Manifestation has become a massive buzzword, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to this one question.

As I sit down to write this, I’m reminded of one my favorite lines from one of my favorite books, The Almanac of Naval Ravikant:

“The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”
— Naval Ravikant

The trick is, most people go about this in the very wrong way.

Namely: trying to brute force their way to their desires.

While I have not gotten everything I want out of life (yet!), several of my manifestations have recently come to fruition.

I’m going to spend today’s newsletter giving you the full breakdown of what I did (and didn’t do) to get there.

The art of getting what you want

In my experience, “manifestation” has come down to four key ingredients:

1. A clear intention (defining what you want)

2. Self-belief (believing (a) that you deserve it, and (b) that it is possible for you)

3. Aligned action (moving toward it)

4. Surrender (relinquishing control of the how)

Put another way, the final step to getting what you want is moving out of a force state, and into a flow state.

The best way to explain this is with examples, so let’s get into a few things on my manifestation list that have recently come to pass.

Manifestation list item #1: 30,000 humans following my page

On New Year’s Eve this year, my friend told me she was “manifesting 30K for me” by the end of the year.

At the time, I had about 1,800 followers on my Instagram account and I think I laughed out loud. It felt like an impossible number.

Until I decided, why not me? And then…

• I wrote it down on my manifestation list (clear intention).

• I worked with a spiritual mentor (the amazing ) to clear my worthiness and visibility blocks (self-belief).

• I committed to posting every single day – often multiple times per day – while ignoring the metrics (aligned action).

• And lastly, I decided not to worry about the how (surrender).

For all intents and purposes, I put blinders on and started running full speed ahead.

Less than two weeks later, I posted a video that went viral, seemingly out of nowhere.

It was seen by more than 6 million people, and converted 10,000 new followers to my page in about 72 hours.

Believe me when I say: nobodt was more surprised by this than me. I had no idea that this growth rate on a single video was remotely possible (for anyone, let alone for me).

And that’s the thing.

I took the action, but I did not try to manipulate how I was going to get there.

By giving the how to God, I was met with a far more miraculous result than anything I could have planned or conjured with my own conscious mind.

That initial jump happened in January, and on August 17 (4 months early!) I hit 30K.

Manifestation list item #2: Being invited to speak on podcasts

I’ve been hosting The Well Path Podcast (on and off) since 2024, and I felt a call earlier this year to start speaking on the other side of the mic.

I put “get invited to speak on someone else’s podcast” on my manifestation list at the beginning of the year, and over the past few months, the invites have been streaming in.

To be so clear: we don’t manifest something by writing it down and doing nothing about it.

But it is just as important that the actions we take come from an energy of alignment and trust, not force.

In between writing the goal down and the invites coming through, here is what I did:

1. Kept putting out content on a near-daily basis

2. Organically grew my own audience from ~1,800 to 30K

3. Let people know that I was open to speaking on podcasts — this led to introductions through friends and my professional network

Here’s what I didn’t do:

1. Chase invites

2. Reach out to podcast hosts and ask to come on their shows

3. Try to force the goal into reality

I ended up speaking on three podcasts within the span of a month — and I hope to do a lot more!

1. The Self-Trust Shift with Olivia Marie for Beyond Limits Podcast

2. How to Trust Yourself Enough to Walk Away with Drew Shuman for The Shuman Show

3. Learning to Trust Yourself with Jen Morilla for What She Needed

Manifestation list item #3: Soul friendships

“Friends who see, love, understand, challenge and support me” was a big wish-list item for me this year. I’m happy to report that, while I have never had a ton of success in friend groups (which I expanded upon in last week’s essay), I have built a handful of true soul-sister friendships that I am tremendously grateful for.

One of them, my friend Sara, is a perfect example of the “set it and forget it” law in action, so I’ll share that story here.

Sara was a year below me at Columbia, and from the moment I met her (at one of our sorority rush days) we just instantly clicked. I think a part of me knew from the get-go that we’d be lifelong friends. And yet: after graduating, I moved to Taiwan, and later Dubai, and somewhere in the folds of time zone changes and cross-continental moves, she and I lost touch.

