didn’t consciously release, shift, or let go of (that I probably should have) in the 9 year before, I was absolutely forced to do so in the 1 year.

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The endings in the 9 year made sense, I grew out of relationships and locations. I made conscious changes in my life, and although some endings were painful, it all seemed to align with the direction I was headed.

The 1 year was also packed with endings, but in an aggressive sense - the aspects of my life (relationships, living situations, etc.) that I thought were in alignment, turned out not to be. They were stripped away so intensely, and with no explanation at all. A relationship ended abruptly. I fell out with a family member. I settled into a new home, and as soon as I started to feel comfortable, BAM, I had to move again.

This chain of abrupt blow-up type endings led me to where I am now, and I feel very content and happy, so it was all for a reason; it just feels so intense and inexplicable as it is happening.

What did you not let go of last year?

Whatever you know you should have released in 2025, but you didn’t, because you’re terrified. You keep going back and forth on your decision. You don’t want to feel what you would feel without that identity piece. Well, in the 1 year (this year), if it’s not aligned, it will get stripped away.

But you’ll be okay, it will strengthen you, realign you, and everything will make sense, eventually. You can’t escape it, but maybe you can trick the universe a little bit.

Here’s what I mean by that: If you know there’s something you should have closed the door on last year, and you haven’t, now is the time to do it.

Let it go with love.

Or the 1 year will force you to let it go by making the situation so uncomfortable, so painfully unbearable, you’ll have no other choice than to end it, rage quit, or go no contact.

My advice, from a year 1 graduate:

Go with the flow. I know, I know - it’s cliché, but truly. Trust. Spend less time weighing up your perceived options and justifying the things that you know have run their course.

Spend more time living in the present, taking it one day at a time. Because that’s all we have anyway. Be open to what wants to come through. See the space you’re creating as an opportunity for higher alignment. As an opportunity for more.

There’s one thing we can be sure of, and that’s that everything always works out. It just does! That is the order of the universe! We forget it sometimes.

I’m in a 2 year. The last time I was in a 2 year was 2017, the year I adopted my first Shih-Tzu, Lola (may god rest her soul), and I started dating my first ex-husband. While I don’t foresee any of that happening in this round, it certainly does feel like seeds are being planted for the next cycle.

Anywayyyy, let me know what personal numerology cycle you’re currently in:

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Thank you for reading Tellement Cute! In case no one told you today, you’re so cute for reading this, and I love you xx

Tellement Cute is a Certified Human-Generated™️ Publication (Not AI)

Life update

It’s a sunny mid-week morning in January, and I’m standing at the counter of a very CDMX-esque cafe, perusing the printed sepia menu. My eyes drift toward the milk alternatives as I lean over the glass display case of assorted croissants and ask, “How is your chickpea milk?” the barista (cute) tells me “it’s pretty dope actually”, (he was right), I carry my coffee to the table, sliding past two men in camo hats having a conversation, one of them saying he "yearns…”. I take a seat, and minutes later, a girlie pop greets her friend at the table next to me, with “hey, omg sooo sorry I’m late, one of my TikToks is going viral right now, it’s absolutely insane…”.

Oh, I am SO back.

I’m so back in LA. And it has the same appeal it had in 2016. Lively, inspiring, and just so… LA.

After 15 months of slow travel - Eat, Pray, Love - Mya’s Version, I’m home in the city of angels, where the wifi is fast, the coffee is strong, and I’m indulging in the longest, hottest showers of my life. I’m making up for lost time with my beloved Shih-Tzu, Suki, my girl communities, grocery stores, cafes, walking trails, the winter wardrobe I missed, and relishing in not having to use a VPN.

I’m falling in love with Los Angeles all over again, spending this past weekend in Santa Monica walking miles on palm-tree-lined streets with sprawling, manicured lawns and dreamy Spanish-style homes, with pink sunsets as the backdrop. My soft landing reminds me just how lucky I am (literally lucky - I won manifested the green card lottery in 2012) to live here, as a U.S citizen.

She’s not perfect by any means. But she feels expansive enough to hold me, my desires, and the new chapter I’m writing, so for now, LA is home.

I spent the holidays in Dubai reuniting with old friends, making new ones, bopping around beach clubs, and clocking 20K daily steps in mega malls and city streets. Dubai wins the award for the Cleanest Downtown District in the entire world. If you haven’t been to Dubai, let me say this: it’s opulent beyond belief, convenient, and dystopian. I have never felt so poor (coming from Bali) and so rich at the same time. My time in Dubai made me realize three things:

1. How rapidly cities change, so enjoy them for what they are in the moment, because you’ll never get to experience them in that time period again.

2. Living island life in Bali made me miss simple things, like getting ready to go out and not having your makeup slide off your face the moment you step outside, listening to a podcast while driving a car, same-day deliveries, doing my own laundry, and running errands on foot.

3. It reminded me how much I love being in a big city. And that reminded me I had a big city of my own, filled with people I love, and perhaps it was time to return.

So I stashed my carry-on with bars of the OG Viral Dubai Chocolate, gave Dubai a big metaphorical kiss goodbye, took a car to the airport, boarded a plane, transited through Heathrow (mistake), boarded another plane, took a shuttle bus with my 3 suitcases to a rental car, and drove to my final destination. It was a 26-hour journey door-to-door, and I would do it all over again.

So with that, welcome to the January newsletter, live from LA.

I hope you find it tellement cute.

All my love,

Mya

Is 2026 your Artist’s Way year?

At dinner the other night, my beautiful and talented writer friend, and avid reader of TC, Adrienne, (hi!!!) shared how she is three days in to her artist’s way journey.

Coincidentally, the Artist’s Way had also been on my mind. I was familiar with the morning pages concept and had dipped in and out of this practice at different periods in my life. I had been feeling the call to embark on a writing practice, and what better time than the start of a new year to commit to something.

The Artist’s Way is an invitation to create again, especially if you feel blocked, burnt out, or disconnected from yourself.

It’s not about being “an artist” in the formal sense. It’s about clearing out the mental noise, self-doubt, and fear that build up when you’ve been in survival mode or doing what you think you should do. The book takes you through a 12-week process that brings you back to your own voice.

The two main practices are Morning Pages, three pages of unfiltered writing each morning, and Artist Dates, solo time where you follow curiosity without needing it to be productive or impressive. It’s not about getting it right; it’s about remembering how to listen to yourself again.

It’s why people, like singer and rapper Doechii credit their success to this process. It shows you where you’ve been blocking yourself, without realizing it. It helps you rebuild trust with your intuition, your creativity, and the part of you that already knows what you want.

If you’re feeling creatively stagnant, take this as your sign to embark on your artist’s way journey. If you want to be accountability buddies, let me know!

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Founder Story

Welcome to the first edition of Founder Story, a Tellement Cute feature that spotlights founder-led brands and the story behind them.

I love it when products are created unintentionally. Sarah Hamouda, the British-Egyptian founder behind the viral Dubai Chocolate craze, wasn’t trying to start a global food trend. She was pregnant and had a specific craving that led to the creation of Dubai Chocolate.

“The concept for FIX Dessert Chocolatier was born from a deeply personal moment — a pregnancy craving. I found myself looking for something truly indulgent, unlike anything available in stores,” she told Vogue Arabia.

The story

In 2021, Sarah began experimenting in her kitchen, inspired by Middle Eastern flavors that she grew up with: pistachio, tahini, and kadayif, used in Middle Eastern desserts like knafeh.

In late 2023, a TikTok video showed a creator sitting in her car, biting into a FIX bar. Pistachio filling oozed out. The visual did the selling.

What followed was not a steady scale; it was a surge. Orders flooded in faster than the brand could produce. People traveled to Dubai just to try the original. Resellers listed bars at markups. Supermarkets and luxury brands across Europe, the US, and Asia rushed to release their own “Dubai chocolate” versions (there are 1000’s of imitations).

Dubai chocolate did not go viral because it was aesthetic.

