Something completely unreasonable.

Something you have never admitted you want.

When did we actually start editing our desires before we even allow ourselves to think them?

I can’t stop thinking about this question lately. Somehow, it feels really easy for me to answer and at the same time, answering it makes me feel almost ungrateful for the life I have right now.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a pretty clear idea of how my adult self was supposed to live.

My actual life, though, has never really followed one clear path. There wasn’t much structure, definitely no straight line. It was more like spontaneous decisions, constant change, and a life that was rarely boring but sometimes pretty fucking chaotic. Ufffff, okay, I’m outing myself… I HAVE ADHD. Hahahaha.

And you do pay a price for that. I’ve had a life full of experiences, but hardly any stillness. Ufff, I’ve lived in so many different countries, changed jobs all the time, made decisions that probably seemed completely random to other people and somehow I was never really afraid of taking risks.

So, if you ask me what do we really want when nobody is asking us to be realistic?

Before I give you some typical Instagram quote answer about how I just want a life full of love and peace — YES, OF COURSE I WANT THAT TOO…

Should I actually expose myself now? I mean, sharing your deepest dreams and goals makes you kind of vulnerable, doesn’t it? But well, here we are. I asked the question, so I guess I should answer it honestly.

I want a free life. A life where I get to decide for myself how I want to spend my days. I want to write without the pressure of having to make money from my writing. I want to make content without constantly feeling like I have to deliver content. I want to live in different countries. I want my voice to become recognizable. I want to be financially free. I actually want to be a millionaire. I want to have my own personal brand and live from it. I want to really live, every single day.

Free and light and somehow just… unburdened.

And maybe you’re sitting somewhere thinking, but I already have so much to be grateful for. People who love me, a roof over my head, opportunities, experiences, safety, whatever that looks like in your life.

Sometimes I look around and genuinely wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.

I’m used to my dreams, my visions, my goals sounding completely unrealistic to other people. To be fair, those people are usually living lives I don’t want to live, so there’s that.

But even thinking about just accepting the life I have right now makes my entire chest tighten. It scares me, and believe me, there really isn’t much I’m afraid of. I trust myself so deeply that there are very few things in life I feel like I actually need to fear. But staying employed? Living in the village my parents live in? Staying in Germany?

Please shoot me.

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But I don’t want this to be my life.

And when I say I actually want to be a millionaire… even that isn’t completely honest, is it?

The more honest answer is:

I want to be a millionaire.

I want people to know my name.

I want beautiful houses.

I want to fly business class.

I want my books to become bestsellers.

It feels so easy to say we want peace, health, children, a home, love. But when it comes to things like this, suddenly we start being careful with our words. We look for different ways to say what we mean instead of just allowing ourselves to want things, even when those things still feel so fucking far away and completely unrealistic.

So why do I feel weird putting this list on the internet under my own name?

Maybe because I’m thinking…

What if I never make it?

Maybe the embarrassing part isn’t wanting millions. Maybe the embarrassing part is wanting something publicly before you can prove that you’re ever going to have it.

Ohhhh.

Because afterwards it’s easy. If your book becomes a bestseller, you can tell everyone that you always dreamed of becoming a bestselling author. If your brand becomes huge, “I always knew” suddenly sounds visionary. If you have millions, you can talk about how you always knew you wanted financial freedom.

But before?

While I’m still living with my parents? While some of my projects don’t work? While I still have a normal job? While I’m still trying things and figuring out what the hell I’m doing?

Then saying I want people to know my name feels a lot more vulnerable.

Because anyone could come back here one day and ask:

Did she make it?

I unexpectedly had to move back in with my parents this year. Last year I gave up my entire life in Germany and went to Portugal, so coming back to Germany felt like a huge step backwards for me. I didn’t want to come back, but I had to.

And in the end, it was actually wonderful.

My parents live in a really beautiful place and I genuinely enjoy the slow, quiet life I have here. I ride my bike to work. I spend my free time in nature, reading, swimming, writing. I love going for coffee and spending time at the library. I love the life I have here, but I hate it too.

I miss the ocean. I miss walking along the beach and brushing the sand off my body afterwards. I miss hearing crazy stories from people who decided to live a life full of adventure. I don’t want to be in the same place every day. I miss that feeling of openness, of looking out and feeling like there is just… more.

I miss the feeling of the sun on my face while a palm tree gives me some shade. I miss coming out of the ocean with salt in my mouth.

My parents aren’t getting any younger. Next year I’m going to become an aunt for the first time, and still, I find myself longing for a life far away from everything I know.

That’s something that has always been inside me.

And lately, that pull has been getting really loud again.

I want slow mornings.
I also want to build something big.

I want to spend my days writing and reading.
I also want to make money. A lot of it.

I want fewer possessions.
I also want beautiful things.

I want to spend a month in silence somewhere in Bali.
I also apparently want Wi-Fi strong enough to run an online business from the temple.

So maybe simple is not the word.

For a while, I thought this meant I was confused.

Maybe I hadn’t figured out what kind of life I wanted yet. Maybe I was still stuck between versions of myself.

The ambitious one.
The soft one.
The one who wants peace.
The one who still looks at a beautiful car and immediately wonders why God has personally excluded her from owning it.

But the more I look around, the more I wonder if this confusion is actually mine.

Because culturally, we seem to keep replacing one ideal life with another.

First, it was hustle.

Wake up at five.
Build the thing.
Work harder.
Optimize your morning routine.
Monetize your hobby.
Turn every interest into income before breakfast.

Then everyone burned out.

So we rebelled.

Soft life.
Slow mornings.
Nervous system regulation.
No phone before ten.
Pilates.
Fresh flowers.
Books.
Organic groceries.
A neutral kitchen with handmade ceramics and no one apparently checking their bank account before buying the mug.

And honestly?

I get the appeal.

I want a lot of that too.

But somewhere along the way, it started to feel like ambition itself had become suspicious.

As if wanting more automatically meant you were dysregulated.

As if peace required you to become less hungry.

As if the healed version of a woman should eventually stop wanting too much.

That part loses me.

Because what if I don’t want less?

What if I just don’t want to be owned by what I want?

That feels different.

There are things I absolutely want less of.

Noise.
Clutter.
Work that drains me.
Obligations I never chose.
Relationships that require me to shrink.
A calendar so full I can’t hear myself think.

But none of that means I want less life.

And maybe this is where the whole idea of a “simple life” gets blurry.

Because online, a simple life often looks surprisingly expensive.

Time to read.
Good food.
A beautiful home.
Travel.
Rest.
No stressful commute.
Fresh flowers.
Space.

That’s not always simplicity.

Sometimes that’s resources.

Sometimes what we call a simple life is just a highly resourced life with excellent lighting.

And I don’t even mean that cynically.

I think a lot of us are not actually craving less.

We’re craving more choice.

More control over our time.

More money without more exhaustion.

More work that feels meaningful.

More rest without guilt.

More freedom to decide what the day is for.

What if the opposite of hustle isn’t doing less — but having more choice?

That sounds less like simplicity to me.

It sounds like spaciousness.

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I write here about the things I’m still trying to understand.

A spacious life.

Enough money without being owned by work.
Enough ambition without being owned by achievement.
Enough beauty without being owned by things.
Enough freedom without having nowhere to belong.

A life with enough room for contradiction.

Enough room to be ambitious without turning my entire existence into a productivity experiment.

Enough room to make money and still disappear into a book for three hours.

Enough room to own less and still buy something beautiful because I love it.

Enough room to build a personal brand without making every private moment content.

Enough room to work hard because I want to, not because I’m terrified of what happens if I stop.

That last one has been on my mind a lot lately.

I’m in a phase of building.

And building is strange because for a while, everything is potential.

A website that could work.
Products that could sell.
Writing that could find its people.
Systems that could eventually create freedom.

Could.

That word can get very loud.

