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Welcome to my Substack Notes — a collection of near daily shorter insights on topics that I’m interested in or inspired to reflect on deeper!
The Japanese call the practice of honoring your scars Kintsugi — “to join with gold.” It’s a beautifully profound way to see yourself and your wounding.
For a long time, I thought my wounds were heavy burdens that made me different from everyone else. Weighed me down. Changed my trajectory. I compared my pain to others and often wondered: Why couldn’t I just be like other people?
But as I began my own healing process, I discovered a surprising gift — a kind of beauty and power hidden within the wounding.
When you allow your pain to guide you into growth and wisdom, you gain something far greater than you ever expected: the ability to see yourself in a more expansive way than before. You discover your depth. And with that comes a deeper capacity to see others too, in their truth, as beautifully wounded and imperfect as you are.
Kintsugi reminds us that there is no greater honor than being human.
To be human is to be inevitably marked by life. But when we learn to honor and heal within, those hurts become the very places, we recognize the most beautiful parts of ourselves and others — where the gold shines through.
To honor something is to hold it with deep respect and esteem. Our journeys all deserve that kind of honor.
Here’s to us. 🤍
– Carmen Iglesias
The Healing Journey
Honor your scars, honor your journey.
🧵 Part 1/2: Gentle reminder (a big one for me) that major life changes, even the joyful ones like leaving home, long-term partnership, starting a family, retirement, reinvention or other milestones — carry tremendous transition within them.
And while it’s natural to feel excited about the future, these moments often involve a major shift from an old version of life into a new one. And if you don’t take time to account for how that transition may affect you internally, it’s easy to feel profoundly overwhelmed or even disoriented by the experience itself.
It’s also important to remember that multiple things can be true at once. You can feel excited and also deeply afraid of what’s ahead. You can experience change externally first then internally later. You may notice it touching many layers within you — your sense of self, identity, emotions, or long-held beliefs. And you may even find yourself questioning everything all at once! That’s what happened to me.
That’s okay. That’s part of change.
Continued in 2/2.
– Carmen Iglesias
Life Transitions & Change
The very changes that unsettle us, are preparing us for the next level.
🧵 Part 2/2: In many ways, all of these shifts are happening all at once because they’re preparing you for the road ahead. They’re a part of the internal work that helps you grow into the next chapter of your life.
So it’s okay to acknowledge the difficulty and recognize your needs in the process. And it’s okay to reach out to the people you trust and let them walk with you through it.
Just because something is a “typical” life event doesn’t mean the transition is easy!
I read this somewhere which I love: “Sometimes the very changes that unsettle us are the ones quietly preparing us for the life ahead.” So hang in there, you’ve got this. Right there with you. 🤍
As an unofficial transitions tour guide, I’ve written more about navigating change and transition in a 3-part series you can check out here: https://thecrv.com/the-wisdom-of-transition-why-change-fails-without-it/
– Carmen Iglesias
Life Transitions & Change
The very changes that unsettle us, are preparing us for the next level.
I learned this the hard way and so did many of my peers.
As you pursue your dreams and goals, and as responsibilities grow, it’s easy to start seeing the people who love you and want to support you as distractions, interruptions, even burdens.
Not necessarily because you don’t care, but because everything else feels urgent — must-do right now.
But it’s important to remember that long after the responsibilities are done, the goals are met, the dreams fulfilled, it’s always your people who remain. And the time you could’ve spent with them doesn’t come around again.
So don’t take them for granted. Take care of your people. Stay intentional about making space for what you must do, what you want to do, and who you love — you’ll thank yourself later! 🤍
– Carmen Iglesias
Take Care of Your People
Your people are irreplaceable.
And a gentle reminder I add for myself (because I can be an impatient one, feeling like I’m behind 🫶🏾):
There are seasons to grow. Seasons to do. Seasons to rest and integrate who you’re becoming. And seasons to shine again.
Each season is important. Each season is valuable. Each season is worthy in the time it takes.
Wherever you are is exactly enough. 💗
– Carmen Iglesias
What Season Are You In?
It’s exactly where you need to be. Keep going.
It’s easy to forget that we are so much more than what we do (one of my hardest lessons).
We’re often conditioned to think that our value and worth is directly attributable to what we achieve and accomplish. And though that’s important, it’s only part of the story.
Your kindness. The way you love yourself and others. The way you care. The way you hold space, heal and inspire and delight. How you make others feel safe, seen, comforted. Your thoughtfulness, your intelligence, your presence, your soul. The way you elevate whatever you touch the way only you can (whether you see this or not). The way you show up — not because you have to, but because that’s who you are.
