I’ve spent almost a decade working in the wellness world, and I’ve met some extraordinary people. I’ve found teachers with genuine wisdom, practitioners with decades of experience, and people whose kindness, generosity and integrity have changed lives, including mine.

I’ve also met some spectacularly insufferable assholes people.

After years of observing this not-so-little ecosystem, I’ve noticed something about the beautiful spiritual people, and our growth. The very things we turn to in hopes of becoming better humans easily become the things that make us absolutely unbearable.

It’s probably because our egos are remarkably resourceful. Give them a spiritual vocabulary and they’ll find entirely new ways to avoid looking at themselves.

I love this work. I’ve devoted a significant part of my life to it. And if we can’t laugh at ourselves, our contradictions and the occasional absurdity of this industry, we might be taking our enlightenment a little too seriously.

So, in the spirit of affectionate anthropological research, I’ve compiled a field guide to six particularly recognizable species of the spiritually insufferable.

And if you think I’m talking about you, I am I’m not. 😉

Welcome to Part One.

1. The Spiritually Superior 🌈

She won’t come to your retreat. It’s nothing personal. Your teacher wasn’t initiated by her guru’s guru in India, and she’s very particular about who she exchanges energy with.

She has opinions about your drinking water, your diet, your skincare, your meditation practice and the fact that you still watch television. She doesn’t judge, of course. She’s simply holding you to a higher standard because she wants your best and highest good. You’re welcome.

She prides herself on being authentic, which is interesting because she’s never encountered another authentic person in her life.

She’s also incredibly compassionate. You can tell by how frequently she explains what’s wrong with everyone.

She knows exactly why your business isn’t aligned, why your relationship isn’t conscious and why your spiritual practice is basically a glorified hobby. Her own offering has been launching “very soon” since 2020, but she’s not interested in rushing divine timing.

When you post something you’re genuinely proud of, she’ll leave a comment like, “So beautiful to see you finally stepping into this work! 😍 I’ve been teaching this for years, and it’s wonderful that more people are beginning to understand it.”

You’ll spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out if you’ve been complimented or slapped.

And God forbid you disagree with her. She won’t argue. She’ll just smile knowingly and tell you that you’re not ready to receive what she’s sharing.

She’s transcended her ego. Unfortunately, nobody told her ego.

Field note: Compassion is not superiority. Real compassion leaves people feeling bigger. If everyone walks away from you feeling smaller, that’s a different practice.

2. The Self-Anointed Master 🤩

She started her career as a fitness instructor. Now she’s a Reiki master, sound healer, breathwork facilitator, trauma-informed somatic coach, Akashic records reader, intuitive channel and, as of last week, a shaman.

She’s very humble about it. You can tell because she lists her credentials at the beginning of every single piece of content.

She took a weekend course in sound healing after noticing another practitioner had sold out three sound baths in a row. She’d never been particularly interested in sound before, but she suddenly felt a very strong calling. By Monday, she’d ordered $3,000 worth of crystal bowls and announced her first practitioner training.

She’s never studied sound healing in any depth, but she doesn’t need to. She mastered it in a past life. Other people spend years studying, practicing, making mistakes and learning from their teachers. She prefers to remember what she already knew. Much more efficient.

She attended a two-day trauma-informed breathwork workshop and now specializes in healing generational trauma. Her own mother hasn’t spoken to her since Christmas, but that’s because her mother isn’t ready to do the work.

She’s deeply supportive of other women in the industry. She follows their work closely, studies their offerings and occasionally receives divine inspiration to launch something remarkably similar. Usually at the exact same price.

Field note: Being an eternal student is beautiful. Mastery is something else entirely. You can’t declare it, buy it or remember it from a past life. You practice it.

3. The Quantum Millionaire 🤑

She came to spirituality for the magic and stayed for the high-ticket offer.

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Repeating “I am wealthy and abundant” every morning and then checking your bank account three times a day isn’t manifesting. It’s an argument. And you’re losing.

I know because I lost it for years.