It went viral because it was sensory.

• It sounded good when it snapped.

• It looked indulgent when it broke.

• It tasted familiar and surprising at the same time.

And culturally, it landed at the right moment. Dubai, a city built on luxury and excess, became the perfect setting.

Sarah did not dilute the recipe to make the product more “global”. She trusted that pistachio, tahini, and knafeh could travel without needing to be adapted to Western markets, and she was right.

The numbers

• Within the first quarter of 2025, Dubai Chocolate drove more than $22 million in confectionery sales at Dubai Duty Free alone, moving over 1.2 million bars in three months.

• At peak virality, Fix saw 30K orders in one hour, a surge that exposed the gap between demand and artisanal production.

• Though exact company revenue figures aren’t published, the trend’s impact on global, retail, and airport duty-free channels shows how a product born from one pregnant woman’s craving became a multi-million-dollar market catalyst.

What makes it Tellement Cute

Sarah’s founder story is about:

• trusting your taste

• letting personal history inform product

• taking one small step and allowing the next step to reveal itself

She didn’t brand herself as a visionary; she made something she wanted to eat. And it turns out the rest of the world wanted to eat it too.

Founder Advice

“If I could share anything with someone starting their own journey, it would be to believe in what you’re creating, even before the world understands it.”

What I Read

Sky Daddy by Kate Folk

This. was. a. wild. read.

It’s about a woman who has a sexual attraction to planes (??!??!), I finished it in one sitting, whilst ON a plane. I don’t recommend doing that for reasons you’ll discover in the first few pages of this book. Sky Daddy’s concept is bizarre and an example of no idea being too out-there for mainstream media.

If this got published, so can literally any idea you have.

I genuinely enjoyed this strange book. I won’t elaborate. 4 stars.

Podcasts That Will Change the Way You Think

Here are some episodes I have listened to more than once this year:

What’s Next

I’ll be based in LA until the summer. So until then, I am calling in grounding. Routine. Peace. After all that 2025 had in store for me, I am hoping 2026 is a total snoozefest. I want simplicity. My nervous system craves predictability.

I am focused on this publication, putting out new offers to my client base, and getting uninterrupted sleep. If I can excel at just one of these, I’ll be happy.

I hope you enjoyed the January Issue of Tellement Cute.

It’s a special feeling to create a new chapter in an old city. If you’re feeling like you’ve outgrown your physical home, perhaps you need a little break to give you a perspective shift. Something I’ve learned after spending months traveling is that there is no perfect place. It’s about what matters to you the most (proximity to loved ones/walkability/affordability/opportunity for expansion).

It’s all perception with a sprinkle of gratitude. You get to decide, always.

That’s all for this month, cuties!

Bisous,
Mya

P.S. I LOVE IT when you tell me what you liked in the newsletter! Hit reply and say hi. I’d love to hear from you.

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We move through life collecting achievements, jobs, people, and belongings that make us feel secure. That helps us build an identity that feels worthy of validation. If who we “are” is obvious from the outside looking in, we don’t have to look beneath the surface. We don’t even have time to question it.

Our daily lives are made up of social plans, countdowns to vacations, to-do lists, coffee catch-ups, and other people’s weddings. We distract ourselves enough that we don’t have to feel or face what terrifies us.

We’ll do almost anything but be present.

What would it take for you to be present in your current reality, exactly as it is right now? To stop waiting to “arrive”. To stop focusing on what’s missing. Or on how your current reality doesn’t match your expectations of how things “should” be.

Or the cliché, “I’ll be happy when…”.

We find ourselves gripping onto the identities we’ve created because we’ve devoted our lives to them. We’ve worked hard to adorn our avatars with all these shiny things. They make us feel like we have a purpose. That all of this means something.

But our souls know that nothing is forever.

This is the cycle of life. You will never be this version of you again.

I recently said goodbye to a beautiful new friend as I left for the airport.

Having been through a similar journey, and sensing I could use a little “pep talk” (we later laughed about me calling it that), she offered a new perspective on a common expression.

When she was going through one of the most challenging periods of her life, during a difficult transition with seemingly no end in sight, one of her mentors reminded her of the layers of the expression “this too shall pass.”

I was familiar with this expression in challenging times. Reciting it in my head to remind me that whatever I was going through would eventually end.

But I’d never thought about it in the context of the good times.

The good things pass too.

So this too shall pass, because it all passes, the good, the bad, and the in-between. Your current life phase, this version of you, this specific period in time, is fleeting.

Knowing that even the good moments end, what a blessing it is that we get to have this current timeline at all.

This could be the last time at this stage of our lives, in this location.

Maybe our bank accounts don’t look like we want them to. Maybe we don’t live in our dream homes yet. Maybe we haven’t met our future partners.

We forget to take stock of everything we have. The experiences that shape us.

How lucky are we that we get to soak up this life and be present in it, knowing that one day it will all change, while still enjoying things just as they are right now?

You could meet your person tomorrow.

You could land a career opportunity that takes you across the world.

Something wild you could never plan for could happen, because that’s the whole point.

And one day, we’ll talk about the days we had. We’ll wish for this timeline back. Just as we are. In these bodies. At this age. In this current reality.

So enjoy it. Soak it up. Be present.

Because it will pass.

The good things too.

2026 certainly feels… like something. I’m not going to pretend that we all don’t collectively agree the official New Year doesn’t start until March. I’m seeing a lot around what we’re all leaving behind in 2025, and what we’re taking into 2026, and it inspired me to share this.

If you have a hard time knowing when the right time to let go of an item is, I’m right there with you. My mind wants to take me in so many directions as I deliberate over the fate of my things. It was my most recent travel experience that confirmed the universe will literally force you to let go when it’s time, to make space for what wants to make its way into your life.

Moving out of home the same day you leave for an open-ended international trip is NOT for the weak (or sane?). Please, don’t ask me how or why I do this, but it’s an active choice I’ve made more than once. Why any semi-regulated person would choose to stack one of life’s top 5 stressors on a big day of travel is beyond me.

It’s where you decide that yes, this is the perfect time to clear out your whole life, sifting through everything you own, across every room of the house, junk drawer, and cupboards included, sorting everything into three (ideal) but 4 (realistic) piles:

1. Pack. It reflects the current version of me, and it’s coming with me to X country. Easy decision.

2. Store. This is going to storage because I might need it one day. It’s purposeful enough not to toss, but not sentimental to come wherever I'm going.

3. Trash/Donate. It’s served its purpose, I thank it with gratitude, and then it’s out of my life for good. Bon voyage to us both, in this case.

4. I’m going to leave this in the pile by the door because it ties me to my old life, and makes me feel an emotion I don’t have the capcity to unpack right now, and therefore, I can’t let go of it, but only once my airport transfer is IN my driveway, will I stuff it into my suitcase. Fully knowing that this means I will be paying for excess baggage, even after all these years, I still haven’t learned to pack to the degree of travel I’ve taken. And yes, I do use a luggage scale, but forgot to pack it after using it last time. Yeah haha. What a joke.

How is it that the more I travel, the worse I am at it? I should be an expert-level packer! But wait, no, I’m a nostalgic princess who doesn’t feel safe unless I cart my treasures around the world, because who even am I if I miss out on the chance to wear the fur-lined leather trench I bought in Milan over a year ago, and still have not been in a cold enough climate to wear.

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Anyway, it’s December 21, and I’m standing in the Emirates check-in line in Bali, tuning myself to a frequency of everything always working out for me while I start to feel a bit hot (heat-wise) in my curated airport fit, knowing that these heavy-ass suitcases are going to be well over the 25kg limit - just how much over? It’s anyone’s guess until I hoist them up on the luggage scale and see the number flash.

I’m an airport darling. When I approach check-in counters, I’m always on my BEST behavior. I want the agent to fall IN love with me. I want them to see I’m dressed well and I am a nice person that they want to help. It’s all strategy and part power, as they hold the keys. My flight attendant days taught me that the guest experience starts the moment you step in to the airport, not on to the plane itself.