Earlier this year, I was on a long walk and Sara randomly popped into my mind. We hadn’t spoken in legitimately 6 years. I had no idea why she popped into my memory in that moment, but I felt an undeniable ping to reach out to her.

Thankfully, I found out that I still had her number. I sent her a text, we jumped on a call, and pretty much since that day we’ve had a standing weekly phone call on our calendars.

The wildest part: in college, I was pre-law, she was a linguistics major, and neither of us was religious. We came to find out through our conversations that since then, not only had we both ended up in podcast/media work (she runs a podcast marketing agency, and I host a podcast), but faith has also become a cornerstone in both of our lives.

We reconnected at the exact right moment precisely because this chapter of our friendship began with a much greater intelligence than she or I.

And this is the pattern I’ve come to recognize, every time: I set the intention, let my intuition guide my action, and let go of exactly how or when the thing shows up.

The crockpot theory of getting what you want does not ask you to forego your desires or leave your life up to chance.

It just asks you to get super clear on what you’re cooking, identify the ingredients you need, believe that the crockpot will prepare your meal for you, and then stop checking the pot.

Things I’m loving this week:

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

xx

Brooke

Instagram | Take the free self-trust quiz

A video I shared on Instagram recently went viral. It began like this:

Every time I’ve tried to join a friend group, I have noticed something interesting. Which is that for a period of time, it works and I’m one of the girls. I fit in, and I’m fully integrated. But eventually, at some point or another, I get pushed to the outskirts. 

As of this moment, that video has been seen by 769K people, liked by 45.2K, shared by 11.6K, saved by 21.7K, and reposted by 1,722.

1,200 human beings have commented on it.

Most of those comments are expressions of resonance: “this is me,” “thank you for putting this into words,” “i’ve felt this way my whole life.”

Believe me when I say, when I posted this, I had no idea there were so many people out there who felt the same way.

And that’s the funny thing about the human experience, isn’t it? The things we are most insecure about, the things we are most afraid to speak out loud, the things we feel so much shame around, are oftentimes the most relatable bits.

We just don’t get to discover that until we find the courage to bring our shadow into the light.

But that’s a conversation for another newsletter.

Today, I want to dive further into the topic at hand: why some of us thrive in groups, while others of us can’t seem to find our footing.

Why some of us need intellectual intimacy to feel seen (and what that even means), while some of us are genuinely happy to, and able to create closeness around, talking about daily life, sports and the weather.

And why none of these things make anybody bad – but understanding the differences in how we all relate frees us to live truthfully, and find connections that actually do what they are supposed to do: make us feel seen, held and fully expressed.

What if it was never about not being likable enough — and always about not being built for the room?

I found language for this recently in a book called The Gift of Not Belonging, by Dr. Rami Kaminski – which was recommended by one of you in the comments section of that video.

He coins a term for people like me — maybe also like you — called an otrovert.

Almost everyone is familiar with the introvert/extrovert dichotomy.

Introverts withdraw because groups overstimulate them. But I don’t get depleted by people. In fact, most people who know me would consider me extremely extroverted. Put me one-on-one with almost anyone, and I come alive.

But extroverts are fed by the group itself. Belonging is the reward. They thrive in social settings, at parties, in group gatherings. But that isn’t me either. I’ve joked before on here that I am allergic to small talk, and college parties were genuinely intolerable to me.

So, what gives?

Kaminski defines an otrovert as someone who can be embraced by a group, even popular within it, and still never actually merge with it.

You’re inside the room — but you are, somehow, always facing outward.

A few things tend to be true of otroverts, in my experience and in his research:

1. One-on-one relationships feel far more nourishing than group ones. We value depth over headcount.

2. Trends, group consensus, and “everyone else is doing it” hold very little pull. You’ll notice the trend. You won’t feel compelled to follow it.

3. Decisions get made from the inside out — from your own read of a situation — rather than by checking with where the group landed first.