Every time I said an affirmation, my brain did this bitchy back talk thing. I’d say, “I am wealthy and abundant,” and some part of me would go, YEAH RIGHT. I’d say, “I am gorgeous and confident,” and my brain would go, OKAAAAY. THAT’S A BOLD LIE.

Every. Single. Time.

I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of my adult life studying what we believe, what we repeat and what we ritualize. And here’s where I’ve landed: affirmations don’t work for most people because your subconscious mind is WAY louder than your conscious mind. You can say the nice sentence all day but the louder voice answers back. And the louder voice wins.

If you’re worried about money, saying “I am wealthy and abundant” doesn’t change the fact that some part of you is immediately responding, No, you’re not. You’re actually delusional.

If you dislike your body, saying “I am gorgeous and sexy” over and over is going to create chaos in your consciousness. You can write it in your journal, stick it on your bathroom mirror and repeat it until you’re exhausted. Your brain still knows what you actually believe.

And it’s not just me. In 2009, psychologists Joanne Wood, Elaine Perunovic and John Lee had people repeat “I’m a lovable person.” The people who already felt good about themselves felt a little better. The people with low self-esteem felt worse.

So affirmations work best for the people who need them least, and backfire on the people hoping they’ll finally be the thing that works. Annoying and relieving at the same time.

If you’ve been doing all the things and life is still looking mostly the same, I want you to hear me when I say: you’re not doing it wrong. You’ve just been using a tool that wasn’t built for you.

Yes, with an O. I learned about them from one of my favorite teachers, Donna McCallum, who learned them from Noah St. John. They both ran into the exact same back talk I did.

The fix is so simple it almost sounds silly: instead of giving your brain a statement, give it a question.

Instead of “I am successful,” ask “Why am I so successful?” Instead of “Money comes easily to me,” ask “Why does money come so easily to me?”

Your brain can argue with a statement. Say “I’m rich” and it pulls up your bank balance as evidence against you. But it can’t really argue with a question. If you ask “Why am I so lucky with money?” there’s nothing to fight. Instead, your brain gets curious and starts looking for answers. And when you go looking for evidence, you start finding it: the client who said yes, the check you forgot was coming, the time it actually worked out.

Why does this always happen to me? Why can’t I ever save money? Why am I so bad at this? Why am I so… Your brain is answering those too, every single day.

So let’s give our brains better questions.

Here’s what I’m sharing with my paid subscribers:

• 💸 My two most powerful affOrmations, including three years of actual revenue numbers from one of my income streams.

• 🪞 My private-client mirror exercise to help you fall in love with yourself.

• ✨ 32 afformations for money, love, confidence, beauty, boundaries, and more, ready to make your own.

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I’m not going to give you a Paris guide or 17 places to eat. These are the six I actually go back to. Over and over again. The places I think about when I’m back home and the ones I’d send you to if you texted me: Going to Paris. Where do I eat?

Loulou (the OG in the Tuileries)

Loulou is worth how annoying it is to get a reservation. Maybe it’s because we share a name (Loulou is a nickname for me), but it’s my favorite restaurant in Paris. So much so that I celebrated my last birthday there.

The whole menu is divine and I’ve truly loved everything I’ve eaten on every visit, but there are favorites: I’d never miss the raw artichoke salad, sea bass carpaccio, pipe rigate alla vodka, or the whole fish. And even though I’m not a big dessert person, I never skip the red berry plate with whipped cream.

Sit outside. Always.

Thoumieux

My friend Isabel, an expat who’s lived in Paris for over a decade, recommended Thoumieux to me and now it’s one of my favorites. It’s inside a boutique hotel, very vibey, and if you’re into brunch, this is your spot.

I’m not a brunch eater, so I go for the Eiffel Tower view down the street. I know everyone loves Girafe, but it’s too sceney for me. I’d rather come here. The whole menu is delish, but my favorite way to do Thoumieux is to drop in without a reservation, grab a seat at the bar with my babe, be extra, order champagne and caviar, and decompress after a 20,000-step day.