That’s not a type of accomplishment you may ever get an award for. Most people may not even recognize it. Yet, it’s who you are. And it matters more than you know.
So the next time you’re pulled to measure your value by just what you’ve achieved, remember: your worth was always more than awards or accomplishments. It was always about the person you already are and are becoming — more than any of us can fully see yet. That person is already worthy and loved just as you are.
Here’s to you. 💗
– Carmen Iglesias
You Are More Than What You Do
Remember your Gold.
If you’re carrying a big vision and building something that changes the game — don’t stop.
It’s okay if not everyone understands what you’re doing and it takes some time. That’s normal.
Stay with what calls you. Keep moving — steady, grounded, quietly diligent.
Results come through continued motion and action — small or big, they all count. That’s the journey. Step by step, it builds. It’s your dream. Claim it. I’m right there with you.
Excited for the big dreams we’ve got cooking — I can feel so many of them (and us) rising out there — exciting stuff!!🤍✨
P.S Below are my thoughts on communicating those big visions. Think we’re going to need to work on this now more than ever!
– Carmen Iglesias
Dreaming Big, Taking Action
Keep moving. No matter what.
When you find yourself in a long season or major cycle that disrupts your sense of self — your ideas of fulfillment, worth, partnership, love, identity and your inner foundation — don’t retreat from the inner work, even when you desperately want to. This is what a real personal change cycle looks like.
Instead stay. Breathe, steady yourself and walk through it.
This season is asking you to expand and stretch and that rarely feels comfortable or predictable. Instead it often feels disorienting, vulnerable, even lonely. You may question the identities, environments, and milestones that once fit but no longer fully do. You may feel new, profound longings coming from deeper, more soulful parts of you — parts ready to be seen and acknowledged. And that’s all okay.
I’ve come to understand this kind of expansion as a natural, inevitable and necessary progression of our life story. Often activated by circumstance — and sometimes by the people who unexpectedly enter our lives.
It’s meant to remind us that something within is ready for the next level — even if we don’t yet know what that level is (we rarely do).
So rather than seeing this time as punishment, pressure, or destabilization, what if you saw it as an invitation?
An invitation to slow down. To reflect. To get curious about what more you are, can be, and truly want. And an invitation to lean into this new discovery.
You have everything you need to make it through this season intact. And you may even find yourself excited for what’s ahead. So keep going. Push through. Trust yourself and follow your inner compass — it will always lead you home. 🤍
– Carmen Iglesias
Personal Growth Cycle
Breathe, steady yourself and walk through it.
Action — take it in any direction that moves you toward what you want. However small, imperfect, or even seemingly untimely or illogical — it all counts. It all counts.
Sometimes what we want requires us to move toward it — and that is the lesson in itself.
So remember, even if you took 5 steps backward yesterday or no steps at all, today you have a chance to reset. A chance to restart. A chance to take another first step. As many as it takes — from experience, it’s always okay to start again (me now).
Follow your inner compass. Every step forward brings you closer to what you want, and builds momentum for the adventure ahead.
To momentum. You and me both. 🤍
– Carmen Iglesias
Daily Momentum
Follow your inner compass and keep stepping forward.
I’ve been reflecting on the idea of wholeness lately — probably because I spent so much of my life living as a partial version of myself. And I recognize that approach no longer works for me as I step into what I call my Act II.
For years, I was too focused on traditional obligations: career, external achievements, and meeting everyone else’s expectations. In doing so, I didn’t realize I was sacrificing a major part of myself. The part that inspires me and simply is — imaginative, adventurous, colorful, playful, soulful. That part never really saw the light of day for years.
Add to that the wounds I’ve carried (which I talk about in my podcast episodes), and it’s no wonder I lost connection to my full self and settled for a life that, while externally successful, often felt less vibrant than I’m capable of living.
Now, as I prepare for this next major act of life, my focus (and lesson) is clear: no settling, no partial living, no more sacrificing.
We all deserve to live as fully, vibrantly, and authentically as we can — embracing every part of who we are — surprises and all. That’s my intention and my wish for myself as well.
I do believe we get to make that choice at any time (there has only ever been now). And since we only get one life as the person we are, why not do what we can to make it joyful, adventurous, and deeply alive? 🤍
– Carmen Iglesias
Choosing Vibrance
No more settling. Expand, heal, live — truly live this time. You deserve it. Your choice.