So what is an airport darling? Well, I always greet the agent by name, in this case “Hi, Diana,” and give them my best smile 😁 hehe. I hand them my passport, already open to the picture page (this detail is crucial), because I want to make their job easy. BONUS POINTS if I greet them in their local language, my ROI on my Bahasa tutoring, peaking.

Diana weighs my bags. They total a hefty 47kgs. My check-in bag (for base-fare economy, mind you) was 13 kg alone. I realize I hadn’t let go of everything I needed to. The universe wanted me to shed even more.

Now we’re in this together; me and Diana against the Emirates Airline bag policy. She is for the people, I can tell. Two pros in our respective fields, running the numbers: “if you move 5 kg from here over to here, and then get this one down to 25kg, you won’t have to take out a small loan…”. I’m stressed, but semi-relieved. I’m in good hands, we’re a team, me and Diana.

I don’t actually mind paying for excess baggage. Truly. I will never argue or cause a scene, but my intention in these scenarios is to achieve the best possible outcome. Anything around the $150 mark, fine. Above $250 has me wincing because the chance that the overweight items are valued at more than that is slim. It’s bad business at that point.

I unzip my bags while they’re still on the scale itself; this allowance from Diana alone tells me she’s on my side, because she didn’t banish me to the dead zone to embarrassingly un-pack and re-pack in front of everyone I’d be spending the next 9 hours with, splaying the contents of my bags across the filthy check in floor.

Toiletries, (such an unsexy term) were first to go: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face cleanser, body oil, and whatever else was in that bag. I passed it over the counter to Diana and watched her immediately toss it into the bin behind her. We weighed the bags again. It felt like a game at this point.

Next to go, clothes. A set of brown Amazon pajamas I bought for my Egypt trip the year prior. A pair of firkenstocks boston clogs from the Carrefour in Normandy I wore to schlep up and down the Chateau stairs. Then, more random things. The specifics of which escapes me; which should tell you how much I needed these things in my life.

Not-so ironically, all the things I was forced to throw away at the check-in counter were items I questioned during my move and pack process, but this time I was being forced to let them go. It was no longer up to me. I went with it. It felt exhilarating, clearing out against the clock.

We got the accumulative weight down to a reasonable amount meaning my fees were ~ $125, fine. Because I made space, when I landed in Dubai, I purchased all new products, some that I’d had my eye on (L’occitane body wash, Caudalie Face Cleanser, Biotherm Moisturizer, Serum). My skin has been glowing since I’ve been here.

For my Christmas gift to myself, I bought a gorgeous set of 100% silk pajamas in a rich chocolate brown color from Intimissimi. A massive up-level from my old, piling Amazon pajamas that didn’t make it on the plane.

It’s true: the universe has a way of making things so uncomfortable that you’re forced to let go. It happens with things, people, and situations. It’s noticeably different from the good kind of discomfort that stretches you.

I’d been in Dubai for just over 2 weeks when I was reminded of the airport scenario. I ended up bringing a bag I had received 2 or 3 Christmases ago from someone who is no longer in my life. The first day here, an adorable mini poodle decided to pee all down the side of it. I tried to clean it. I spritzed it with fine fragrances. I aired it outside. I took it on one outing with me before I realized… wtf, WHY am I toting this Pee Bag around?!!!! The universe wants me to let go so bad, and I kept clinging on to it, even after it had been soiled.

There is a good ending here, because this incident sent me on a mission to acquire a new bag made of good quality materials, that can hold my laptop, aligns with my true autumn color palette, and fits my budget. Well, today I found her; she was the last one in the store and was on sale.

As I arrived home, my neighbor was in the hall giving an old suitcase of hers to one of the maintenance workers, and I saw my opportunity, “Wait!” I said, and I rushed inside to get the bag. “It needs a wash…” I said as I handed it over. But at least it wasn’t going in the trash.

All this to say…. let it go. Release it to the universe.

Let it go so you can make room for new. Let go of what is no longer lighting you up. Let it go so someone else can love it in a way that you’re no longer able to.

Our things carry energy. Some of it is old, some of it is tied to people who are no longer in our lives. Trade the old pilling, shapeless Amazon PJ set for the sexy silk intimissimi set. The clunky pee-soaked bag for the gorgeous new rich leather one.

The universe wants you to upgrade, and maybe you’re missing all the signs, because you’re holding on so tightly. But we know damn well that nothing new can make its way to you if you’re not making space for it.

So in the spirit of this new year, why not start the clearing now so when the real (wink) new year comes, you’re more than ready, after creating the space for all that you’re calling in?

There’s no better time.

Hint: If you’re on the fence about it… there’s your answer.

Thank you for being here with me in 2026. I’m honored, truly.

Xx Mya

P.S if you read this far, I want to gift you a voice note coaching you on something you’re having trouble letting go of. But be warned! This year I’m feeling feisty, my Aries fire is lit - so I will serve you the truth, wrapped in a hug of course. Okay, love you, bye!

P.P.S No AI whatsoever was used in the creation of this post, so if there are typo’s or errors, that’s why! I’ve discovered that when I use AI to edit my writing, it disrupts my voice, tone and flow. I might change my view on this in the future, but this is where I’m at currently.

Hey cutie,

If you’re reading this, congrats, because you survived 2025.

As I look back on the past couple of months, I realize that in a purely physical, 3D-world sense, I’m still in the same place I was at the beginning of November. Nothing dramatic changed on the surface. But internally, EVERYTHING has shifted.

It made me think about how we measure transformation by what we can see: a new home, relationship status, business pivot, or physical change. Those shifts are easy to validate because they are visible. They give us proof that something happened.

But the most meaningful changes are activated beneath the surface.

They’re felt, not seen.

You feel the shift when you realize you care a little less about something (or someone), or when you don’t get triggered as much or for as long as you usually do. Or when something happens that would usually make you FLIP TF OUT, but you say “I’m sure there’s a greater purpose behind this,” and not in a spiritual bypassy way where you don’t let yourself feel your feelings, but because you genuinely believe what you’re saying.

Or when you make a silent promise to yourself and say:

“I’m never ever EVER doing that again.”

As the year came to a close, it also felt collective. Like whatever we hadn’t addressed, avoided, or resolved was rising to the surface. Not to punish us, but to make sure we didn’t carry it forward. End-of-year energy has a way of doing that, bringing unfinished business into focus so it can finally be released.

If November taught me anything, it’s that stability is something you cultivate internally, and life has a way of gently, and sometimes not so gently, destabilizing you until you learn that.

If you’re feeling unsettled, you’re not imagining it. Let the end of this year be whatever it needs to be. Maybe you’re shedding. Maybe you’re closing loops. Maybe you’re resting before the next expansion.

Seeking external stability is kind of like seeking validation. It feels good in the moment, but you realize it’s a hunger you can never satisfy. Holding internal stability is where the real work is.

And with that, welcome to the final Tellement Cute newsletter of 2025. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I’m so very grateful for your precious eyeballs.

Here’s to you,

Mya

Head Writer, Editor, and Curator at Tellement Cute

Home Is An Illusion

Since September 2024, I have not had a consistent home base. This experience has caused me to confront everything I believed to be true about what home meant, my identity in those homes, and what I needed in order to feel safe and secure.

Here’s where I’ve landed on this: many of us confuse safety, security, and stability with something external we can secure: a home, a routine, a relationship, a job, a plan. And when we finally get it, we’re surprised when it doesn’t make us feel as happy and complete as we thought it would.

This hit me recently while talking with a friend who had just bought a new home, a milestone that, in my mind, represented having it all. What more could she want? She never had to worry about where she would live or having to move again.

Expecting her to be elated, instead, she told me she felt displaced. There were things wrong with her new home, small things, but emotionally they were overwhelming. She said she didn’t feel like she had a home and felt completely destabilized. Having this home that she owned but felt she couldn’t fully live in felt more unsettling to her than not owning a home at all.

