I’ve spent 3 years BLISSED OUT OF MY MIND

May every unknown be held as an opportunity for something more beautiful, life-giving and true to take root.

— Lisa Olivera

✦ What I've been up to when I was quiet ✦

I’ve stressed a lot about disappearing from the online space, worrying that I’ll be forgotten, because past (annoying) business coaches have told me I need to be consistently visible so my audience “knows, trusts and likes me.” (I don't fully subscribe to that, but the scarcity in me worries, ya know? And also, does anyone even really notice?)
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This is my THIRD year living at the edge of the jungle in Brazil, and I feel like I'm just now settling into this way of life. It’s not all so brand new anymore and, with a little distance from all the hub-bub, I feel like I can get some perspective and really appreciate the whirlwind I’ve been living through.

I’ve spent the past 3 years BLISSED OUT OF MY FUCKING MIND on love, wonder and awe. They've been times where I felt like I was walking around LITERALLY HIGH, but I was just in shock at my good fortune, and an overwhelming gratitude for the beauty of life.

This was amazing, but I also haven't always felt like I've had my two feet firmly planted on the floor. As an earth sign, this was uncomfortable territory for me.

I’ve heard people say that life often brings your greatest joys alongside your hardest challenges. I don’t know if that’s always true, but it did seem to line up for me that way. While I was falling in love, discovering a magical and mystical new way of life in South America, and diving deeper into spiritual exploration, I was also navigating crazy-making family dynamics, sick parents, and a body that felt like it was shutting down.
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I’ve dropped parts of story here and there, but for the first time, here it all is, in all its glory and chaos:

💔 It all started when I ended a relationship back in Portland, OR (which I think people forget how disorienting this is until they go through it), packed all my belongings into storage (where they still live ), and took a 2,200-mile solo road trip, which was a huge deal for me because driving terrified me!!

🤠 I landed in Austin, Texas, where I lived in an Airstream for a hot second and tried to start an art collective with my friend Eliza. (It didn’t really work out.)

😭Around the same time, my parents decided to separate in their 70s. (My dad had an affair, though the situation was much more complicated than that. He had also been my mom’s primary caretaker for decades, and they’d been deeply unhappy for a long time.) I flew back to Taiwan to be with my mom while she navigated that transition, as she needed help with her daily living

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😍 All of this was happening while I was falling in love with the man of my dreams. Truly. I had a crush on this guy for years, kind of a love at first sight thing. He invited me to come live with him in Brazil, which is how I ended up here

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💉 Then my dad developed a serious spinal infection, got COVID, which turned into pneumonia, and almost died. He spent four months in the hospital. (He’s since made a full recovery)

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🏄🏻‍♀️ Once my parents had regained some stability, I packed up yet again, got on a plane to almost the exact opposite side of the globe (of course I had to choose the place that’s basically as far from Taiwan as possible ), and started life over again. There, my partner and I planted seeds of love, trust, vulnerability, and goofiness all over our little surf shack in the jungle. I found myself living in an off-grid tropical paradise, guided by the mystical spirit of the jungle and its many medicines.

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🌎 Not long after, my partner and I traveled through Europe while he facilitated workshops on Byron Katie’s The Work. What had once been an occasional practice for me was slowly becoming a way of life, opening my heart more and more to love

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🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 The following year, his family came to live with us in Brazil—his daughter, son-in-law, and two little grand babies (who are the cutessst everrrr). As you can imagine, it was a whole new chapter: meeting his family for the first time, living together, and suddenly having two kiddos in the mix. As someone with toxic family baggage, this was a very healing time for me

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🤒 Somewhere in the middle of all that, I had one of the worst chronic illness flare-ups I’d had in years. It totally kicked my ass and I’m still in the process of recovering, which has taken up most of my time this year to be honest

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✈️ And throughout all of it, I continue traveling back to Taiwan for three months each year to help care for my parents, stepping into yet another new chapter of life

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Anyway… that’s the lore. That’s what I’ve been up to. The death and the rebirth. The fear and the love. The beauty of life naturally unfolding.

Writing all of this has given me a lot more compassion for why I haven't been able to keep up in my business. Looking back, I can also see that my body, my nervous system, and my whole life were just adapting to an incredible amount of change. (One thing I've learned about myself is that I'm pretty good at adapting. Yay me! :)

It feels good to share where I’ve been and to finally tell this story all in one place! And it feels really good to be writing to you all again.

I really hope there’s more to come because it feels like I have years’ worth of stories I want to tell. I'm giving myself permission to not rush and feel like I need to do it all at once. I’m still stabilizing, especially in my body and in my health. But this feels like a really good start.

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With so much love,

Eva

All of us have degrees of resistance to the very truth that could save us. It is the very nature of the false self to resist and resent anything that threatens its tyranny. But if you are tired of paying the price, you can stop. You can be a genuine, loving, open individual who refuses to run away from what appears to be a threat, but which is actually what you want more than anything else.”

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— Vernon Howard