4. “Groupthink,” even in benign forms (like feeling passionate about a sports team, or caring which celebrity couple broke up) hold little to no sway with us. We can pretend to care, but we cannot actually bring ourselves to care.

None of this makes the group-oriented version of a person wrong, either.

Some people build their sense of self through the collective — through the team, the tribe, the “we” of it all — and that is not a lesser way to be human.

It’s just a different wiring, aimed at a different reward.

Which is where the intellectual intimacy piece comes in.

For an otrovert, closeness is built through depth: a real conversation, an idea turned over together, deeply specific conversation, rather than through proximity and repetition.

Small talk isn’t a bridge to intimacy for this kind of person. It can start to feel like a wall.

For someone else, that same small talk — the recurring coffee, the same seat at the same table, the shared logistics of daily life — is the intimacy. It’s not a placeholder for something deeper. It’s the thing itself.

I used to read my need for the former as a character flaw. Too intense, too much, never able to just relax into a group the way everyone else seemed to.

But I’ve come to understand that that part of me was never wrong, it was just accurately reporting what actually makes me feel connected, and what doesn’t.

To be so honest with you: you’re not going to feel at home in every room, and that isn’t a referendum on your worth. Some of us were built to merge with the group.

Some of us were built to stand just outside it, fully present, fully capable, and still never quite absorbed.

Neither is the “right” way to belong. The only real mistake is spending your life trying to become the kind of person who fits a room you were never designed for, instead of finding the rooms — and the people — that were.

A few more things

1. The GroupChat is here

The groupchat for misfit toys lives here on Substack. I’ve gone ahead and opened up our Subscriber Chat to all Subscribers (not just paid) and all are truly welcome.

If you haven’t already, join the chat, and drop a quick intro when you get there! Excited to connect more with all of you.

1. Our first monthly POWER HOUR is next week
   

   A live, virtual co-working session for paid subscribers.
   
   We will spend the first 10 mins chatting and (optionally) Q&A-ing. The subsequent 60 minutes will be a dedicated focus session. One hour to sit down and actually do the thing you’ve been meaning to do.
   
   Our first one is Tuesday, August 25th at 1pm ET and these will run the fourth Tuesday of the month, every month, from here on out.
   

1. My first live Q&A is on September 8 at 12PM EST
   
   Also new this month: live, paid-subscriber-only live Q&As.
   
   Bring your questions! About relationships, transition, decision-making, mindset, pivots…whatever's on your mind.
   
   Our first one is September 8th at 12pm Eastern.

Things I’m loving this week

1. This sweater from Nati Boutique in NYC. This is the sweater I was wearing in the video that inspired this newsletter. So many of you DM’ed me to ask about it. I randomly discovered this boutique while walking around SoHo the last time I was in NYC and they truly have the most flattering, comfy and unique staples.

2. The Artist’s Way. I am LOVING this book. As I texted to a friend the other day: it is a book that pretends to be about art, but is really about God. My fav!!

3. Dr. Jartt skincare!!! I was influenced to try this brand out in Sephora the other day and I’m not even mad about it. This tinted moisturizer with SPF + this Ceramidin Skin Barrier Moisturizing Cream are both incredible. I have notoriously dry skin and this has honestly been life-changing for me!!

4. Four Sigmatic Focus + Energy nespresso pods. I’m still looking for the best lions mane tincture out there (reply to this email if you have a brand you love) – but I am pretty hooked on functional mushrooms at this point. And we all know how much I love espresso.

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

xx
Brooke

I remember watching it and feeling something click into place that I hadn’t found language for yet.

When we think about relational compatibility, we tend to think about tangible, nameable things — things like religious identity, political beliefs, career aspirations, hobbies/interests, and family plans.

These things are important, but there’s a catch: almost all of them can (and likely will) change over time.

The inconvenient truth is this: commitment means choosing someone you can’t fully predict.

So how do you actually optimize for long-term compatibility?

I’ve observed two main axes of compatibility that tend to fly under the radar, but are actually massively important predictors of long-term relationship success.