Listening to her was sobering, because I realized how often I had imagined that being in her position was the answer. Classic “I’ll be happy when…” behavior. If I were there, with the home I owned, everything would finally feel calm. And yet, here she was, describing the same internal restlessness I had been sitting with.

Different circumstances. Same exact feeling.

That was the moment I realized it’s all just an illusion.

Home isn’t something you ‘get’. It isn’t guaranteed by ownership, location, or aesthetics. It’s a felt sense of safety in your own body. And if that safety isn’t cultivated internally, no external structure can compensate for it.

Society teaches us that once we get the right setup, the right container, tick the boxes, we’ll have made it. But the universe has a way of exposing that belief by giving us exactly what we thought we wanted, and then asking, gently: Is this really where your sense of stability comes from?

What I’ve learned is this: stability isn’t permanent, and it isn’t external. It’s something you practice. Something you return to. Something you build internally, again and again, especially when circumstances are shifting.

It’s a feeling. Not a contract. Because nothing is permanent. The only guarantee in life is that at some point, everything will change.

Once you understand that, you stop requiring life to make you feel safe. You start finding ways to tap into that feeling regardless of your circumstances. And that’s the real key you’re looking for.

Tellement Cute Things

Here’s a curated collection of cute things and Etsy finds, none of which are functional or necessary, but simply because you deserve a little aesthetic something that makes you feel a little more elevated in your everyday.

Treat yourself <3

• For the dog mom - custom bootleg oversized t-shirt with your dog’s face on it

• Because your home is your sanctuary - bubble candles and bc you like to romanticize your mornings, ceramic coffee mug and saucer set

• For the new-age spiritual girlie - gold-plated tarot card necklace

• These frangipani claw clips are everywhere in Bali, and they’ve really grown on me. Perfect if you’re going anywhere tropical soon, or want to manifest that you will be.

• For the pilates princesses - throw these wrap tops over your workout set when you grab your post-class matcha.

• For the bougie beauty-obsessed babe who likes all things to be aesthetic, and didn’t fall for the Sephora sale, this Guerlain customizable lipstick.

• And just for giggles, my favorite etsy witch.

• The chic laptop cover that is bound to be a conversation starter (I can’t decide between the rosi or the cherry colors)

• I bought myself one Christmas gift this year, and it was a set of these 100% silk pajamas from Italian cult fave intimissimi in mocha brown.

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Behind the Scenes at Tellement Cute

• Recently, I was a guest on my dear friend Hannah Summerhill’s podcast, where we discussed how to create an epic life by design. Hannah is the true epitome of a leader with integrity in the manifestation/personal development space. I adore her. Tune in to the episode here:

• I also shared my girl math formula to help you decide when it’s worth paying for a business-class upgrade, and why discomfort is the cure for perfectionism. In case you missed it, you can read that piece here.

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As a premium subscriber, in 2026, you’ll unlock even more:

• The full Glow-Up Guide Series (wellness, beauty, energetics, rituals, identity work)

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• FIRST access to offers, drops, and programs

• Members-only comments + chat so you can connect with me and others in the cutie community

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• … and so much more to come

Ready to expand? Tap the button below to upgrade your subscription (and life). It’s a STEAL for what I have planned to share with you… :)

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The End-of-Year Prompt to Help You Honestly Reflect on 2025

Copy and paste into ChatGPT:

You are my end-of-year clarity guide. Help me reflect honestly on 2025. Ask me one question at a time to help me identify:
• what quietly drained me this year
• what I tolerated longer than I should have
• what pattern, belief, or attachment kept me small
• what I’m ready to stop carrying into 2026

After we’re done, summarize my answers into:

1. what I’m releasing

2. what I’m reclaiming

3. the version of myself I’m stepping into next

Enjoy. ♡

What I Read + Watched

• I Love LA - HBOMAX

• All 6 episodes of Taylor Swift’s The End of an Era docuseries

• Champagne Problems on Netflix

• Awake: A Memoir, by Jen Hatmaker

At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering in his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it.

The 5-Minute Pilates Workout

I love any kind of movement that is low effort, high ROI. Something you can do between meetings, before a shower, or when you want to feel a little more put-together in your body without committing to a full workout.

That’s why I travel with my Bala arm bands everywhere. I started with the 1 lb (lost them in my travels), upgraded to the 2 lb, and now they live permanently in my carry-on and I get flagged at TSA every time. I don’t even mind.

Gabby George’s sculpted-arm flows have turned into a fan fave, and I get why. I did one of her short standing sequences the other day, no equipment, barely six minutes, and felt it immediately.

If you have six minutes and want that subtle, lifted, Pilates-arm feeling, click here for Gabby’s 6-minute standing Arm Flow.

What’s Next

Thank you for reading the final issue of Tellement Cute for 2025. I’m deeply grateful you’re here, witnessing this chapter as it closes.

I’ll see you in 2026, with clarity, direction, and a new rhythm.

Bisous,
Mya

P.S. I LOVE IT when you tell me what you liked in the newsletter! Hit reply and say hi. I’d love to hear from you.

Know someone who might love reading this edition of the Tellement Cute newsletter?

♡

Share tellement cute

You see, I love pretty aesthetics, but I also love data. I love knowing what factors contribute to a positive outcome, so naturally, I started analyzing why I slept so well last night. What did I do the day before that gave me a full night of luxurious, deep, REM-cycle sleep?

(Yes, we’ve officially reached that point in life where the sexiest, most decadent thing imaginable is a good night’s rest.)

I have a sneaking suspicion it’s this:

The Open Loop Theory

I recently learned about a concept called “closing the loop.” It’s the idea that all the small, unresolved tasks taking up space in your mind—respond to that person, send that document, order the flowers, cancel that subscription, sign up for that thing—are quietly (and severely) draining your energy.

In my case, it was mainly texts that would’ve taken under a minute to send. But instead, I kept thinking about them multiple times throughout the week, spending mental energy each time when I could’ve just sent them and moved on.

So this Friday, I declared it “Close the Loop Day.” I made a list of everything (personal and professional) and took action on it all. And you know what? I slept riiiiight through the night. I woke up at 6 a.m., sprang out of bed, and started closing even more loops (like writing this post for you now) with all that new woman energy.

Give Your Beautiful Mind A Break

In Getting Things Done, productivity expert David Allen describes open loops as “anything that you tell yourself you should be doing but aren’t doing yet.” He reminds us that the brain isn’t built to store unfinished commitments; it just keeps spinning them in the background.

When I read this, I felt my brain expand:

“Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.”

Woah. Think about that for a second. When we leave loops open, our mental energy leaks out in micro-doses of anxiety and distraction. Our brains don’t differentiate between “send that email” and “rethink my career.” It just knows there’s something unresolved, and it won’t let it go until you do.

Allen’s approach is: capture and clarify.

Get everything out of your head and into a system like your notes app, Notion, or your journal. Decide what needs action, what can be delegated, and what can be deleted. Once it’s externalized, your brain can finally rest.

I’m a big fan of a brain dump. It’s my go-to whenever I feel overwhelmed: one big messy list of everything that’s been floating around, personal, professional, short-term, long-term.

Final Thoughts from Moi

For me, closing loops isn’t about productivity (because honestly, what we really need are nervous system resets, not more millennial-girl-boss hacks).

When you close your loops, it’s a nervous system reset.

So maybe self-care this week isn’t another mindfulness ritual - it’s 30 minutes of tying up loose ends. Set a timer, create a brain dump list, and see how many loops you can close. Send that thank-you text, schedule a coffee chat, and finish that module from the course you bought back in 2022.

If your sleep hasn’t been optimal lately, try closing your loops and let me know if that helps.

I truly hope you get the most luxurious, deep night of sleep ever; you deserve it, baddie.

♡ Reflection prompt: Where is your mental energy being slowly leaked by something you could clear off your conscience today?

