Today, when I got home from another day of networking and contract-hunting, I found myself pulling out all my diplomas and certifications, searching for some sense of comfort. The news of international development institutions and aid funds being uprooted left me feeling like the world as I knew it was being dismantled.
There was my Bachelor’s in Psychology & Latin American Studies, Summa Cum Laude from UCLA, and the framed Master’s Degree from the #1 school in International Economics & Health Policy in the country. Alongside them were countless certifications and awards: Certified Fitness Professional, Holistic Nutritional & Wellness Pro, Reiki Jikiden in beautiful Japanese script, others in Access Consciousness, Pranic Healing, and my most recent recognition as a Marquis Who’s Who recipient.
I stared at those pieces of paper as silent tears rolled down my face. There I was, a highly qualified, often overqualified professional, with over twenty years of experience across all four sectors, spanning industries, managing international teams, executing multimillion-dollar projects, and fluently speaking five languages… feeling utterly lost, unable to see my professional future.
The realization that my profession had just become obsolete hit me first. But what made it even more complicated was the context. Working for the World Bank, USAID, and other development banks had always been part of what I did: even after pausing my career to pursue my passion for entrepreneurship and wellness, I always continued my involvement with development work as a contractor.
The past two years had not been easy — rebuilding my professional and personal life after losing my successful wellness business in Brazil to the pandemic, separating from a ten-year marriage, and returning to the U.S. after a decade abroad. Juggling single motherhood, reviving a business, and securing four contracts just to stay afloat in Miami — now one of the most expensive cities in the world — felt like an endless uphill battle.
The stuckness felt agonizing. In my mind, I could see how all these credentials, experiences, and the thousands of pieces of knowledge and transformative wisdom I had acquired fit together. I had studied and analyzed health from every possible angle — structural, political, international, physiological, behavioral, mental and spiritual. I had pieced these perspectives into a beautifully cohesive model that could enable people to reach their highest potential in health & well-being.
Since I was twenty, my vision — an entirely new model of health, well-being, personal development, and self-actualization — one that sees the individual as a whole and enables him/her to have access to all the tools needed for plentitude & health — had been my guiding compass. Yet, my vision never seemed to fit within any current institution — especially now, with some of them wiped off the map. It didn’t align neatly with the private sector’s aim for profit maximization nor with nonprofit model of constant need for philanthropic support. And unfortunately, it’s apparently too broad of a vision to be a viable business.
Still, I have continued pushing on — coaching, sharing, teaching, consulting, creating. And time and again, people have told me that what I do has touched and sometimes even transformed their lives. Yet, the financial return does not reflect that impact.
As much as I’ve tried to put this ‘idealistic’ ideas behind me and ‘get real and focus’ I can’t shake the knowing that my vision is possible — that all the tools, knowledge, and degrees I’ve acquired make me uniquely positioned to contribute to transforming the system for the better. Knowing this, I can’t force myself into any kind of job or narrow my business to one of its composing components just to be more marketable. Maybe that’s why I had kept the dream of one day making my way back to the international organizations and development banks again to help bridge the gap between health policy and preventive health & true well-being: a dream that has now been shaken at its foundation.
The world needs a new system — one where real health is taught from an early age, where physical, mental, spiritual and relational well-being are studied, understood, and integrated into the very fabric of our society, its institutions, living spaces, values and goals. Health needs to be rethought, rebranded, rebuilt. It must stop being equated with insurance companies and hospitals. It must cease being a business. Health should be the foundation upon which we build our society, raise our children, and create our economies.
I am not ready to give up on this dream just yet. In fact, I implore you to look deep within yourself and rediscover the dreams you’ve buried deep inside, just because it seems to good to be true. Maybe the current state of the world is a sign that it’s time to build something entirely new.
Maybe it’s time for all of us to unearth our collective dreams. And once we all believe in them and work together to make them reality, perhaps then, pursuing our dreams will no longer be an economic impossibility.
When I wiped away my tears and went to read to my daughter before bedtime, I looked at her — a beautiful, conscious being — and remembered our first week in the U.S. At the end of her first week in an English-speaking school, her teacher approached me and said, “You’ve raised an incredible human being. I’ve never met a child so confident in expressing her needs (despite not knowing how to speak the language), yet so empathetic toward others.”
In that moment, it hit me: nothing I have done or will do is more important than giving her the foundation to thrive and be well. Even if all I’ve studied and taught never becomes a viable business, I know this — I have done an amazing job raising a thriving & conscious human being. Shouldn’t that be the goal we are all striving for collectively? And shouldn’t our systems and economic values reflect this?