Because I’ve built things before.

I’ve had folders full of ideas that once felt important.

Projects I believed in.

Things I spent time, energy and money on because I thought, maybe this is it.

And then sometimes… nothing.

So now, every time I build something new, there’s a small voice in the background asking:

What if I’m investing in another thing that never pays me back?

What if I’m not building?

What if I’m just staying busy?

I don’t really have an elegant answer to that yet.

Which is annoying.

I would love one.

Preferably something profound enough to justify the amount of tabs currently open on my laptop.

But maybe uncertainty is just part of making something before there is proof.

Maybe the question is not whether I can guarantee that it will work.

Maybe the question is whether I want to build it even before I know.

That’s the part I keep coming back to.

Because I’m technically on vacation right now.

And somehow I’ve spent a surprising amount of it working on my own things.

Not because I had to.

Because I wanted to.

And that confused me for a second.

Wasn’t I supposed to be resting?

But maybe the opposite of hustle is not doing nothing.

Maybe it’s agency.

Working because you choose to.

Resting because you choose to.

Wanting more without being consumed by more.

Wanting less without turning less into another performance.

I don’t think I want a perfectly balanced life either.

I don’t want every day divided into aesthetically pleasing portions of work, rest, movement, connection and hydration.

Some days I want to disappear into an idea for twelve hours.

Some days I want to read near water and forget the internet exists.

Some days I want silence.

Some days I want a room full of people and something big happening.

Maybe balance is not something that needs to exist inside every twenty-four hours.

Maybe it can exist across a life.

I still want the slow mornings.

I want books.

I want beautiful places.

I want very few things.

I want some very expensive things.

I want freedom.

I want roots.

I want to build something meaningful.

I want days where absolutely nothing impressive happens.

I want peace.

And, inconveniently, I am still ambitious.

So no, I don’t think I want a simple life.

I think I want a spacious one.

Today, I opened Substack and watched writers argue about how to prove they were human.

The timing made me laugh.

My feed was suddenly full of discussions about AI detection, false positives, human writing and artificial writing. People were worried that something they had written themselves could be mistaken for something created by a machine.

A conversation between what we create and what creates meaning.

And while I understand some of the concerns, I noticed something else in myself.

I wasn’t afraid.

I was curious.

Because this whole debate reminded me of something I hadn’t thought about in years.

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I grew up before the internet became part of everything.

I still remember accidentally pressing the internet button on a phone and immediately hitting X because going online was expensive. You did not want to end up there by accident.

I remember adults talking about how dangerous the internet might be. There were conversations about radiation, about what spending so much time online would do to us, about whether technology would destroy real human connection.

Some of those concerns weren’t wrong.

The internet came with dark sides we probably couldn’t even imagine back then.

But look at what it gave us, too.

Right now, I can sit somewhere in Germany, write down a thought and within seconds someone on the other side of the world can read it.

That still feels incredible to me.

Without the internet, I wouldn’t know most of the people reading my words here.

We wouldn’t exchange experiences across countries and cultures.

Substack itself wouldn’t exist.

Neither would this conversation.

The internet didn’t destroy our need for human connection.

It gave that connection places we had never had before.

And maybe that’s part of why I struggle to relate to so much of the fear surrounding AI.

I use AI.

And I love it.

ChatGPT, Claude and Daimon are part of my everyday life. For around €40 a month, I basically have a tiny team that can brainstorm with me, question me, organize things with me or help me find words when my head is full of them but none of them seem to land.

And yes, AI sometimes has a place in my writing process.

But there is something I never want to confuse:

I am the source.

AI didn’t live my life.

It doesn’t have my memories.

It didn’t sit in the rooms I sat in.

It didn’t love who I loved or lose what I lost.

It doesn’t know why certain things still hurt me, why others make me feel alive, or why sometimes a completely ordinary moment stays with me for days until I understand what it was trying to show me.

The experience is mine.

The feeling is mine.

The question is mine.

The perspective is mine.

AI can help me explore what is already there.

But it cannot have lived it for me.

Maybe that distinction matters more than we think.

A tool can help us translate an experience into words. It can help shape them, question them, even make them clearer.

But it cannot be the place the experience came from.

Maybe being human was never about producing every word alone.

Maybe it was about having something to translate in the first place.

And maybe that’s why another part of this debate bothers me.

Why have we become so attached to the idea that doing something the harder way somehow makes it more valuable?

I know what it feels like to make life harder than it needs to be.

I’ve done that.

Nobody gave me a medal for it.

Nobody cared more about the result because I exhausted myself creating it.

So why should I refuse a tool that makes parts of my life easier just to prove that I could have struggled without it?

We have been building tools to make human life easier for as long as we have been building anything.

And fear isn’t the only possible response to change.

Curiosity is one too.

Because maybe AI isn’t threatening human value.

Maybe it’s threatening the way we have been measuring human value.

For a very long time, we have attached an enormous amount of human worth to productivity.

What can you do?

How fast can you do it?

How much can you produce?

How many hours can you work?

How useful are you?

Most of us exchange one of the most precious things we have — our time — for money.

Hours of our lives become numbers on a payslip.

And we have lived inside this system for so long that it almost feels like a law of nature.

But it isn’t.

It’s a system humans created.

So what happens when technology becomes better at many of the things this system currently rewards?

When AI can analyze faster, calculate faster, organize faster and produce faster?

When robots take over more physical work too?

Maybe the answer is terrible.

Maybe wealth and power become even more concentrated. Maybe we build a world where a small number of people own the technology and everyone else becomes more dependent on them.

Maybe we create something even colder than what we have now.

I don’t know.

And I don’t believe technology will magically save us from ourselves.

But there is another possibility I can’t stop thinking about.

What if we eventually stop measuring people primarily by how productive they can be.

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What becomes valuable then?

Maybe experience.

Perspective.

Taste.

Curiosity.

Emotion.

Trust.

Connection.

The ability to experience something and give it meaning.

The strange collection of memories, contradictions, losses, desires and questions that makes one person see the same world differently from everyone else.

Maybe in a world where almost anyone can generate technically perfect words, perfect words won’t be the thing we value most anymore.

Maybe we’ll care more about the life behind them.

Maybe we’ll stop asking:

Did you create every single part of this without assistance?

And start asking:

Did you have something worth saying?

Because perhaps machines becoming extraordinarily good at productivity doesn’t make humans worthless.

Perhaps it reveals that productivity was never the most valuable thing about us.

And I find that possibility fascinating.

What if it gives more value to the things they cannot live for us?

Our experiences.

Our ability to love someone.

To lose someone.

To change our minds.

To contradict ourselves.

To sit somewhere on an ordinary Sunday afternoon and suddenly understand something about our lives that we couldn’t understand before.

I don’t know what AI will look like in ten years, and I certainly don’t know what our society will look like in fifty.

Maybe I’m romanticizing some of it.

I’m okay with admitting that.

But when I think about AI, fear still isn’t the first thing I feel.

Curiosity is.

Because maybe we aren’t watching the beginning of a world in which humans become obsolete.

Maybe we’re entering a world that will force us to finally ask:

If our value is no longer determined by how much we can produce, what makes a human life valuable?

I don’t think AI can answer that for us.

And maybe that’s exactly the point.

What if you’re not behind?

What if you’re simply growing in ways that can’t be measured yet?

For a while, I believed I was falling behind.

Other people were building businesses.

Going viral.

Moving faster than I ever seemed to.

And the slower my own life became…

the more I questioned myself.

Maybe I wasn’t doing enough.

Maybe I wasn’t disciplined enough.

Maybe I was simply dreaming too big.

Then someone asked me one question.

If money was completely taken care of for the next two years…

What would you start tomorrow?

My answer came immediately.

I would continue writing my fourth book.

Not because it would make me rich.

Not because it would impress anyone.

Because it’s what my heart has been trying to return to all along.