Les Deux Magots

This is my mom’s favorite spot and I don’t care how touristy it is, I will go here on every Paris trip until I die. I like to sit outside on the little terrace and people-watch for as long as possible.

I’m not a snail eater, but I’ve never come here without someone I’m with raving about the escargot. I get the filet with peppercorn sauce, which I love.

Then we walk. First stop is the church next door to light a candle for my grandmother, then a long walk through Saint-Germain.

Le Petit Lutetia

If you want the classic French food and people-watching of Les Deux Magots without the tourists, go here. I love the vibe. It feels like neighborhood Paris in the way I want Paris to feel.

Every time I’m here I think, maybe I should move to Paris.

Le Voltaire

Take your mom here. Green velvet, plush, opulent in the best way. Everything is immaculate, including the china, but somehow it doesn’t feel stuffy. They make you feel like you’re family.

Their drinks are art. I love the avocado and grapefruit rosette and the mushroom salad. (I’ve never had anything like it anywhere else! I tried to replicate it at home and failed.) Don’t miss the sole meunière. Mmmmmm.

Ober Mamma

The first time I went here was in 2022 with my friend Karina. She always has the best recommendations. Ober Mamma is in the 11th, which is worth getting out of central Paris for. It’s younger, less polished, more neighborhood-y, and feels like a completely different Paris from Saint-Germain or the 1st.

It’s my pick when you’re with a group and don’t want dinner to become a production. It’s easy, fun, and unlike some of my other favorites in Paris, you don’t need to fight for a reservation. Most of the time, you can just go.

I love the mushroom bruschetta, their green salad is FIRE, and the saffron risotto with butter and Parmigiano is so good. And get the four-cheese pizza with lime zest and black pepper.

Palo weighs seven pounds, has a gray muzzle, and ears that deserve their own zip code. This year we’re matching for Halloween: dark green pajamas covered in little gardening ghosts holding bouquets of wildflowers, lavender piping for me, a bandana for him. I filmed an eleven-second reel, the camera swooping from overhead down to eye level so you could see his bandana, so I can share my favorite Halloween finds with people who are as obsessed with spooky season as I am. If you made the effort to freeze it at exactly the right moment, you might catch one second of my bare feet.

Someone did. And then took the time to slide into my DMs:

I asked him what about my second toe. He said it was gorgeous, then sent the little hand-over-mouth emoji, the one that means oops, did I say that out loud? So I asked him why he thought it was okay to message a woman he didn’t know about her feet on a completely innocent post.

He blocked me.

I could have stopped there. But I couldn’t sleep, and I’d already spent the night down a rabbit hole: all 101 pages of the Cornell Seven lawsuit, and half the internet calling Jane Doe a ho. So naturally, I did what a lot of us do now when something gets under our skin late at night. I opened ChatGPT.

I’ve been a paying ChatGPT customer for over two years. It’s helped me with mindless admin, finding retreat centers, and figuring out how to keep my bougainvilleas thriving through a Texas summer. So I laid it all out: the reel, the toe, the block. I said I was thinking of sending the screenshot to the man’s employer, since his job was all over his page.

And then the most fascinating thing happened. The AI turned on me.

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For the past 18 hours, I have gone through old texts, voice notes, emails, pictures, wishing I could hurl myself into the past and behave differently. But I’m stuck in the now. My friend is gone.

I am filled with regret in a way I can physically feel. It’s lodged in my throat, scratching against my skin, pulsing behind my eyes, setting off my nervous system so intensely that I can’t fully ground. I’ve been one deep breath away from a panic attack since 2:52 p.m. yesterday.

Please be warned: this post will have typos. I will ramble. Parts of it might not make any sense. But I need to write this in the rawest, most unedited way I can because my pain is something I want all of you to feel.

I want you to hurt with me.

And if making you feel even a little bit of what I’m feeling right now can keep you from ever feeling this kind of regret, then I want you to feel every fucking bit of it.