The first one is something I call “change velocity.”

The rate at which you change matters more than you think. If you look back at the story of your life, and compare that to the people around you, you can probably start to get a feel for how your change rates compare to one another.

There is no good/bad, right/wrong here, but the truth is that some people are inherently experimental and place a high value on evolution.

That may look like moving cities/countries, changing careers multiple times, exploring different religious beliefs, or even trying on new identities.

Other people find their footing early and stay there: same career for decades, same friend group since high school, same core beliefs, refined but not overturned.

That’s not a lack of depth. For a lot of people, it’s devotion.

The problem isn’t which rate you have, it is whether or not that rate is a match for the person you’re trying to spend your life with.

When one partner’s change velocity is dramatically different from the other’s, you end up in a relationship where one person is constantly evolving out from under the agreement you both made, and the other is constantly bracing for the ground to shift again. Usually, both people end up resenting each other.

I believe that the more alignment you have in your change velocity, the more likely you are to successfully grow together over time.

The second one is “life scope.”

This is the concept I learned from that video by Suzy Welch.

Some people want a big life — geographically, professionally, socially.

They want to live in multiple countries, meet hundreds of people, take the risk, build the thing.

Other people want a small life, and I don’t mean that as a lesser thing. I mean it as an intentionally contained one.

A close circle. One town. A lifestyle they don’t have to keep renegotiating.

Neither is more evolved than the other, and that’s the whole point of what Welch is saying. There’s no values judgment attached to your answer.

But two people can share every value on paper — same faith, same politics, same timeline for kids — and still be fundamentally incompatible if one of them needs a life that keeps getting bigger and the other craves the luxury of staying still.

None of this shows up on a first date. You don’t ask someone their life scope over drinks. You don’t screen for change velocity in a Hinge bio. These are things you can only really see over time — in how someone responds when their life gets disrupted, in what they reach for when they’re bored, in whether “someday” excites them or exhausts them.

To be so for real: I think this is part of why so many relationships that look compatible on paper quietly come apart. Not because anyone lied, but because the things we know how to name aren’t always the things that end up mattering the most.

If this resonated with you, drop a comment, I’d love to hear about it.

Other things

🫂 Join the conversation

If you haven't already, join our Subscriber chat. This is currently open to both free and paid subscribers and there are lots of new faces in there!

💻 First POWER HOUR (live co-working) on Tues, Aug 25 at 1 PM EST

Paid subscribers: I’m starting something new! Beginning this month, I’m opening up live coworking sessions once a month. These are live Zoom Rooms: we will spend the first 5 mins saying hi/connecting/catching up, and the rest of the hour will be a dedicated focus session.

Why am I hosting live power hours?

Studies show that simply being in the presence of other people while we work, even virtually, even in silence, makes us more likely to actually do the thing. It’s called body doubling, and it works because accountability doesn’t require anyone checking in on you. It just requires witness. Something in our nervous system settles when we’re not doing the hard thing alone.

I’ve been wanting this kind of container for myself for a while, so I figured I’d build it for us.

If you’re a paid subscriber, your invite will come straight to your inbox.

Take the free self-trust quiz

If you haven't taken it yet, it only takes a few minutes and might surprise you.

⛓️‍💥 Take the quiz

If you liked this week’s essay…

Here’s a video I posted about change velocity and life scope.

And here’s one I shared about my struggles to fit into friend groups.

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

xx
Brooke

The truth is, this can be lonely.

As your standards for yourself (and by extension others) start to disqualify many of the suitors a past version of yourself would have willfully entertained, you may be left wondering whether you’ve raised the bar too high, whether expecting clear communication and follow-through is asking a hair too much, or whether the only options available to you are to regress or die alone.

But take heart, dear reader. You are not alone. The truth is, isolation (however temporary) is the price we pay for reinvention. Leveling up almost always comes with a recalibration period.