That’s when I realized something.

The dream had never disappeared.

I had simply become too busy surviving to hear it.

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For years, I thought growth had to look obvious.

More followers.

More money.

More productivity.

More proof that I was moving forward.

But maybe that’s only one definition of success.

What if your version of success looks completely different?

Maybe it looks like…

a nervous system that finally feels safe.

Slow mornings.

Cooking your own meals.

Having time to call your parents.

Writing the book you’ve been postponing for years.

Being present enough to actually notice your own life.

Maybe success isn’t becoming more impressive.

Maybe it’s becoming more yourself.

Nobody applauds a tree because its roots grew another meter underground.

From the surface, nothing seems to happen.

But underneath, everything that will one day carry the weight of the tree is quietly being built.

Maybe that’s why this season feels so slow.

Not because nothing is happening.

Because everything important is happening where nobody can see it.

Including you.

I used to think I needed to become someone else before my life could begin.

Now I think I was simply trying to build a future with a nervous system that was exhausted.

The strange thing about healing is…

it doesn’t always make you move faster.

Sometimes it makes you move slower.

More intentionally.

More honestly.

More like yourself.

Maybe that’s why I no longer want success that costs me my peace.

I’ve lived that version already.

It wasn’t freedom.

It was survival wearing ambition as a disguise.

So maybe the better question isn’t…

“Why am I so behind?”

Maybe it’s…

Whose definition of success am I secretly trying to live?

Because maybe you’re not behind at all.

Maybe you’re simply in the part of growth…

where the roots are still growing.

And roots never look impressive.

Until one day they become the reason the tree no longer falls with every storm.

The older I get…

the less interested I become in building a life that looks successful.

I’m much more interested in building one

that feels like home 🤍

Saraya

Remember who you are

Portugal was temporary.

Germany was temporary.

The job was temporary.

The grief was temporary.

The uncertainty was temporary.

Even my dreams seemed to exist somewhere in the future.

I kept believing that life would begin after the next chapter.

After the move.

After the breakthrough.

After the healing.

After I finally figured everything out.

And because I thought it was temporary, I stopped treating it like my life.

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This morning, I was lying on the couch eating a Kinder Country.

Freshly showered.

No work.

No appointments.

No urgency.

Just thirty quiet minutes before I had to leave.

The kind of moment that is so ordinary, you almost don’t notice it.

For a few minutes, I wasn’t thinking about Dubai.

I wasn’t thinking about money.

I wasn’t thinking about grief.

I wasn’t trying to solve my future.

I was simply there.

And then a strange thought crossed my mind:

What if I have spent years waiting for my life to begin?

I don’t think anyone does this consciously.

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to postpone their life.

It sounds much more reasonable than that.

We call it a transition.

A temporary phase.

A stepping stone.

A bridge.

Something we just need to get through.

And because we believe it won’t last forever, we stop treating it like life.

Portugal was a waiting room.

At least that’s how I treated it.

I thought life would begin once I knew what came next.

Once I had more money.

Once I had more clarity.

Once I felt more secure.

Then Germany became a waiting room.

The debt.

The uncertainty.

The job.

The rebuilding.

The grief.

All temporary.

All something to survive until the real story began.

And if I’m honest, Dubai is already trying to become the next waiting room.

A beautiful one.

A shiny one.

A dream-filled one.

But a waiting room nonetheless.

That’s the strange thing.

The location keeps changing.

The waiting stays the same.

For years, I believed my real life existed somewhere ahead of me.

After the move.

After the success.

After the healing.

After the money.

After the next version of myself finally arrived.

There was always a door in the future.

And I was convinced that once it opened, life would finally begin.

Then life did something I wasn’t prepared for.

It reminded me that nothing is guaranteed.

Not people.

Not dreams.

Not plans.

Not time.

Not even tomorrow.

Some losses don’t just break your heart.

They break the illusion that life is waiting for you somewhere else.

Suddenly, all the things you thought would happen “one day” become much less certain.

And all you are left with is now.

The coffee.

The conversation.

The dogs.

The sunshine.

The bills.

The dreams.

The people you love.

The people you’ve lost.

The ordinary Tuesday.

And maybe that’s where I was wrong.

Maybe life never arrives fully assembled.

Maybe it never waits until you’re healed.

Or debt-free.

Or successful.

Or certain.

Maybe life keeps happening in the middle of the mess.

While you’re grieving.

While you’re rebuilding.

While you’re figuring things out.

While you’re waiting for something better.

Maybe the most dangerous illusion isn’t failure.

Maybe it’s believing that your real life starts later.

Because later is seductive.

Later asks nothing from us.

Later allows us to postpone joy.

Postpone presence.

Postpone living.

But later never arrives.

It only keeps moving.

The other day I realized something that felt both comforting and heartbreaking.

I spent years trying to leave the waiting room.

Only to discover that the waiting room never existed.

There was only life.

Messy.

Beautiful.

Incomplete.

Unfinished.

Already happening.

Maybe nobody forgot to call my name.

Maybe there is no hidden door waiting to open.

Maybe there is no moment where life officially begins.

Maybe nobody is coming to announce that the real story can start now.

Maybe this isn’t the preview.

Maybe this isn’t the trailer.

Maybe this has been the movie all along.

Saraya — Remember who you are.

Flying always makes me sentimental.

Maybe because airports have a strange way of collapsing time.

One moment you’re looking out the window.

The next you’re face to face with a version of yourself you haven’t seen in years.

Not physically.

But internally.

Years ago, I wasn’t sitting on planes as a passenger.

I was working on them.

I was a flight attendant.

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My life was a constant cycle of arrivals and departures.

Today Rio de Janeiro.

Tomorrow Tokyo.

Next week New York.

I stood in places people spend their entire lives dreaming about.

And for a while, it felt magical.

It was a beautiful bridge.

But it was never meant to be the place I stayed.

The noise became louder.

The time zones became heavier.

The constant movement became exhausting.

Over time, I became increasingly sensitive to people, energy, and environments.

Being surrounded by hundreds of strangers every day stopped feeling exciting.

It started feeling overwhelming.

And deep down, I knew something difficult:

This was a beautiful chapter.

But it wasn’t the whole book.

So I left.

Terrified.

Without knowing what would come next.

Without guarantees.

Without certainty.

Only with a feeling.

A feeling that there had to be more.

Today, years later, I sat on another plane.

And I saw my former colleagues.

For a moment, time folded in on itself.

And instead of regret, I felt gratitude.

Deep gratitude.

I thanked the woman I used to be.

The one who was brave enough to leave.

The one who walked away before she knew where she was going.

The one who chose uncertainty over self-betrayal.

Because now I spend my days doing what I dreamed about for years.

I write.

I write books.

I write essays.

I build something that belongs to me.

Something that feels like home.

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And as I flew toward London to visit friends I met during my time in Portugal — people whose presence felt like home when I had none — I realized something else.

For years, I thought freedom was a destination.

A city.

A country.

An amount in a bank account.

But freedom was never hiding somewhere outside of me.

It was the relationship I was building with myself.

The ability to trust my own voice.

The courage to follow a path before I could fully explain it.

The willingness to leave what no longer fit.

Even when it hurt.

Even when it was scary.

Even when nobody understood.

I’m not where I ultimately want to be.

The work I’m building doesn’t fully carry me yet.

There are still days when life feels overwhelming.

Days when doubt visits.

Days when the future feels uncertain.

But my younger self would never believe I live this life today.

And that’s enough to make me emotional.

Because sometimes growth isn’t becoming who you dreamed of.

Sometimes growth is realizing you’re already standing inside a dream your former self couldn’t even imagine.

And if there’s something calling you right now…

Something you can’t fully explain.

Something that feels uncomfortable but alive.

Something that wants to move inside you.

Listen.

The path won’t be easy.

You’ll doubt yourself.