With love,

Mya

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The twenty-four hours that followed would be the last I would ever spend with her.

In the weeks after her death, as I mourned this Lola-shaped void in my life, I dove into books, podcasts, and documentaries, trying to answer the question: “Where do our loved ones go when they die?”. Curled up against the window of the plane, my eyes gazed into the nothingness of the clouds (is that where she is now??), and I snapped a photo of the sliver of the moon, just as I stumbled across a podcast episode titled “Evidence We Can Communicate After Death!” on the Diary of A CEO.

What I didn’t know then was that just over a month later, I’d be standing in the rain on the side of a busy street in Bali, soaked, and disoriented after being hit by a car, with none other than the host of that very podcast, Steven Bartlett, standing next to me.

And no, I couldn’t make this story up if I tried.

I’m not sharing this story because it’s wild, shocking, or unbelievable, though it’s definitely all of those things. I’m sharing it because it affirmed something I’ve repeated to myself for years, a mantra that brought me calm through the most turbulent times:

Everything is always happening for me, no matter how it looks at any point in time.

When I say everything, I mean everything. The rejections. The breakups. The friendship endings. The opportunities that fell through at the last minute. The moments when ego takes over and you find yourself frustrated, demanding to know, “Why is this happening to me?”.

The setbacks. The injuries. The parking tickets. The cancellations.

Yes, all of it.

Even when it doesn’t make sense.
Even when it’s not what you wanted.
Even when it hurts.
Even when it’s not fair.
Even when you think “…it wasn’t supposed to be this way”.

Because when you truly believe life is happening for you, you leave room for the universe to surprise you, carry you, and deliver plot twists, even through the so-called “bad” times. The universe will orchestrate a rainstorm, multiple wrong turns, and a car carrying Steven Bartlett to show you.

I was driving home on my scooter in the rain in Bali. I’d just come from an event I almost didn’t go to. My week was packed, and I was debating whether to stay home and get some work done. But something that surfaced in a breathwork journey the weekend before stuck with me: Play more. Choose joy. Do things for no reason other than joy itself.

So I went. I thought I was attending a Jamu (traditional Indonesian medicinal tonic) making workshop, but it turned out to be a lesson on healing, energy, and the power of herbs. The man leading the workshop could read our Ayurvedic profiles by just looking at us. There was a dinner at a second location following the event. But as we were wrapping up, I asked him about something personal, and he invited me to stay and talk.

So I did. Five minutes, max.

As I left, the rain had just begun. I plugged the restaurant's details into Google Maps. 15 minutes away. I drove for a few minutes, but by then it was raining so heavily that I decided to pull over near a pet store. I couldn’t see through the shield of my helmet. I sat on my scooter, pulled out my phone, and tried to memorize the directions. I waited. The rain wasn’t letting up.

I pictured the girls at dinner, probably a third of the way into their mains at this point, and I got back on the road. My audio directions instructed me to take a left, but I took the wrong one. The directions recalibrated and told me to make a U-turn. I kept going anyway. Then it told me to turn right, and that road I recognized. I knew how to get to the restaurant from there.

At this point, my linen maxi dress and white button-down were completely soaked. I realized there was no way I could sit down comfortably at dinner, drenched right through, so about a third of the way down the street, I called it a night. I made a U-turn to head home.

As I approached the intersection at the top of the street, I flicked my right indicator on, intending to turn right onto the main road.

And that’s when it happened.

BAM.

I was hit by a car.

I lost control of my scooter, slid in the rain, and then stalled into a car.

The driver next to me shouted at me to pull over. I did, in shock but moving. I balanced myself, climbed off the scooter, and wheeled it over to the side of the road, and, almost immediately, realized I was okay. Shaken, yes. But fine. Some bruising and tenderness on my leg. But mainly just soaked, losing an AirPod as I removed my helmet.

Then, a man appeared. At first, I recognized his face and thought maybe we had met before, but I couldn’t place it in the moment. And then, in a distinct British accent, I heard:

“Are you alright?”

The accent hit first. Then the voice. Then the realization.

It was Steven Bartlett.

Yes, that Steven Bartlett. The Diary of a CEO Steven Bartlett. The same man whose voice I’d listened to while grieving my dog on the flight over to Bali, asking the universe if our loved ones remain somewhere we can’t yet see. The same man I had tickets to see speak at a conference in two days.

I looked at him in disbelief and said:

”What… is happening? Did you hit me??”

He was apologetic but verrrry cautious of admitting fault. Understandably.

“No, I didn’t hit you, but I was in the car that did. Are you okay?”

He’d been filming, likely for his Behind the Diary vlog channel (which, if you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, I highly recommend watching), and he had his GoPro out. We talked. I asked for a selfie - not because I’m that person, but because, honestly, as I told him, no one would believe me otherwise. I also told him I had tickets to his speaking event that week, and he offered his email. “Send me an email,” he said. “We’ll connect at the event.”

I knew who he was. The Diary of a CEO is everywhere, but to be honest, I’m so focused on the world of female founders that his backstory wasn’t one I had taken the time to learn. After colliding with him (literally), I went on a deep dive: his Behind the Diary YouTube channel, his book, his company. It started to make sense why the universe had to have me crash into him, to open my eyes up to what was possible.

He started in a media agency, just like I did, building brand partnerships, telling stories, and creating a flywheel. Different scale (lol obviously), but I recognized the blueprint. Could it be that the universe wanted me to collide with him, not just for the plot twist, but to show me what’s possible? Because what he’s built, through content, investment, and community, mirrors what I’m creating through my angel investments here in Bali, my writing, and my work with clients.

He was an expander. A reminder that what I’m building isn’t just a side project or a creative outlet, but it’s the beginning of something much bigger. And right as I was wrapping up this piece, Forbes dropped a feature announcing a $425 million valuation for his company.

Look, what needed to happen for this story to exist is a mind-boggling chain of events that most would call “random” or coincidences. But I don’t see them that way.

I went to an event I almost skipped.
I stayed late to ask a question.
I waited out the rain.
I took a wrong turn.
I made a U-turn.

I remember driving around that night, smiling to myself at the absurdity of it all. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t curse the rain, the timing, or the discomfort of the experience. I just went with it and found it… kind of funny.

The fact that this is my life, a regular Tuesday evening in Bali, driving a scooter from one event to another, while the rain pelted down on me, missing turns and blinking away raindrops that stung my eyeballs, not being able to see the road through the face shield of my helmet.

And somehow, all of it brought me to a moment that reminded me why I continue to trust in life’s twists and literal turns.

Not because it’s always easy. But when you stop fighting and resisting what is, you open yourself up to story lines, plot twists, and new characters that you couldn’t even dream up if you tried.

This story isn’t about being hit by a car. It’s about choosing to believe that life is always working in your favor.

Even when it rains
Even when you make the wrong turn
Even when you’re wearing the wrong clothes, miss your plans, and everything seems out of sync.

Because maybe it’s not out of sync at all.

I believe we are the creators of our lives, but we’re not doing it alone. There are unseen forces we are constantly co-creating with: the universe, God, intuition, energy —whatever system speaks to you. Forces that don’t respond to the plans we make but to our frequency.

When you live in trust, even the detours are aligned. The wrong turns become portals. The delays become redirections. The unexpected becomes sacred.

Something I’ve learned is that if you want to live in flow, you have to let go of control. You have to be willing to allow what doesn’t make sense. the nonsensical, the timing that doesn’t make sense. You have to welcome the no’s, the cancelled plans, the missed calls, the ghostings, with the same openness you bring to the yeses. You have to stop fighting reality.

Because one day, you’ll realize it wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t the wrong turn at all. It was the moment the universe aligned everything, giving you a little wink ;) to get you in front of the very person whose voice carried you through your grief.

So now, I have a new “fun fact” to share at future dinner parties or new social gatherings:

Steven Bartlett didn’t quite run me over in Bali.
But he was in the car that did.

