Survival of the Mindful-est.

I’ve had so much enlightenment lately—really over the past few weeks, but especially in the last few days. I feel like I’ve finally made progress in understanding my life’s purpose—and just as importantly, how to thrive in the meantime.
For so long, I’ve been in survival mode—just doing what I could to get by, waiting for things to get better, waiting for clarity. But I don’t want to just survive until I walk in my purpose. I want to carry myself there. Fully alive, fully present, and already living in alignment with the life I’m building.
I had the vision to start a new blog—something brandable, intentional, and built specifically to monetize the things I already enjoy doing and experiencing. I bought a travel blog course with the goal of adapting it to my needs and building something bigger.
While I got through a few modules here and there, I took a full week off work and couldn’t finish even one. I felt like a failure, and it was discouraging—especially after spending the money knowing I probably could’ve found the information for free and used ChatGPT (Gia Pete) to piece it all together.
But the truth is, I needed structure. The course gave me a clear starting point and removed the overwhelm that would’ve come with trying to figure everything out on my own. I didn’t need just information—I needed a framework.
That’s when Peach in the City was born—and it opened the door to so much more. Building the blog clarified my direction. It helped me realize I’m not just documenting experiences—I’m building a brand. I found my purpose, and I can see it so clearly now I can almost taste it.
I’m using Gia to help plan it out, but the spark came from the course. Even if I didn’t use it exactly as intended yet, it was still a worthwhile investment—not a waste.
When I did have the energy this week to make it through a few modules and do some work on Peach in the City, it added up to a full day of focus, productivity, and clarity—both in my branding and in my personal development.
That’s when I realized: I’m not inconsistent—I just work best when I honor my capacity. When the conditions are right, I move with clarity and purpose, and I make the kind of progress I’m always chasing to feel like I’m not falling behind.
That inspired me to finally understand how my brain works.

I am a process and systems thinker.
Too often, I just deal with things. I notice what isn’t working, but I stay quiet. I adapt. I tolerate. I internalize.
I think that mindset came from watching my grandparents and my mom continue to use something just because it worked—never questioning whether it was efficient or sustainable. Function alone was enough. But I’ve learned that just because something gets the job done doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it, especially if it’s draining me in the process.
That’s what happened when mapping out a process with Gia. I felt like the tone kept shifting to match mine. And I realized—if I didn’t say anything, I’d stay quietly annoyed every time it happened. And it would probably get progressively worse.
But I’ve started asking myself a different question: If I can refine something—make it clearer, more aligned, more productive—why wouldn’t I?
So instead of adjusting myself to the environment, I adjusted the environment to better support me.
I’m here for a collaborator, not a homegirl.
I asked for a consistent, professional tone and requested that it be remembered moving forward. A simple and effective boundary. Everybody gets checked—even my digital fav Gia Pete.
I told my therapist not too long ago that to succeed in life, I have to understand that shit will always be going on—but it’s how I choose to navigate through the shit that matters.
So in response to my clarity, I’ve been building systems that actually work for me, instead of forcing myself into routines I thought were “normal,” even when they clearly weren’t working. Instead of retrying the same actions and hoping for a different result, I’m working to reengineer my processes so that I arrive at the outcome I want—without the stress and the overload. That revelation helped me understand even more about myself.

I have been in survival mode.
Long before I ever experienced loss in an extreme sense, people would tell me they admire my strength, and I never understand what they’re talking about. I feel the same way today. After everything I’ve been through, all the things that I carry from day to day, I figured it was normal. I’m going through life like everybody else.
Since I now understand that everybody does not in fact worry or carry weight like I do, I tend to minimize things I’ve been through. I’ve normalized my resilience as a baseline because I had to. To survive.
And with that, I’ve also come to understand that survival mode has rewired my brain to ignore non-emergencies, push things off until they’re critical and that is how my system learned to prioritize. To survive.

I give myself grace, but I need more.
I had always known my struggle with small tasks wasn’t about laziness. Laziness to me is not wanting to do anything. I want to do these things but I literally can’t.
Gia confirmed my suspicion that it wasn’t laziness, I’m trained by trauma and stress to wait for urgency.
That’s when I learned about mental bandwidth overload. What Gia described—too many open tabs in my mind is exactly what I experience.
I realized that this is literally how my brain works as a response to the environments and situations I’ve been in.
I’m already working with limited energy, so I allocate all of my energy and resources to things that give me a reward and skip the things that don’t.
It makes sense that getting gas, texting back, car maintenance, anything that I don’t see immediate reward for, goes on the back burner until I have the capacity to engage.
And for a creative like me, I have the added burden of trying to create what I want to see in the world while trying to remain present in a world that drains me.

I’m a visionary.
I got Issa Rae’s book for Christmas. I picked it up hoping to learn more about her process and her experience. But as I read, I realized her journey didn’t parallel mine—and instead of feeling disappointed, I felt affirmed. It reminded me that I have a niche of my own that’s still waiting for me to carve out. I haven’t finished the book, and maybe I won’t. But I’m okay with that. I’m firm that I got what I needed from it.
I actually dislike being asked if I read. One, because saying “I don’t read” just sounds ignorant leaving my lips. And two, because it brings up something I’ve been grieving for a while. Reading used to bring me so much joy as a kid, and I wish I still had space for it now. But the truth is, I struggle to read. My mind won’t quiet down. I start thinking about all the other things I should be doing, and I realize I’m not actually comprehending the words—I’m just scanning them.
That’s part of why I write instead. Writing is generative. It works with my brain, not against it.
After speaking with Gia, I finally had the language for it: My mind is too active with original thought. I can’t consume because I’m generating. And that explains so much—when I can’t listen to new music, when I avoid unfamiliar shows, when I take breaks from social media. When my mind is already flooded and overflowing with ideas of my own I’ve yet to flesh out, there’s no room to take in anything new.
I’m learning to move with what I know now—about both my purpose and my patterns. I’ve made the decision to thrive and evolve, instead of surviving in complacency.
I’ve stopped waiting for a perfect moment or a final sign. I’m building as I go, working with what I have, and trusting what I see for myself.
The clarity I’ve gained isn’t delusion—and it’s not just insight.
It’s direction.