You’ll miss parts of your old life.

You’ll wonder if you’ve made a mistake.

But one day you’ll find yourself sitting somewhere unexpected.

And you’ll meet a former version of yourself.

And instead of sadness, you’ll feel gratitude.

Because you’ll realize she was brave enough to listen.

And because she listened…

you became who you are today.

— Saraya

Remember who you are.

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It’s the tired you feel after a day spent folding yourself into a shape that isn’t yours.

Smaller.

Faster.

Quieter.

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A version of you with the soul switched off, so the hands can move quicker.

I have a job right now that asks me for exactly that.

Not my warmth.

Not my eye for detail.

Not the part of me that wants the people around me to feel seen.

Just my hands.

Just my speed.

Just my silence.

Don’t talk.

Don’t slow down.

Don’t ask why.

Just function.

And something in my body says no before my mind even catches up.

A tightness in my chest.

A faint nausea.

The quiet, ancient signal of an animal that knows it’s in the wrong place.

For a long time, I thought being productive meant being good.

I thought that if I could just work harder, move faster, need less, complain less, I would eventually earn the right to rest.

I would earn my place.

But standing here, inside a life that often feels too small for me, I am learning something different.

Productivity, the way many systems define it, isn’t always about doing meaningful work.

Sometimes it’s about disappearing.

About becoming so efficient that the human parts of you stop showing.

The pauses.

The curiosity.

The questions.

The warmth.

The need to connect.

The body that hurts when it’s carrying too much.

They call that being a good worker.

I call it slowly going numb.

Maybe the hardest part of being a free spirit isn’t being different.

Maybe it’s spending years believing that your longing for more is a character flaw.

That your desire for freedom means you’re unrealistic.

That your sensitivity means you’re weak.

That your dreams are too big.

I used to believe that.

Now I think something else is true.

I think some people simply weren’t built for small spaces.

And the tragedy is not that they don’t fit.

The tragedy is how much energy they spend trying.

The world is full of boxes.

Job titles. Schedules. Rules. Invisible agreements about who you’re supposed to be.

Most people learn how to fit.

Some people never do.

And if you’re one of them, life becomes a constant negotiation between survival and self-betrayal.

You learn how to shrink.

How to stay quiet.

How to make yourself more acceptable. More manageable. More realistic.

Until one day you wake up exhausted.

Not because you’ve been working too hard.

But because you’ve been carrying a version of yourself that was never yours to begin with.

What I’m learning now is this:

The box is not my home.

It’s a bridge.

A bridge is something you walk across.

Not something you furnish and move into.

The mistake is forgetting which is which.

The mistake is mistaking the place that pays you for the place you belong.

I can wear the uniform without handing over my soul.

I can move through structures without believing they define me.

I can work inside the box without living inside it.

And maybe that’s freedom.

Not escaping every structure.

Not running away every time something feels uncomfortable.

But remembering who you are while you’re passing through.

Because the box was never the problem.

The problem was every time I tried to make myself small enough to like it.

—

Saraya

Remember who you are.

Some numb themselves with alcohol.
Others with drugs.
Others with work, relationships, attention, or constant noise.

And for a brief moment, we call that “living.”

Maybe because silence would force us to meet ourselves.

As I watched the people around me, I noticed something deeply sad:

Many people exist only inside their role.

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You see women who became mothers at some point and, somewhere along the way, quietly lost their own identity.
Not their love.
Not their importance.
But themselves.

The children grow up eventually.
Life moves forward.
But internally, many remain stuck somewhere in time.

They try to feel alive again.
They go out.
They drink.
They laugh loudly.
They try to feel young again.

But if you really look closely, you notice something:

Their bodies moved forward long ago, but somewhere along the way, their souls lost connection to themselves.

And while I was observing all these people, I suddenly realized:

I was actually observing myself.

Four weeks ago, I lost Blue.

And ever since then, I’ve been trying to hold two truths at the same time.

The spiritual truth:
That love never truly dies.
That every soul leaves when its journey is complete.
That connection is greater than the body.

And then the human truth:
That I miss her warmth.
Her eyes.
Her presence.
The sound of her footsteps.
The way my nervous system would immediately calm down whenever she laid beside me.

Spirituality sounds beautiful until life takes someone you truly love.

Four months ago, I returned to Germany.
After years of isolation, healing, and focusing on myself, I thought it was finally time to start living again.

More people.
More experiences.
More movement.
More “normality.”

And I truly tried.

I went out.
I partied.
I met new people.
I tried to feel like I belonged to this world again.

But yesterday something became painfully clear to me:

I am not built for a life that disconnects me from myself.

Alcohol does not fulfill me.
Crowds do not fulfill me.
Noise does not fulfill me.

For a long time, I thought I needed to become more.
More social.
More active.
More present.
More normal.

Until I realized:
this constant “more” was only taking me further away from myself.

I think that’s what exhausted me the most.

Not the people.
Not the music.
Not even the noise.

But the realization that so many of us spend years trying to escape emptiness instead of asking ourselves why we feel empty in the first place.

We keep searching for stimulation while slowly losing connection to ourselves.

And maybe that was the moment I understood something about myself:

I do not crave a bigger life.
I crave a more meaningful one.

Aliveness feels different.

Aliveness is:
when your soul exhales.
When your body softens.
When you can write again.
When water calms your thoughts.
When beauty moves you.
When you feel meaning.

I still don’t fully know what that life looks like.

The life that truly feels like me.

But I know now what it does not feel like.

And maybe that is the most honest beginning there is.

Not an arrival.
Not an answer.

Just a human being who finally stopped lying to herself.

— Saraya
Remember who you are

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Four weeks since I had to continue living while something inside of me quietly broke.

And somehow, in the middle of all that pain, I realized something:

Grief changes the way you understand love.

This essay is dedicated to my soul — and to the being that spent eight years teaching me what unconditional love actually feels like.

Blue.

My dog.

My home.

My nervous system.

My safe place.

People often underestimate what an animal can become to a human being.

But a dog does something most people struggle to do:

They love you without asking you to become someone else first.

A dog doesn’t care about your productivity, your masks, your past, your trauma or your “potential.”

They simply see you.

And somehow… that alone is enough.

A dog can calm your nervous system within seconds. Not because they solve your problems — but because their love carries no performance.

No manipulation.

No emotional games.

No distancing to feel powerful.

No pretending not to care.

Just presence.

Animals live in the present moment.

And maybe that is why being loved by them feels so healing.

Because for a moment, our nervous system finally gets to rest.

Lately, I’ve been asking myself something:

Why is it often easier for us to love animals vulnerably than it is to love other human beings?

Why can we soften so naturally around them — yet become guarded the moment another person truly touches our heart?

Maybe because human love activates everything inside of us.

The fear of abandonment.

The fear of not being enough.

The fear of being seen too deeply.

The fear of losing ourselves.

The fear of needing someone.

And suddenly, love no longer feels like a gift.

It starts feeling like danger.

Human beings are different.

Most people were not taught that love is safe.

They were taught emotional inconsistency.

Distance.

Silence.

Performance.

Survival.

So when love finally appears — real love, soft love, present love — the nervous system often doesn’t recognize it as safety.

It recognizes it as vulnerability.

And vulnerability feels dangerous to a body that learned how to survive through control, emotional self-protection or leaving first.

So we analyze.

We measure.

We test.

We hold back.

We wait three days to text back just to seem less interested than we actually are.

We call it standards.

We call it self-protection.

We call it healing.

But sometimes… it is simply fear disguised as wisdom.

Fear disguised as independence.

Fear disguised as “high standards.”

We say we need more time to trust.

But maybe the truth is deeper than that.

Maybe we never learned what it feels like when someone stays.

When someone sees our wounds, our contradictions, our masks — and still chooses to love us gently.

A person who struggles to open up was often never shown what it feels like to be loved without having to earn it first.