And somehow, like all challenges in life, I’m stronger for it.

If even my road accidents come with silver linings, then I know I’m on my highest path.
Even in the uncertainty, the universe is still conspiring in my favor.

And I hope you begin to see that in your own life, too. Maybe not right away. Maybe not all at once. But eventually.

If you’ve read this far, I invite you to experiment with life. To loosen your grip, just a little. To find the courage to relinquish control. To trust what doesn’t make sense yet. To stop fighting reality and begin playing with it instead.

Let life surprise you. Let it meet you at the intersection of surrender and synchronicity.
Because chances are, what comes next… You couldn’t make up if you tried.

And isn’t that the whole point of all of this? If we had all the answers, knew all the outcomes… how could life continue to surprise and delight us beyond what our human minds can imagine?

Leave room for magic, and keep me posted on what you find.

P.S. I shared more about this story and the wild journey that led me here on my dear friend, manifestation expert, Hannah Summerhill’s podcast. You can listen to the episode here.

LOVE YOU

Hey cuties!

Where do we even begin? The night I got hit by a car? My 10-day staycation with family? My peptide or web3 journey? The 7:45 a.m. coffee date that felt like a job interview I didn’t apply for? My session with a Balinese healer who uncovered generations of maternal trauma? Or maybe my solo retreat in a mountain cabin, where I finally let myself feel the depth of my grief, and received the message I needed most:

When I lay it all out like that, it makes sense why it’s taken me all month to sit down and process.

October felt like an all-or-nothing month. I was either doom-scrolling while eating cookies in bed, avoiding feeling anything, or sitting in the intensity of the messy middle, not yet anchored into the new life I’m creating, but far enough from my old one that I question if it ever even existed.

It was also my first time hosting family in Bali, and I’m so grateful to have experienced it. I planned our time together intentionally, with my best-of-Bali hits: spa days, water purifications, healing sessions, and private beach clubs. No one got Bali belly, and everyone left still on speaking terms, so I’d call that a success.

I’ll be honest: I wanted to publish more this month. Inspiration came in waves, pieces were drafted, but between being present with family, emotional integration, and major energetic shifts, I had to walk my talk: devotion, not perfection.

Instead of forcing productivity, I stayed consistent in the ways I could manage: daily movement and spiritual study, showing up for the people I love, and, on some days, just putting one foot in front of the other. That’s what inspired this month’s theme.

Word of the Month: Devotion

At a breathwork session, we were encouraged to pull an oracle card, and my intuition led me to choose Seraphiel, the angel of purification, known for emanating “a fire of pure devotion that burns away all illusion.”

It made me ask myself: What am I truly devoted to?

For me, devotion is doing what your mind, body, or soul needs, even when you don’t feel like it. Like the other morning, when my body begged for rest but I remembered my commitment to wellness, and my devotion to living to my highest potential, and showed up for my reformer pilates class anyway.

Life rewards devotion. Life also rewards following your highest joy.

While spending the day at a social wellness sanctuary with my aunt, I happened to meet a group of Web3 + AI founders on a startup accelerator retreat. One conversation led to another, and suddenly I was on a call with Danielle, the founder of EvolvH3R, a company dedicated to empowering women in the digital economy. If you’ve been curious about crypto and Web3, Danielle has a FREE course which you can check out here. Tonight she held an in-person event that I attended, and not only came home with some fun swag I won in a raffle, but connected with some very cool people in the web3 and fintech space.

Proof that when you follow your joy, you open new doors.

So if you’ve been pressuring yourself to grind from the same workspace or stay “on schedule,” here’s your sign to switch it up. Move toward what feels beautiful, not just what looks productive and makes logical sense. It might be just what you (or your business) needs.

This issue is devoted (literally) to slowing down, grounding, and finding joy in what’s right in front of us, even when life feels chaotic.

If you’ve felt off-track, uninspired, or inconsistent this month… same. But maybe our creativity isn’t meant to have a set schedule. Maybe, if we trust ourselves enough to allow it… It’s seasonal, cyclical, and deeply feminine.

I’m reminding myself (and you) that devotion looks different every month.

So, with that, welcome to October’s newsletter. I hope you find it tellement cute.

With devotion,

Mya

Head Writer, Editor, and Curator at Tellement Cute

Why Having a Boyfriend Is Embarrassing and the Art of Choosing Yourself

This week, Vogue UK published an article titled "Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?" by Chanté Joseph, which instantly went viral. Some are even calling it a revolution. The piece sparked a cultural conversation about why this is the collective vibe surrounding hetero relationships right now. While the article itself is worth reading, what really entertained me was the social-media discourse that followed.

Chanté shared her take on TikTok, the video pulled in over 4M views, unsurprisingly, given how polarizing (and pleasantly triggering) the statement is. The comment section is full of gems like this one, which I have scattered throughout this article:

As one user commented, “Girl, I just think having a boyfriend automatically makes you less cool, idk.” Another added, “If you think about it from a business standpoint, the value of having a boyfriend has depreciated.” She’s not wrong.

I haven’t had a boyfriend since 2017, but up until earlier this year, I was a wife. Whenever I was introduced to someone and the words “my husband” escaped my mouth for context, I cringed. My street cred dropped instantly. I was no longer seen as the wild, independent, curious soul I am. I was seen as... that guy’s wife.

How was this new acquaintance to know that I’m a rebel at heart? That I have my own thoughts, visions, and aspirations beyond being married and having a family? That I was never built for the box that word put me in? Because in their eyes, I had traded my adventurous backstory for a title that didn’t even scrape the surface of who I am.

When I share now that I left a “perfectly fine” marriage, not because it was broken, but because I refused to settle, and mention my first ex-husband (with love and admiration every time, because even though we’re divorced, he’s still the best man I know), I’m met with awe, respect, and even admiration. I’ll say it: being married is not cool if your partner doesn’t expand your life.

Because, honestly, boyfriends are boring. Boyfriend… like, what even is that? It’s (not so) funny that we’re still having “the talk” in 2025, defining relationships with people we’ve been dating for months. In French culture, “the talk” doesn’t exist. If you’ve been seeing each other for a while, you’re together. Call me crazy, but it’s relatively obvious at that point.

An unaired SNL sketch titled “Tall, Plain, Boyfriend” on Sabrina Carpenter’s recent episode has also been going viral this week. It pokes fun at how low the bar is in heteronormative dating dynamics. It’s hilarious, and you should absolutely watch it. Tall, plain boyfriends are the antidote to false security, a reason not to have to do things alone, a plus-one to bring to weddings, and the best response to when extended family asks if we’re dating anyone. I’ve collected a few of these in my time (and some not-so-tall, still very plain, ones, sadly), and look, they work just fine, until they become work. When their inability to meet you emotionally starts interrupting the life you’ve so intentionally built, that’s when you have to ask if the Tall Plain Boyfriend is worth trading your peace and autonomy for.

This whole cultural conversation reminds me of an article I wrote back in July, because maybe the real question isn’t whether having a boyfriend is embarrassing, it’s why being chosen still feels like the ultimate goal.

Love is a beautiful thing, and we all deserve to experience it, but for my single girls out there looking for love, please don’t confuse your desire for a relationship with your desire to be seen. Don’t settle because the unknown feels too scary, or you’re terrified to lose your bare-minimum boyfriend. Or to be alone.

David Ghiyam says loneliness and fear of the unknown often attract people into relationships from a place of lack, not wholeness. When we try to escape the uncertainty of being alone, we shrink our vessel - our soul’s capacity to receive love and miracles.

Staying out of fear, obligation, or guilt doesn’t preserve love. It traps us in limitation, blocking the expansive love the Creator/God/Universe wants to flow through us.

I’m referring specifically to heteronormative dynamics, because that seems to be where the biggest disconnect lies. Where traditional masculine and feminine roles have lost balance, and we’re collectively trying to find our way back to harmony without losing our autonomy in the process.

