Much of my professional life has been grounded in evidence-based research, critical analysis, and synthesizing complex health information. Writing has also been a core part of who I am for as long as I can remember, not just as a craft, but as a way of thinking, processing, questioning, and making sense of the world. Alongside both, I’ve maintained an enduring tarot practice, studied astrology, and remained fascinated by the psychology of human behavior.

For years, I followed each of these threads without knowing where they were leading. I couldn’t explain how they fit together. I just knew I felt called to explore them. Then, in 2024, it occurred to me that I could create a business centering my love of tarot and writing. That business became The Divinista — a name that emerged from divination, which essentially means to seek, discern, or uncover what is hidden. I remember thinking, “What a cute name for a tarot and astrology brand.”

I had no idea how deeply I would come to live its meaning.

Until my life came crashing down around me.

Until everything I’d built over the course of two decades suddenly ruptured — relationships burned to ash. Pieces of my history I thought I’d have forever — gone.

Somewhere in the wreckage, I was forced to confront parts of me I didn’t know or want to know. Parts that hurt others. Parts that filled me with shame. Parts I wanted to bury. I had to look beyond the person I believed myself to be and face who I really was without the mask, without the excuses, and without looking away when I didn’t like what I saw.

It fundamentally changed me.

It taught me that the truth doesn’t disappear just because we ignore, evade, or deny it, something many of us do because it can be uncomfortable and ugly, no matter how gently it’s presented. It challenges us to ask the questions we’d rather avoid. It calls us to face the answers we dread. It demands we take accountability for our actions. 

Sometimes it even destroys who we are becoming so we can evolve.

What we do with that opportunity is ultimately up to us. We can pretend it isn’t screaming our name loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, or we can turn around, stare it down, and see what the hell it wants.

I chose the latter and will continue to do so again and again. That means seeking truth, integrating it into my life, and creating tangible things that allow me to share what I’m discovering with others who are on this journey with me.

So, here I am, sharing my voice with the world.

Well, maybe just you.

Whatever brought you here today — a self-limiting belief, a hard-earned realization, a story you feel compelled to shout into the void…you have arrived at a crossroads.

Just as I did. And, the options haven’t changed:

Run and hide.

Or, seek truth, integrate what you learn, and draw on those lessons to create something expressing the unique amalgamation of ideas, perspectives, experiences, and wisdom only you can offer the rest of us.

If your decision is to stay, you must first pick your poison.