So instead, we perform healing instead of actually loving.

We read books about attachment instead of allowing ourselves to attach.

We become experts in self-awareness while remaining terrified of emotional exposure.

We learn the language of healing while still struggling to stay when love asks us to be fully seen.

Because real love asks for something terrifying:

Presence.

Not perfection.

Not performance.

Not control.

Presence.

Blue taught me that.

She loved without keeping score.

Without making me earn softness first.

And maybe that is why losing her hurts so deeply.

Because she reminded me of the version of myself that still knew how to love without fear.

People think letting go means becoming distant.

But maybe real letting go means releasing the belief that love must constantly be earned.

Maybe it means allowing yourself to stay open — even after loss.

Even after disappointment.

Even after grief.

Blue taught me how to love without fear.

Now it’s my turn to learn how to do that with people.

— Saraya

For Blue.

Always.

It doesn’t feel like survival.

It feels like ambition. It feels like drive. It feels like you’re finally doing the right things, chasing the right goals, building the right life, becoming the right person.

It looks productive from the outside.

But inside you are running from yourself.

I know this because I lived it.

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For years I chased things I thought would make me happy. The apartment. The car. The lifestyle that looked like freedom on a screen.

The version of success that other people seemed to have already arrived at, while I was still somewhere in the middle, not enough, not there yet.

I worked hard for things I didn’t actually want. I fought for things I never asked for. I stretched myself toward a life that looked right but felt completely wrong inside my body.

And the whole time I was moving further away from myself.

Not dramatically. Not all at once.

Just slowly. Quietly. One compromise at a time. One fear swallowed. One real desire abandoned because it didn’t fit the image.

That is what survival mode actually looks like.

Not falling apart.

But chasing. And chasing. And never arriving. Because the thing you’re chasing was never the real thing.

The real thing was always simpler. And so much harder to reach.

Because it requires you to stop.

To feel what is actually there. To sit with the anxiety instead of outrunning it. To admit that the expensive thing, the impressive thing, the visible thing, none of it touches the place inside you that is still restless.

None of it reaches the nervous system that is still in fight-or-flight. Still scanning for danger.

Still whispering:

you are not safe.

you are not enough.

keep going.

You can have everything on the outside and still feel nothing but emptiness and exhaustion on the inside.

I know. Because I did.

And then slowly, unglamorously, without a single dramatic moment, something began to shift.

Not because I achieved something.

But because I stopped.

I started taking small steps back toward myself. Noticing them. Honoring them. And one day I realized that so much was happening around me, decisions to make, money to think about, a dog I love deeply who needs care, new love entering my life in ways I didn’t expect, and yet I was calm.

Not because everything was fixed. Not because nothing hurt anymore.

But because something inside me had quietly changed.

I noticed it in a small moment recently.

Someone I care about looked at me and said: tell me what you need. I’m here. Whatever it is.

And I almost said: I’m fine. I don’t need anything.

That was my old reflex. Shrink. Deflect. Protect.

But this time I paused.

And instead I said: thank you.

The fact that you’re saying this, that alone means everything to me.

That’s it. That was the whole shift.

Not a grand gesture. Not a breakthrough.

Just a woman who finally let herself be seen without immediately making herself smaller.

A year ago I would not have been able to do that.

A year ago I was softer on the outside and harder on the inside. More available for chaos. Less available for peace. Running toward things that looked like love but felt like work.

Now I am softer everywhere. And somehow clearer.

Less drama-seeking. More truth-tolerant. More rooted in what is actually real.

I also see this in how I handle fear now. My dog is sick right now. And there is nothing in my life that has ever made me spiral faster than the thought of losing her. But this week I noticed something strange.

I am calm.

Not because I’m not scared.

But because I made a quiet decision: my nervous system stays steady so hers can too. Today she is here. She is breathing. She is alive. That is enough. I am not letting the fear travel further than the present moment.

That is not nothing. That is years of work showing up when it matters most.

We spend so much time looking at what is still unfinished. What is still messy. What still hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile we have become wiser. Kinder to ourselves. More honest. More regulated. More real.

We overlook the miracle because it arrived quietly.

That is the freedom no one sells you.

Not the car. Not the apartment. Not the follower count.

The freedom of a body that is no longer at war with itself. The freedom of wanting things from a place of choice, not from a place of fear. The freedom of knowing: I am the stillness I was always looking for.

You do not need to destroy yourself to grow. You do not need chaos to feel alive. You do not need to earn love through suffering. You do not need to panic just because life is moving.

Sometimes the next level looks like peace.

Sometimes the glow-up is internal.

Sometimes success is becoming the kind of woman who can hold a beautiful life without abandoning herself inside it.

And if everything around you is uncertain right now, but you feel more steady than you used to, please notice that.

That is not nothing.

That is healing.

Saraya ♥️

Remember who you are.

No plan.

No backup.

No version of me I could return to.

I gave everything away.

Clothes.

Papers.

Proof of who I used to be.

Even my school certificates.

I didn’t want memories.

I didn’t want evidence.

I didn’t want a door back.

I just wanted out.

Out of a life that looked right

but felt completely wrong.

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First stop: Ibiza 🌴

From a Frankfurt city girl to barefoot in nature, living with hippie girls who didn’t care about time, money, or rules.

I learned how to live without comfort.

And yes !!!!

I learned how to shit in nature!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not in a cute, aesthetic way.

In a real,

this-is-your-life-now kind of way.

I loved it.

And I hated it.

Because freedom isn’t always soft.

Sometimes it’s raw.

Sometimes it’s uncomfortable.

Sometimes it strips you down so much

you don’t even recognize yourself anymore.

People romanticize this kind of life.

But let’s be honest:

Without money, you’re not free.

You’re just trapped in a different way.

And still something shifted.

No pressure to perform.

No need to impress.

No obsession with becoming more.

The things that once felt important

suddenly… weren’t.

And then there was my mind.

It didn’t get quiet just because I left.

If anything, it got louder.

My nervous system was completely overwhelmed.

I didn’t have the words for it back then.

I didn’t understand biology.

I didn’t understand regulation.

I didn’t even understand what was happening inside me.

All I knew was:

I couldn’t relax.

I couldn’t think clearly.

And I couldn’t feel safe in my own body.

So I searched for answers.

And I ended up in a spiritual bubble.

I explained everything through awakening.

Through astrology.

Through energy shifts and higher dimensions.

And honestly?

At that time,

I needed it.

Because when you lose everything…

you need something to hold on to.

You need hope.

You need meaning.

You need to believe that this is leading somewhere.

That’s one of the reasons I went to Ibiza.

I thought I would expand there.

Heal there.

Become someone new.

And in a way… I did.

But not in the way I expected.

Because the version of spirituality I was living back then wasn’t grounding me.

It was keeping me in my head.

I wasn’t regulating.

I was escaping.

And that’s a difference

no one talks about enough.

Don’t get me wrong…

I’m still deeply spiritual.

But now I understand:

Healing isn’t about floating above your life.

It’s about being able to stay in your body

without falling apart.

After Ibiza, I kept moving.

Portugal 🇵🇹

No plan.

Just a car, a few things,

and a life that didn’t look like anything I knew before.

I lived in my car for months.

Four months.

From one spot to another.

Sleeping near the ocean.

Waking up with sand everywhere.

In my clothes.

In my hair.

In the car.

It was messy.

Uncomfortable.

Free.

And for the first time in my life…

I had space.

No expectations.

No pressure.

No version of me I had to perform.

Just silence.

And in that silence….

everything I had been avoiding

finally caught up with me.

So I started writing.

At first, just to get it out.

The thoughts.

The chaos.

The emotions I never had time to feel before.

And then something shifted.

It wasn’t just a release anymore.

It became clarity.

For the first time,

I asked myself real questions:

What do I actually want?