Now, I want to be so clear: there is a wrong way to think about “raising the bar”. Too often, I see women hyper-fixating on superfluous things — exactly how long it takes for a man to respond to her text messages, what kind of Uber he sends her home in, the fact that she didn’t like his outfit…

Truth be told, these are not significant things and we shouldn’t treat them as such. When I talk about raising your standards in dating, I’m talking about the things that matter: is he communicative? kind? consistent? when he messes up (we are all human) does he take accountability, or become defensive?

do you feel at ease around him? do you have compatible goals and visions for the future?

is he reliable? can you trust him?

on the whole, do you leave interactions with him feeling uplifted or drained? do you respect and admire him, and how he lives his life?

does he support you or thwart you? does he fill you with courage or plant seeds of doubt?

and my personal favorite: does he do the things he says he’s going to do?

They say your new life will cost you your old one, and the same thing applies to raising the metaphorical bar.

And it is okay to grieve the skin you’re shedding.

But be ruthlessly honest about what your options are. Because will either expand into the you you are becoming; or shrink to fit the skin you’re in.

11 reminders for the woman refusing to settle

1. Regret is more painful than reversal. Staying in something that isn't right doesn't spare you pain — it delays it. More often than not, that pain compounds with interest. Reversing course, walking away, admitting you got it wrong…these things are painful but that pain is temporary. Regret is a wound that never closes.

2. The right people will not ask you to shrink to stay. If you have to downplay your needs, mute your intuition, or pretend you want less than you actually do in order to keep someone around, that is not your person.

3. Boundaries aren't punishment. This doesn't work for me is not an attack on anyone. It is you handing someone the coordinates of your reality. What they do with that information is completely up to them.

4. You are allowed to want ease. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us absorbed the notion that love has to be earned through suffering. The truth is, all relationships involve sacrifice and conflict (as they should) — but your person should, on the whole, bring more peace into your life than chaos, more happiness than sadness, more light than darkness. If you feel the scales are tipped in the other direction, pay attention to that.

5. Feeling alone inside of a relationship is the loneliest kind of lonely. You deserve to feel at home in your relationship. You deserve to feel cared for, protected and prioritized. If he falls asleep while you are crying, or zones out when you confide in him, I need you to really ask yourself: is this how I want to be loved?

6. Let people leave. It’s normal to panic when space starts to open up in your life. Don’t. The people you want in your life will want you there.

7. Consistency > chemistry. Despite what people tell you, chemistry is not that rare. Consistency, on the other hand, has to be proven, day after unglamorous day.

8. You don't owe anyone access to a version of you they haven't earned. I am still very much learning this one. Let people earn access to your deeper layers over time.

9. You can grieve who you lost and still know you made the right choice. Read that again.

10. Standards don't shrink the pool of people who can love you well — they just reveal how small it was to begin with. And that’s a good thing.

I hope you choose expansion, even when it costs you.

Life updates

I had an amazing week between Jacksonville (meeting my new nephew), NYC (because why not??) and Vermont (babysitting my nieces). It reminded me of how much I love and value a good old change of scenery and how variety truly is the spice of life for me. I LOVE the city and also feel so rejuvenated after 3 days in the woods of rural Vermont. Can anyone relate??

One more thing…

I’ve been popping up on the other side of the mic a bit lately. I absolutely loved recording this episode on self-trust and leaps of faith with Drew for The Shuman Show – you can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Youtube.

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

xx

Brooke

In middle school, when I'd have my friends over for sleepovers, I'd be so excited to jump on the trampoline and practice witch spells (yes, even then, I was obsessed with magic). To my dismay, they’d almost always want to bake cookies and watch a movie instead. My mom and I started calling them The Blobettes in secret, which is kind of horrible but I think also sort of paints the picture.

I am the type of person who you’ll leave a first date with genuinely confused as to how or why you just spent the last hour bearing your soul to a complete stranger. I am the friend who will ask you detailed questions about your perspective on the afterlife before I find out where you live or what you do for work. I recognize this may make me sound a certain type of way, and I guess I’m finally okay with that. This is how I’m wired, it always has been.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized there are probably a few reasons for this.