It’s no secret the bar has been raised. As women have evolved in consciousness, self-awareness, and healing, many men have wondered why their old ways of operating (doing the bare minimum) no longer work.

And for my readers in relationships, please share more about the wonderful things your partner does for you, the ways they support and expand you, and how they enrich your life rather than consume it, because we need to see more examples of positive, supportive, expansive love.

If you are the proud owner of a husband, please brag about him! In a way that doesn’t make us think, “that’s the bare minimum,” but in a way that makes us genuinely happy for you and gives us a new superlative to add to our “dream husband #2” list.

And if you don’t like your partner, girl, get out of there. Loneliness is a much sweeter pill to swallow than the regret of time you’ll never get back. Don’t trade a hard short-term for a hard long-term.

So, what does choosing yourself look like for you right now?

Reply or share it in the comments. I’d love to know how this theme is showing up in your life.

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Behind the Scenes at Tellement Cute

• This month, I was a guest on my dear friend Hannah Summerhill’s podcast, where we discussed how to create an epic life by design. Hannah is the true epitome of a leader with integrity in the manifestation/personal development space. I adore her. Tune in to the episode here:

• I also shared my girl math formula to help you decide when it’s worth paying for a business-class upgrade, and why discomfort is the cure for perfectionism. In case you missed it, you can read that piece here.

• I’m working on new essays around relationships, travel, building your personal curriculum, glow-up guides, and more.

Subscribe now

Your Q4 Reset Prompt (for ChatGPT or Journaling)

A little birdie told me you like these prompts!

Here’s one to help you identify your priorities from now until the end of the year.

The last quarter is NOT about doing more, it’s about spending the remainder of this calendar year doing exactly what you want and what’s important to you.

Use this prompt to get clear, reset, and lock into your next aligned season.

Copy + paste into ChatGPT:

You are my energetic clarity coach. Help me reset and realign for the last quarter of the year. Ask me 5 questions to help me:

• Let go of what’s draining me

• Get clear on what actually matters to me now

• Identify my priorities across business, wellness, and personal life

• Step into a version of myself that’s rooted, intuitive, and intentional.

Then summarize it for me like a seasonal vision board — including energy themes, focus points, and a mantra to anchor into.

Enjoy. ♡

What I Watched

The Mystical Studies of the Zohar with Madonna & Eitan Yardeni

• A beautifully shot deep dive into how she manifested the life she has. Start with her On Purpose interview with Jay Shetty if you want an introduction.

• Of course, I watched Season 2 of Nobody Wants This on Netflix—it made me miss LA terribly, right down to the Courage Bagels reference. The product placement was a bit much, but I’ll allow it for the laughs and nostalgia.

• The Victoria Beckham documentary on Netflix. As a lifelong Spice Girl (Sporty, obviously), I devoured this. VB is a powerhouse who built an empire with grace and grit. Girl power forever.

What I Read

• One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. After reconnecting with my inner child during a guided Kundalini activation, I started auditing how much pleasure and play I actually allow in my life. I realized most of what I do has a wellness or productivity payoff, even reading. So I’ve been shifting back to fiction, reading purely for joy. This was one of the first books I picked up, and it was pure bliss, filled with LA references, a dreamy Positano setting, and the kind of escapism that reminds you pleasure is productive, too.

• I started reading Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, a guide to understanding and honoring your menstrual cycle as a source of creativity, intuition, and strength. It’s teaching me to view my cyclical nature as sacred rather than inconvenient, and to let my energy, productivity, and even devotion flow with my body’s rhythm rather than against it.

October Skin Care Re-Purchases

These are the products I’ve panned and repurchased more times than I can count - my forever staples for healthy, glowing skin:

• Living Libations - Sea Buckhorn Best Skin Ever Cleansing Oil

• Odacite SPF 50 Flex-Perfecting™ Mineral Drops Tinted Sunscreen

• Caudalie Resveratrol-Lift Instant Firming Retinol Alternative Serum

• Caudalie Premier Cru Anti-Aging Cream Moisturizer

• Tretinoin (prescription only in Aus or the US, over the counter in Bali/Mexico)

• La Roche-Posay Anthelios Light Fluid Facial Sunscreen SPF 60

• OSEA Undaria Algae™ Body Oil 5 oz

• Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Moisturizing Swivel Stick with Vitamin E

What’s Next

Tomorrow, I’m moving out of the serviced apartment I’ve called home for the past two months into a new neighborhood in Bali, closer to the beach, my girl group here, and the luxury wellness gym I’ve been eyeing since its soft launch in May.

I’m feeling a mix of emotions, but mostly gratitude. It’s a reminder that we’re not meant to stay stagnant for too long. This time, the change isn’t coming from discomfort, but from alignment, that quiet inner knowing that it’s time to level up.

I’m already mapping out my home bases for 2026, and I can feel the next chapter taking shape.

See you next month, angel. Until then, here’s to new spaces, new seasons, and feeling at home wherever we land.

I hope you enjoyed the October issue of Tellement Cute.

Bisous,
Mya

P.S. I LOVE IT when you tell me what you liked in the newsletter! Hit reply and say hi. I’d love to hear from you.

Know someone who might love reading this edition of the Tellement Cute newsletter?

♡

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Written by Mya Dalton, writer, storyteller, and founder of Tellement Cute, a newsletter exploring reinvention, beauty, and becoming.

It’s a balmy evening in Ubud, the spiritual heart of Bali. I’m in a white linen ensemble, seated across from my Danish friend, Sara. We’re surrounded by palm trees and Pyramid-shaped sound temples, taking a break from cacao ceremonies and shamanic breathwork during a 3-day “Sacred Resonance” festival.

As I’m scraping the last spoonful of mango passionfruit “cheeze” cake off my plate, she glances down at her phone and looks up:

“Oh. Emirates is offering me an upgrade to Business Class for 500 euros.“

“You’re ruined now,” I teased. She laughed because she knew it was true.

On her way to Bali from Copenhagen, Emirates had given her a complimentary upgrade. With the memory of her business class experience still fresh on her mind, she turned to me and asked the question that sparked this very post:

As I walked her through how I decide (and how I’ve advised friends and anyone who will listen over the years), I realized…

I actually have a formula for this.

Whether you’re a frequent traveler, haven’t yet turned left on a plane, or are just premium-curious about when an upgrade is actually worth it, I’ve got you.

I’m breaking down how to weigh value vs. cost, and all the little things you should consider when deciding whether the splurge aligns with your values, is indulgent, or is better spent elsewhere.

You Came to the Right Place

If you’re wondering what makes me qualified to give travel upgrade advice, here’s my résumé:

• I spent 3+ years as a first-class international flight attendant.

• I’ve lived in four countries and packed for a trip over 18 times in the past year alone.

• I change, cancel, and rebook flights like they’re Ubers.

• I once booked a flight to Greece on the way to the airport (blame my Sagittarius moon).

• I’m a bougie bitch who will manifest an upgrade and lounge access at any opportunity I can, unapologetically.

  ---

It’s All About the Details

Everyone has their own travel style. Personally, I value a premium experience.

Take me anywhere — a boutique hotel, an airport lounge, a wellness spa — and I will notice every detail. The santal scent in the lobby. The cucumber spritz and lemongrass-scented towel at check-in. The thread count of the robe. The timing of the ginger tea and oatmeal cookie after a massage. The sterling silver salt and pepper shakers on a flight. The custom dog bowls at a five-star resort.

Here’s a tip:

Hotel toiletries will tell you everything.

• If it’s Le Labo, Diptyque, Aesop, or Acqua di Parma, 5-star confirmed, baby.

• If it’s L’Occitane, Kiehl’s, or MALIN+GOETZ, solid.

• Generic minis? Only use them in emergencies. And unless you’re planning to repurpose them, leave them be.

• If it’s a Costco-sized pump dispenser labeled only SHAMPOO or BODYWASH, I don’t advise it. You don’t know what’s in there, or when it was last cleaned.