What feels like freedom to me?

What does a life look like

that doesn’t drain me?

And slowly…

I started to hear my own answers.

Not the loud ones.

The quiet ones.

The ones that don’t come from pressure—

but from truth.

I wrote my first book.

Then another one.

Then another.

Not because I had a plan.

But because I finally had space to meet myself.

And now…

one year later.

I’m back in Germany.

Living with my parents again.

And no…

this is not the part where everything looks perfect.

Some of the plans I had didn’t work out.

Dubai didn’t happen.

Not yet.

But something else happened instead.

I became calm.

My mind isn’t racing anymore.

My body doesn’t feel like it’s in constant survival.

I breathe deeper.

I move slower.

I’m here.

And for the first time in my life…

that feels like enough.

I’m not trying to escape anymore.

I’m choosing.

Back then, I thought freedom meant leaving everything behind.

And maybe, at that moment, it did.

But now I understand something deeper:

You can’t build a new life

while holding on to the old one.

Did I do everything perfectly?

No.

I could have kept more.

Planned better.

Been more “rational.”

But I wasn’t trying to be rational.

I was trying to survive.

And I forgive that version of me.

Completely.

Because she did the only thing she knew how to do:

She left.

And I didn’t take shortcuts.

I felt everything.

The fear.

The uncertainty.

The loneliness.

And it was hard.

Really hard.

But becoming the woman I am today

was worth every single moment.

And I promise you there is something incredibly beautiful about meeting yourself there.

Saraya

Remember who you are

People talk about heartbreak like it only happens in romance.

Like pain only counts when there was a kiss.

A promise.

A last fight before the door slams shut.

Nobody talks about the other kind.

The quiet kind.

The one where nothing dramatic happens

and that’s exactly what makes it unbearable.

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I was 27 when my best friend of ten years simply… stopped.

No fight.

No confrontation.

No explanation.

One day she was there.

And then she wasn’t.

I kept writing.

Kept calling.

Kept showing up…

in messages, in memories, in the space she used to fill.

Did I say something wrong?

Did I become too much?

Was I never enough?

The silence didn’t answer.

It just grew louder.

And the cruelest part?

Deep down, I had felt it coming.

Months before it ended.

The shorter replies.

The shift in energy.

The subtle distance you try to explain away.

She was building a life where I didn’t quite fit anymore.

And I saw it.

I just refused to accept it.

Because seeing it

would have meant losing her.

Nobody prepares you for friendship heartbreak.

With a man, the world gives you a script.

You cry.

You talk.

You heal.

There are songs.

Movies.

Entire industries built around romantic loss.

But when your best friend disappears?

There is no script.

No one asks how you’re doing.

No one validates the grief.

You just quietly fall apart

while everything around you keeps moving.

I remember the first Christmas without a message.

I told myself she forgot.

New Year’s Eve came.

Nothing.

And somewhere inside me, something broke.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just… quietly.

Like a door closing in an empty house.

That’s when I understood:

She didn’t lose me.

She chose to leave.

And I would never know why.

And that not-knowing…

that’s the part that stays.

Because silence doesn’t give you a story.

It gives you space to question yourself.

Every version of you that might have been too much.

Too loud.

Too inconvenient to keep.

Seven years later, I can say this:

It was the most painful gift she ever gave me.

Because after her — I changed.

I stopped shrinking.

Stopped waiting.

Stopped trying to fit into spaces that were already closing.

I started building a life

where I no longer had to ask to belong.

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But there’s something I rarely say out loud.

After her… I closed.

Not consciously.

Not dramatically.

Just… slowly.

I never let anyone that close again.

Not with that kind of access.

Not with that kind of risk.

And with men?

I felt everything.

But I never fully stayed.

Because somewhere in my body lived the memory

of what it feels like

to love someone fully

and be left without a word.

So I learned something dangerous:

To love with one foot out the door.

To care —

but not completely.

To stay —

but never fully arrive.

Because if you never fully arrive…

you can never be fully left.

It took me years to understand what that costs.

When you protect yourself from loss,

you also protect yourself from love.

Real love.

The kind that requires presence.

Not control.

And I’m still learning this.

Still unlearning the armor.

Still practicing staying open

after everything that taught me to close.

Because love — real love —

can’t be planned.

It can only be felt.

And you can only feel it

if you’re still willing to be felt.

If you’ve ever kept writing to someone

who stopped writing back…

If you’ve ever grieved someone

who is still alive…

If you’ve ever sat in silence

trying to understand what changed…

This is for you.

Your grief is real.

And the quiet way you broke…

was not weakness.

It was the beginning.

The beginning of you choosing people

who choose you back.

In Love

Saraya

Remember who you are.

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THE OPEN VERSION

There’s a version of me people fall in love with.

She’s warm.

Present.

Open in a way that feels rare.

She looks you in the eyes and doesn’t hold back.

She’s all in.

She listens, really listens.

She lets you in.

And for a moment…

it feels like you’ve found something real.

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THE TRUTH

What most people don’t understand is this:

That version of me is not always available.

Not because I’m playing games.

Not because I’m inconsistent.

But because I am deeply rooted in myself.

And I return there.

Again and again.

THE QUIET VERSION

I spend most of my time in silence.

In my own world.

In a space that doesn’t need constant interaction to feel full.

I don’t feel lonely there.

I feel whole.

THE MISUNDERSTANDING

People meet me in my open moments

and think that’s me all the time.

They expect me to stay.

And when I go back to myself…

they get confused.

They call it distance.

They call it change.

Some even think they did something wrong.

But the truth is:

You didn’t meet all of me.

You met a moment.

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WHAT IT MEANS TO BE INTROVERTED

Being introverted doesn’t mean being closed.

It means I choose carefully when I open.

And when I do…

it’s real.

There’s no half version of me.

No surface-level presence.

It’s depth.

Or nothing.

And that’s where it becomes difficult for some people.

Because they don’t understand

that connection with me isn’t constant access.

It’s presence when I choose it.

And space when I need it.

Some people need continuous closeness

to feel secure.

I need space

to stay connected to myself.

THE CLARITY

So no…

I’m not distant.

I’m just not available for everyone,

all the time.

And if you ever experienced my open side,

my warmth,

my presence…

just know:

It was real.

Every moment.

Every word.

Every look.

But it was never meant

to replace who I am in my quiet.

And if you couldn’t hold both versions of me…

That’s not distance.

That’s just me,

being whole.

Saraya — Remember who you are. 🤍

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There’s a difference between being high value

and becoming iconic.

High value still tries to prove.

Iconic doesn’t perform.

A year ago, I spoke about standards.

About boundaries.

About what we accept.

About what we think we deserve.

Now I understand something deeper.

Standards are not spoken.

They are embodied.

Icon energy is not loud.

It is regulated.

It doesn’t chase clarity.

It creates gravity.

High value is performance.

It’s the act of showing your worth.

It’s the resume.

The highlights.

The proof.

High value says:

“Look at what I bring.”

“Look at what I’ve achieved.”

“Look at what I can offer.”

It’s external.

It’s loud.

It needs validation.

And here’s the thing:

High value is exhausting.

Because it requires constant proving.

Constant showing.

Constant performance.

You’re always on stage.

Always auditioning.

Always asking:

“Am I enough?”

I lived there for years.

I thought if I just showed more, achieved more, became more someone would finally see me.

But the more I performed,

the less I felt seen.

Because high value is transactional.

It’s:

“I give this, you give that.”

And when you’re transactional,

you’re replaceable.

Icon energy is different.

It’s not about what you show.

It’s about what you are.

It’s not performance.

It’s presence.

Icon energy says:

“I am here.”

Not:

“Look at what I can do.”

But:

“This is who I am.”

Icon energy is quiet

because it doesn’t need to prove.

It’s regulated

because it knows its worth without external validation.

It’s gravity

because it pulls people in without chasing.

