14/04/2026
"I had built a life on the surface because I was too scared to build the one that honored my depths and what I really wanted. That's not easy to accept.
It took losing everything in front of me—my job, my visa, my sense of direction in life and my health—for me to finally sit in the silence of a terrifying question:
What do I actually, truly & unapologetically, want?
That sacred question, the one that can only surface when we’re done being distracted by busyness, can be one of the most confronting questions we can ask ourselves. Precisely because it requires you to stop performing your life and start feeling it. Deeply.
For me, it took losing everything in order to find a true answer. I hope it doesn’t take that for you.
But if you find yourself surrounded by NOs right now —if every door is closing and nothing is working and the world you knew is falling apart—I want to offer you a different frame:
You are not being punished… you are being prepared.
The NO is not the end of something. It is the beginning of a conversation with the deepest part of you that has been trying to reach you this whole time."
—Jovanny Varela, excerpt from Gentle Reminder No 132, "Trust in NO (blessings also come in the form of endings): especially when the life you’ve been living on the outside no longer matches the template you carry on the inside."
I wrote a vulnerably honest piece about the time I finally learned how, sometimes, when things fall apart, they are really falling into place. If you're there, may this piece offer solace & a sense of direction ❤️
Read the full piece: jovannyvarela.substack.com
Artwork by Elijah Jambalaya