One, I notice things people aren’t saying before I notice what they are. I don’t go looking for this, it just arrives, and once I’ve clocked it, I can’t small talk my way around it. I want to know what’s underneath.

Two, I spent a long time looking shiny on the outside while a lot was happening underneath, so I know firsthand that the polished version of someone is rarely the truest (or most interesting) one. Everyone is more layered than the version of them that shows up to a party.

Three, one thing years of solo travel taught me is that everyone is dying to tell you their story. Almost no one asks. Getting to be the one who does brings me so much joy.

And lastly, I feel like I was born with an extra-palpable awareness of the limits on our time here (yes, I am talking about our mortality) which makes losing an hour to small talk feel like a real loss.

Here’s the part I’m still working out, though: none of this is actually about other people. It’s about me.

What I'm really doing is avoiding a version of connection that doesn't feel like connection at all.

Small talk asks me to perform a kind of safety I don’t actually feel. To stand in a room and pretend that not-knowing is comfortable, that surface-level is enough for me. And I have a part, I’ve come to understand, that learned a long time ago not to trust surface.

That part watched what happens when everyone agrees to talk about the weather instead of what’s actually going on. It watched people smile through pain, sidestep important conversations, and fake okayness. It learned that putting on a face is its own kind of dishonesty. And it decided that skipping straight to the real conversation was the only way to feel safe with someone.

Which sounds noble. But it isn’t, always. That same part can make me impatient with people who need the weather talk first. People who need ten minutes of nothing before they can get to something. It can make me come on too strong, too fast, on a first date or in a new friendship, wanting to understand someone’s deeper layers before I’ve earned it. It can also mistake intensity for intimacy.

None of this makes the part wrong. It just means that depth isn’t a shortcut. It’s not something I can force out of someone by skipping the part where we talk about the weather. Sometimes the weather is the doorway. And I’m learning to let people walk through it at their own pace, instead of standing on the other side with my arms crossed.

To be so for real: I still can’t do small talk to save my life. But I’m learning the difference between hating the performance of it and the person doing it. Most people aren’t avoiding depth, they’re just getting there in a different way than I do.

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

xx
Brooke

Morning pages are beautifully simple as a concept: every morning, you sit down for ~30 minutes and write 3 pages of freehand, stream-of-consciousness journaling.

For me though, tapping into my mental “voice” isn’t always easy.

I've come to understand that my inner world operates more often as feelings and images than words, so rather than staring at a blank page waiting for inspiration to strike, I've started prompting myself.

One of the most fruitful prompts I’ve discovered has been:

What’s one thing I’ve been feeling, but haven’t yet admitted to myself?

It’s remarkable how often an answer appears almost immediately, which has led me to an uncomfortable realization:

Most of the time, when we’re desperately searching for answers...

Why am I so tired?

Why don’t I feel satisfied in this relationship?

Why have I accomplished the goal I worked so hard for, yet still feel empty?

Why do I feel so anxious all the time?

...we already know.

There’s just a part of us that isn’t ready to accept the answer yet.

Maybe because accepting it would require us to change. Maybe because it would disappoint someone we love. Maybe because it would mean grieving the life we thought we’d have. Maybe because it’s simply safer—for now—to stay where we are.

One of the frameworks that has transformed the way I understand this dynamic is Internal Family Systems (IFS), also known as parts work. (If you’re interested, I highly recommend No Bad Parts by Dr. Richard Schwartz.)

At its core, IFS suggests that we aren’t one singular, unified mind. Instead, we’re made up of many different “parts,” each trying to help us in its own way.

You might have one part that desperately wants to leave the relationship, and another that’s terrified of being alone.

One part that wants to quit your job; and another that’s worried about disappointing your parents.

One part that longs to take the leap; and another convinced you’ll fail.

None of these parts are bad. In fact, they all developed for a reason. At some point in your life, each of them learned that their job was to protect you.

The problem is, they don’t always agree with one another.

And what we often label as confusion is actually internal conflict.

Put another way: it’s not that you don’t know. It's that different parts of you want different things.