Think about it:

The most iconic people you know

they don’t perform.

They don’t chase.

They don’t beg.

They don’t explain.

They simply are.

And people are drawn to them.

Why?

Because icon energy creates safety.

Not the loud kind of safety

that promises things.

But the quiet kind

your nervous system recognizes instantly.

It says:

“I am grounded.”

“I am clear.”

“I am not reactive.”

And in a world of chaos,

that’s magnetic.

Because most people are still performing.

Still explaining.

Still negotiating their worth.

Still trying to be chosen.

Icon energy doesn’t do that.

It doesn’t rush.

It doesn’t chase.

It doesn’t need to convince anyone.

It simply stands in its own gravity.

And gravity changes the room.

Without effort.

Without noise.

Without explanation.

You feel it when someone walks in.

They’re not the loudest person.

They’re not trying to dominate the space.

But somehow

everything slows down.

People listen differently.

The room adjusts.

Because true authority doesn’t need to announce itself.

It regulates the environment around it.

And that’s the shift most people miss.

Standards are not about rules.

They’re about identity.

When you truly have standards you don’t need to say:

“I won’t tolerate disrespect.”

Disrespect simply stops approaching.

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Because your energy already answered the question.

Long before words were needed.

That’s icon energy.

Not louder.

Not harder.

Not more impressive.

Just clearer.

Clear in who you are.

Clear in what you allow.

Clear in what you no longer chase.

And from that clarity, gravity appears.

Opportunities move closer.

People move closer.

Truth moves closer.

Not because you demanded it.

But because you stopped performing for it.

So if there’s one thing I want you to remember, it’s this:

You don’t become iconic

by doing more.

You become iconic

by performing less.

Stop chasing.

Start trusting.

Stop proving.

Start embodying.

Because icon energy is not loud.

It’s felt.

And in a world full of noise,

quiet authority

is unforgettable.

— Saraya

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And there is a version that regulates.

The first one attracts attention.

The second one attracts alignment.

For a long time, I confused the two.

I thought magnetism meant being on.

Being bright.

Being impressive.

Always a little more than yesterday.

But that version was exhausting. Because she was performing for a nervous system that was never calm enough to receive what she was asking for.

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What I observed.

I noticed it first in relationships.

The moments I was most desperate for connection were the exact moments I pushed it away. Not because I didn’t deserve love – but because my nervous system had learned that love meant chaos. That silence meant danger. That calm meant something was wrong.

So I performed. I over-explained. I chased.

And the more I chased, the less I attracted.

Then something shifted. Not overnight. Slowly.

I started regulating instead of reacting. I started pausing instead of pursuing. I stopped filling every silence with noise.

And the strangest thing happened.

People moved toward me. Opportunities appeared. I stopped feeling invisible.

Not because I became more. But because I became still.

What science says.

Neuroscientist Stephen Porges developed something called Polyvagal Theory – the idea that our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for safety or threat. This process is called neuroception.

When your nervous system is dysregulated, you unconsciously signal threat – even when you don’t mean to. Your energy becomes erratic. People feel it without knowing why.

But when you regulate – when your nervous system learns that calm is safe – you signal something completely different.

You signal: I am not in survival mode.

You signal: I have space.

You signal: I am here.

That is what people feel when they call someone magnetic.

They are not feeling confidence.

They are feeling regulation.

What I know now.

You cannot attract what you cannot hold.

And you cannot hold anything – a relationship, an opportunity, a new version of yourself – if your nervous system is running on survival mode.

Regulation is not passive. It is not soft. It is the most powerful work you can do.

It means you stop chasing.

You stop performing.

You become so steady that the right things find you.

She doesn’t become louder.

She becomes rare.

And rarity is magnetic.

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This is The Saraya Code.

Nervous system. Truth. Self-leadership.

I thought I would be further by now.

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More established.

More certain.

More… arrived.

Instead, I am rebuilding.

And the strangest part is — from the outside, no one really sees it. They just see a woman in her mid-thirties. Old enough to “have it together.” Young enough to still pretend she does.

But inside, something has been dismantled.

Carefully. Painfully. On purpose.

There’s a particular kind of tension that comes with this age.

You are no longer twenty-five and “figuring it out.”

The world is less forgiving.

The expectations are louder.

Friends are buying homes.

Some are married.

Some have children.

Some have careers that make sense on paper.

And then there are those of us who quietly tore our lives down and started again.

Not because we failed.

But because we finally saw the truth.

There is a difference.

No one prepares you for the moment when you realize that the version of you that looked successful… wasn’t aligned.

No one tells you how disorienting it is to outgrow your own life.

To walk away from things that once defined you.

To leave rooms that once felt like opportunity.

To let go of people who only loved a version of you that survived.

And then — to stand alone with nothing but your awareness.

Mid-thirties is not always the age of arrival.

Sometimes, it is the age of reckoning.

There’s a quiet grief in that.

Grief for the timeline you thought you’d have.

Grief for the stability you imagined.

Grief for the certainty you assumed would come automatically with age.

But here’s the part no one talks about:

When you rebuild at this age, you don’t build from fantasy.

You build from integration.

You know your patterns.

You know your blind spots.

You know what nearly broke you.

You are no longer driven by impulse.

You are driven by awareness.

That changes everything.

Standing between worlds is uncomfortable.

You are no longer who you were.

But you are not fully who you are becoming.

The old identity no longer fits.

The new one has not fully formed.

It can look like instability.

But it is actually refinement.

It can feel like being behind.

But it is actually becoming deliberate.

There is a different kind of power in starting again when you understand yourself.

It is slower.

It is less glamorous.

It is far more real.

Some nights, I still think:

I should be further.

But then I remember:

Further where?

Further into a life that wasn’t mine?

Further into a version of success that required self-betrayal?

No.

I am not late.

I am precise.

And maybe this isn’t the age of arrival.

Maybe this is the age where we stop performing progress

and start choosing direction.

That is not a failure.

That is maturity.

That is authorship.

And authorship takes time.

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Saraya

Remember who you are.

This time, I’m learning to stay.

It has been four years since I’ve been on a real date.

Not because I didn’t want love.

But because I was afraid of losing myself.

Afraid of not being seen.

Afraid of trusting.

Afraid that being loved might not be safe for me.

There was always that quiet voice:

You can’t trust this.

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During my healing journey, this was one of the deepest patterns I wanted to break.

Because pushing your femininity away doesn’t make you strong.

It makes you guarded.

And I’m not talking about needing someone to feel whole.

I’m talking about being whole and choosing someone anyway.

Then I met someone.

And something in me softened.

We talked for weeks.

Warm. Respectful. Present.

When we finally met, I felt two things at once:

Desire.

And vigilance.

My body remembered things my mind had worked through.

In the past, sex was never my problem.

Staying was.

This time, I want it to be different.

But here’s the truth:

I don’t know yet if I’m healed.

I don’t know yet if I’ll stay.

What I do know is this:

I am watching myself.

I am noticing when fear rises.

I am noticing when I want to shrink.

I am noticing when I want to run.

And I’m not judging it.

Healing is theoretical

until you are inside the situation

that once broke you.

Growth is not proven in solitude.

It’s proven in connection.

Love without losing your center

is not about control.

It’s about awareness.

And this time,

I am not disappearing.

I am here.

With love,

Saraya

Remember who you are.

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and still, you walk forward.

It started with one sentence.

Jessica Rose Williams wrote about her first ballet class at 33 and her first pointe class at 37.

And then she said:

It’s never too late. Let yourself start.

Something inside me exhaled.

And suddenly, I wasn’t just reading a Substack post.

I was sitting across from myself, looking at all the things I had postponed.

All the ways I had been waiting.

Let Yourself Start

Not when you’re ready.

Not when it’s safe.

Not when you’ve healed.

Start when your hands are still shaking.