I live for the details, because they matter.

When a space or service is infused with intention, it feels like art. It makes the world more beautiful. And don’t we all want to be in the most aesthetic version of reality?

If you’re wired that way too, you’ll love Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. It’s a must-read for anyone in branding, hospitality, or obsessed with making people feel something.

Emotional Spending Is Still Strategic

But I’ll be honest, I don’t always make decisions based on logic (and I know I’m not alone). According to every sales psychology study ever, most purchases are emotional. I’m no exception. I buy based on how something makes me feel. The fantasy. The elevation. The story it tells. The version of me it unlocks.

When I spend, I’m not just buying an item; I’m stepping into a portal. A portal to the most elevated, effortless, magnetic version of myself.

I can’t tell you what to value, but I can help you decide whether it’s worth it for you.

So if you’re about to travel and receive an offer to upgrade, here’s the simple formula I use every time to figure out whether it’s a strategic investment or just an indulgent flex for your social media content.

Do You Value Experiences or Things?

Over the summer, I found myself drifting through the duty-free boutiques at Paris Charles de Gaulle, a ritual worth arriving at the airport four hours early for. As my dopamine receptors lit up at the treasures before me, I heard my grandmother’s voice echo in my head. She had this saying — and even as a little girl, I knew exactly what she meant: “champagne taste on a beer budget.”

In Europe, shopping is my Olympics. Between the VAT refund and the dollar-to-euro conversion, logic bends just enough to justify indulgence. I realize it’s a s t r e t c h to say I make money shopping in Paris, but when the receipts add up and you walk away with something luxurious — for less than it would cost at home — AND get cash back before you’ve even boarded your flight?

Even on a beer budget, tax-free shopping lets you play in the world of champagne. I might not splurge on Caudalie Reservatrol face serum all year, but when I’m in Paris, I’ll buy enough to last me through the next.

As I stepped into the Celine boutique, I was instantly drawn to a tri-fold wallet and a pair of cat-eye sunglasses, both priced around $500. I told the sales assistant I’d think about it, then headed to evaluate another opportunity: the Air France Lounge.

At Charles de Gaulle, the Air France lounge is its own little universe. A Clarins spa. A private sauna. Showers. The most decadent chocolate mousse I’ve ever tasted. Free-flowing French butter. Freshly baked pastries. The kind of setting that reminds you: luxury is a feeling.

That day, Air France was offering an upgrade to business class for $450. I was already planning to spend $80 on lounge access anyway, and the upgrade included that — along with elevated dining, priority boarding, and most importantly: a lie-flat bed for the five-hour flight ahead.

Sure, the Celine wallet would’ve lasted for years. It would’ve whispered “effortless elegance” every time I paid for a matcha and almond croissant.

But then I pictured myself skipping the boarding line, gliding into the lounge for a solo sauna session, showering and changing into clean clothes, tapping away on my laptop before takeoff, and later, stretching out on a bed at 30,000 feet. Elite.

I chose the upgrade.

The lounge gave me clarity, comfort, and two hours of uninterrupted productivity. I landed refreshed, recharged, and aligned.

And not once did I miss the wallet or the sunglasses.

Let’s break it down.

Say you’re flying from LA to Paris (~10 hours), and the airline offers an upgrade for $1,000.

Upgrade Cost ÷ Flight Hours = Cost Per Hour

In this case $1,000 ÷ 10 hours = $100/hour.

Now, ask yourself, is it worth $100/hour for…

• A lie-flat bed so you can actually sleep?

• Lounge access with food, drinks, a spa, and showers?

• Priority boarding to avoid the chaos of overhead bin space?

• Disembarking first and skipping baggage claim chaos?

• Premium food, beverages, and designer amenities (like Clarins products on Air France or Diptyque goodies on Qatar Airways)?

• That undeniable I’ve made it energy?

• And who knows… the love of your life seated next to you in 3E?

When you put it that way, the math is mathing😉

Time Is The Ultimate Luxury

Upgrading isn’t just about comfort. It’s about time.

Here’s what you gain when you fly premium:

• Boarding first: No waiting at the gate or fighting for space in the overhead bins.

• Disembarking first: Save 15–30 minutes upon arrival.

• Bags arriving first: Your bags are waiting for you, not the other way around.

• Breezing through immigration: Especially on international flights, being one of the first off the plane means skipping the long lines.

• Faster onboard service: No waiting for cabin crew to finish serving 200 economy passengers. You get more time to sleep, relax, or work.

When you value your time like the queen you are, business class becomes less of a luxury and more of a life strategy.

The Hidden Costs of Economy

Economy seems cheaper, until the add-ons creep in:

• Airport Dinner: $45

• Neck pillow (RIP after hitting the TSA floor): $38

• One sad bottle of Dasani (a crime): $11

• Snacks: $25

• Wi-Fi: $35

• Extra baggage fees (buy this handheld luggage scale, trust me): $50–$100 or more

You’re easily spending $200+, without even factoring in the emotional toll of a middle seat on a red-eye.

Meanwhile, a business class upgrade often includes:

• Higher baggage allowance, saving you from extra fees.

• Lounge access, skipping overpriced, bland meals.

• Better in-flight service for a more enjoyable journey.

At this point, the upgrade starts looking less like an indulgence… and more like a wise investment in your sanity.

Pro Hack: Know What You’re Actually Upgrading To

Not all “business class” seats are created equal. Some airlines will try to pass off a recliner with extra legroom as an upgrade.

Don’t fall for it, babe.

Use SeatGuru or Google seat maps to check if you’re getting an actual lie-flat bed or a sad lean-back situation.

First Things First: What Type of Upgrade Is It?

• Lie-flat bed? Always worth it. For long-haul flights, this is the difference between arriving like a goddess or a human potato.

• Just a wider seat? Skip it unless you’re in the mood to splurge.

• Short haul? Usually not worth it unless you’re stacking perks or points.

How to Hack The Lounge Game

Not all lounges are created equal.

Some are life-changing. Others feel like sad airport food courts with a Keurig.

Here’s How to Tell the Difference:

If the airline owns the lounge, it’s usually a good sign. But if it’s an alliance lounge (open to anyone with a certain credit card or shared by multiple airlines), it’s a different story. These lounges can feel like:

• A slightly better Starbucks, with seating focused on quantity rather than comfort.

• A buffet that’s… questionable at best.

• Overcrowded spaces, with lines for everything from coffee machines to charging stations.

Pro Tip: Always Request a Tour of the Lounge First

If lounge access isn’t included, ask for a tour before paying. You’ll immediately see if it’s worth it.

Do Your Research

Airline-Owned > Shared Lounges

Before committing to a lounge, check whether it’s airline-owned or an alliance-free-for-all. Use apps like LoungeBuddy or read Google Maps reviews to gauge what you’re walking into.

If the lounge looks rough, consider skipping it and heading to a café or restaurant in the terminal. Some airports even offer food experiences that rival high-end restaurants.

Making the Upgrade Decision

Here’s the final checklist:

• Lie-flat bed on a long-haul? Always yes.

• Lounge access with spa, showers, or great food? Worth considering.

• Short flight with basic perks? Pass (unless it’s a special occasion).

• What do you personally value? Ease, time, comfort, aesthetics?
  That’s your answer.

For me, flying business is about more than just the seat; it’s the experience. It’s the difference between surviving a trip and actually enjoying it.

So, Should You Upgrade?

Next time you’re tempted, run the formula and ask yourself:

• How much is your time and energy worth?

• Will this make your trip feel ✨elevated✨ from the moment you leave?

• Will it make your arrival smoother, easier, more joyful?

If the answer is yes…

Book the seat.
Order the champagne.
Stretch out.
And manifest something magical at 30,000 feet.

May your next seatmate be the future father of your children.

And babe — I’d better be invited to the wedding in Lake Como.

If you use this formula next time you travel, let me know in the comments or reply to this post. I love hearing your travel upgrade wins.

Happy travels.

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