Our minds are incredibly sophisticated, incredibly intelligent systems whose primary job is to keep us safe—but not necessarily to help us grow.

Which means they’ll often prioritize familiarity over alignment, certainty over truth, and comfort over freedom.

Which is why I love this journaling prompt so much.

Because it bypasses the part of us that's trying to solve, fix, or optimize, and instead invites honesty (even when the truth is inconvenient).

What’s one thing I’ve been feeling, but haven’t yet admitted to myself?

Notice the wording.

It doesn’t ask, “What should I do?”

It doesn’t ask, “How do I fix my life?”

It assumes something much more interesting: that there is already a part of you holding the answer. Your job isn’t necessarily to figure it out, it’s to create enough safety—and silence—for that part to speak up.

The older I get, the less I believe clarity is something we create. I think it’s something we uncover when we become brave enough, and honest enough to hear the truths we’ve been quietly holding all along.

A gift from me

If this essay resonated with you, I created something I think you’ll love.

I recently built a free quiz called Find Your Self-Trust Type. It’s designed to help you understand how your intuition naturally speaks to you, what’s getting in the way of trusting it, and the next step toward building a stronger relationship with yourself.

Whether you’re constantly second-guessing yourself, know exactly what you want but struggle to act on it, or simply feel disconnected from your inner voice, the quiz will give you a language for the patterns you may have felt but not yet named.

✨ Take the free Self-Trust Quiz here

One more thing…

If this idea of “parts” speaking to one another resonated with you, I think you’re really going to enjoy this week’s podcast episode.

I sat down with my friend Ryan Martin to talk about emotional healing, self-rejection, and what it actually means to experience inner freedom.

One of my biggest takeaways from our conversation was this:

Inner Freedom isn’t about becoming someone else. It is about becoming safe enough to stop rejecting the parts of yourself you’ve been trying to outrun.

We talk about why so many of us feel “stuck,” how trapped emotions keep us repeating the same patterns, and why healing isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about learning to stop fighting yourself.

🎙️ The episode goes live Monday morning EST, wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to The Well Path on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Youtube to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

That’s all for now. Thank you for being here.

Until next time,

xx

Brooke

After waking from that dream, I saw a series of signs—starting with a row of painted rocks with verses of scripture on them—that made it harder and harder to dismiss what I was experiencing as coincidence.

(I wrote about that dream and subsequent events in detail in an earlier substack post.)

That chain of events sparked a new kind of curiosity in me; and in the weeks since then, I’ve spent more time in churches, attending Bible studies, and continuing to deepen my relationship with God on prayer walks and in the quiet in-between moments.

Conviction, for me, didn’t come in a flash—though I know it does for some people, and in many ways, that’s what I would have expected.

Instead, my faith journey has unfolded gradually, almost like falling in love with a friend who began as an acquaintance: a reluctant curiosity leads to spending more time together; that time together leads to a deeper connection; until one day, you wake up and realize that somewhere along the way, love seeped in.

Being baptized by my parents in the ocean—23 months after taking the greatest leap of faith of my life and beginning what has become a continual trust fall with God—was incredibly special. In many ways, this morning felt like the realization of that dream’s promise: wading into the ocean as I’ve done thousands of times before—but this time, instead of being greeted with quiet, being filled with Peace.

More than anything, these last few months have been a testament to the truth that we are all deeply connected to the divine; that if we are brave enough to ask the question, and quiet enough to truly listen, God will answer; and that surrender is not the opposite of strength, but our surest path to it.

Because an important part of this journey—and the part I don’t want to gloss over—is that all of it, including the dream, the painted rocks, and all of the signs and synchronicities that followed, was preceded by my willingness to ask for answers.

I am more convinced now than ever in the promise of: ask and you shall receive.

Whether that’s about connecting with a higher power, discerning truth, or making a decision that’s been sitting on your heart: if you can get brave enough to ask, and quiet enough to listen, God will deliver.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for being here.

xx

Brooke

If this resonated with you, reply to this email and let me know. I love hearing from you.

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