When you’re still looking back.

When your heart is loud with doubt.

Start anyway.

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I remember sitting on the edge of my old bed, in a room that used to feel like mine.

Not knowing if I was still welcome.

Not knowing if I had a place to land.

There were boxes around me. Dust. Old dreams.

And I didn’t even know what to unpack first my fears, or my clothes.

And yet, in the middle of that mess,

I heard it.

The quietest voice.

Not the one yelling I’m not ready

but the one whispering:

“But you can still begin.”

You won’t feel ready.

There’s always a story unfinished,

a part of you that still needs healing,

a version of you that says:

“Who do you think you are?”

Let her speak.

Then let her go.

She’s not your future.

She’s your old protection.

Let yourself start.

Not because it’s easy.

But because you’re done waiting.

Because every part of you that still believes in your truth

deserves a chance to come alive.

Start because you miss your own voice.

Start because something sacred stirs in you when you choose yourself.

Start because the life you crave will not wait for perfect timing

it’s waiting for permission.

And only you can give it.

Start the poem.

Start the move.

Start the letter.

Start the ritual.

Start the truth.

Not for applause.

Not for validation.

Not even for the results.

But for the frequency that rises in you

the moment you say yes.

Let yourself start.

Not because it will be perfect.

But because you are strong enough

to make it sacred.

Saraya

Remember who you are.

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If this landed for you let me know in the comments. What are you finally letting yourself start?

And if you’re still trembling? I’m here. I’m cheering for you.

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I’m sitting in my childhood home.

The walls haven’t changed.

The streets outside are still familiar.

Even the smell is the same.

But I’m not.

For the past ten years, I lived alone.

I traveled. I created. I ran.

I built a life in cities where no one knew my name.

And for a long time, I believed that meant I was free.

But then, three years ago, everything shattered.

Not quietly. Not gently.

It all fell apart at once.

And for the first time, I asked myself:

Where does this pain come from?

The Question No One Ever Asked Me

I sat in front of my therapist.

She asked me about my childhood.

And I didn’t understand why.

“My parents gave me everything,” I said.

A home. Food. Clean clothes. A roof over my head.

But then she looked at me and asked:

“Did you feel safe?”

And I couldn’t answer.

Because I didn’t know what that meant.

I knew rules. I knew expectations.

But I didn’t know emotional safety.

I Come From a Line of Silence

My parents were born in Russia.

My great-grandparents were refugees—

fleeing war, communism, hunger, and death.

Some of them were murdered.

Some of them survived—but lost their voices.

My grandmother arrived in Russia at 14.

She stopped speaking for two years.

Trauma silenced her.

She later married. Had seven children.

Some died in accidents. Others from illness.

She tried to control fate with rules and survival.

But the grief lived in her bones.

Then, decades later, my parents brought us to Germany.

They wanted safety. Structure.

They wanted a better life for us.

But the pain came with them.

You Can’t Give What You Never Received

My parents did their best.

But their nervous systems were trapped in survival.

And a body in survival…

…can’t regulate.

…can’t connect.

…can’t love in the way a child truly needs.

So we received structure.

But not softness.

Provision. But not presence.

We learned how to behave. But not how to feel.

And I grew up thinking I was broken.

When in truth, I was simply adapting.

The Day I Was Finally Ready to Listen

Three years ago, I left.

Not out of anger.

But because something in me broke.

Back then, I couldn’t understand what my parents had been through.

Because my inner child was still screaming.

Still aching for the love she never received.

Still making them wrong for what they couldn’t give.

But now… I’m different.

Now, I can hear their story.

Not with judgment.

Not with blame.

But with an open heart.

And I see it clearly:

My parents weren’t cruel.

They were traumatized.

And so were their parents.

And theirs before them.

This pain didn’t start with me.

But maybe… it can end with me.

What I Have That They Didn’t

My grandmother lost her voice.

I write.

My mother didn’t know what self-regulation meant.

I study it. Practice it. Teach it.

My ancestors lived in fear.

I get to live in awareness.

And that is a privilege.

But it’s also a responsibility.

The Return I Never Planned

Just six or three months ago, I never thought I’d come back.

After years of no contact,

I returned to my parents’ house.

Not because everything was fixed.

But because I wasn’t the same person anymore.

I no longer needed them to apologize.

I didn’t need them to understand everything.

I just needed to sit in this space…

…without disappearing.

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What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing is not everyone sitting in a circle, crying, and saying “I’m sorry.”

Healing is:

– Seeing your parents as humans, not gods or villains

– Letting go of the fantasy that they’ll undo your pain

– Creating safety inside your own body

– Coming home and realizing: you don’t need to run anymore

My parents are older now.

Softer.

My mother bakes for me.

She tries new recipes—because she knows I’m sensitive.

That’s her way of showing love.

It’s not perfect.

But it’s real.

And I see it now.

If You’re Carrying Pain You Didn’t Create

This is what I want you to know:

You’re not broken.

You’re part of a long line of survivors.

People who did what they could with what they had.

And now it’s your turn to choose differently.

You don’t owe anyone your forgiveness.

But you owe yourself your freedom.

And sometimes, freedom looks like…

…coming home.

Not to fix the past.

But to prove to yourself:

You’re whole now.

With love,

Saraya

☾ Remember who you are.

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If this touched something in you, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear about the women who came before you.

Feel free to share this with someone who’s carrying stories that aren’t theirs.

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A dysregulated nervous system makes you poor.

I need to tell you something uncomfortable.

A dysregulated nervous system doesn’t just make you anxious. It makes you poor.

Not because you’re lazy. Not because you lack discipline. But because a body in survival mode can’t make good decisions.

Let me explain.

What I didn’t understand for years

For a long time, I thought my financial problems were about willpower.

“If I just tried harder…”If I just had more discipline…”

But here’s what I’ve learned:

A nervous system in survival mode doesn’t plan. It reacts.

It can’t save. It can’t wait. It can only do one thing: Survive. Now.

And that costs you.

How survival mode keeps you broke

When your nervous system is dysregulated, you don’t make financial decisions. You make survival decisions.

Here’s what that looked like for me:

1. Impulsive purchases to feel better

(even for a moment)

2. Ordering food because cooking felt overwhelming

3. “Self-care” that wasn’t care at all. Decisions made from fear, not clarity.

A dysregulated nervous system can’t plan. Can’t save. Can’t wait.

It only knows one thing: Survive now. Whatever it costs.

And it cost me over €26,000.

The decision that broke me (and taught me everything)

I bought a car I couldn’t afford.

Not because I needed it. But because my nervous system was screaming for safety.

“If I have a car, I have freedom.”

“If I have freedom, I’m safe.”

Except I wasn’t safe. I was €26,000 in debt.

That’s what survival mode does. It promises safety. But delivers chaos.

What changes when you regulate

When your nervous system feels safe, everything shifts.

You stop making decisions from panic. You start making decisions from clarity.

You stop:

∙ Impulse buying to numb discomfort

∙ Saying yes when you mean no (because you’re afraid)

∙ Spending money to feel in control

You start:

∙ Pausing before you buy

∙ Choosing what actually serves you

∙ Building instead of surviving

Healing isn’t luxury. It’s financial intelligence.

The truth no one talks about

So many women are stuck financially.

Not because they lack knowledge. Not because they lack willpower.

But because their body is in survival mode.

And a body in survival can’t save. Can’t plan. Can only take what soothes right now.

That’s why so many women stay broke.

What I want you to know

If you’re struggling financially right now…

If you keep making decisions you regret…

If you feel like you “should know better” but can’t stop…

You’re not broken. Your nervous system is dysregulated.

And when your body feels safe? Your decisions change.

You don’t need to be better. You need to feel safer.

With love, Saraya

Remember who you are

P.S. I write about nervous system healing, truth, and the slow return home to yourself. If that resonates, I’d love to connect.