Let me tell you about T. He was a rainbow in human form. My toxic trait is that I can find something wrong with almost anyone if you give me enough time, and I’ve known this man for 17 years and never had one ill thought about him. Never once.

We met through a mutual friend when they moved from New York to LA together to help open a new members club. They were roommates, and to meet T is to simply fall in love with him. His energy is infectious. It’s impossible to be around him and not feel good because he is an actual Care Bear.

Every single time I saw T, he made me feel like it was the best thing that happened to him that day. (I’m pretty sure he made everyone feel this way!) He worked in the most insanely demanding environment, surrounded by some of LA’s biggest personalities, but he never made work sound taxing or draining. Exactly the opposite. He made everyone feel seen and loved and welcomed. And in a city where proximity to power can make people very weird, T was just T. He climbed that corporate ladder, leaving his mark on houses in every major city, and somehow always remained simply himself.

I have this habit of writing gratitude lists on Post-its at night, and while going through old things looking for pictures of us, I found this one from pandemic. It was about taking my first in-person yoga class at the studio T taught at and co-owned, back when most people were still afraid to do anything in person. It filled me with connection during a time of so much fear and sadness. He knew exactly what I needed, even when I didn’t.

And then I started thinking about all the ways this one person changed my life.

When SoulCycle was brand new to LA, T invited me to an early Saturday morning class he was hosting. It was a members-only event and I wasn’t even a member, but he was basically like, girl, please help me fill this room. I went even though I thought I hated spinning. Then SoulCycle became my church for the next decade.

He did that kind of thing all the time. It’s because of T that I ended up sharing breathwork in so many spaces - in Miami, LA, NYC, and Austin. The events we did together brought us closer, but they also brought this work to people who probably never would have walked into a breathwork class on their own. They trusted him. And because they trusted him, they were willing to try something I was doing.

When my company SMUDGED was still new, he invited me to sell my products at their holiday market without me even asking. This wasn’t some random craft fair where anyone could buy a table. It was inside this very private, members-only world that people were desperate to get into, and he opened the door and brought me in.

T was the kindest, most loving, non-gatekeeping friend I have ever had. He taught me what true collaboration looks like. What it means to give without an agenda. If he had access to something and thought you belonged in the room, he pulled out a chair. He didn’t hoard opportunities or introductions or connections. He wanted good things for people. Full stop.

When I was in LA, we usually met up for yoga and talked about nothing and everything. Travel and trainings, esoteric things and gongs and all the weird shit we both love. He was one of the very first people I told when I started dating a woman. I didn’t really know what I was doing yet, or even what my own truth was, and I wasn’t ready for a bunch of questions I didn’t have answers to. But I knew T wouldn’t need answers from me. I knew he would just be happy for me, which is exactly why I told him. And he was.

I remember him making me feel so empowered about not knowing what my “label” was. I was afraid people would need answers. Was I gay, bi, queer, IDK? T was basically like, fuck anyone who needs you to define yourself because that’s what makes them comfortable. You get to be you, exactly as you are, even if that’s labelless. It was the exact permission I didn’t know I needed. After that conversation, I felt a calm wash over me and I still feel it writing about it now.

In the middle of this crazy-ass demanding job, where hordes of people expected his time and attention, he did so many other inspiring, amazing things. Like putting together a whole-ass dance ensemble and performing in West Hollywood. I remember clapping so hard my hands hurt.

From a distance I watched his Instagram stories in awe. The places he traveled. The experiences he embraced. How did he have space for so much? It feels like he lived 100 lives. And somehow, in all 100 of them, he still made time to make the people he loved feel like seeing them was the best thing that happened to him that day.

When I look through our convos there’s so much there. Texts, IG messages, voice notes… I shared a dream I had of him a couple of months ago. He wished me a happy birthday in August. We were even messaging a couple of weeks ago. But the last time I actually spoke to T on the phone was last November.

In May, we were finally supposed to see each other after more than a year of trying to make plans from different cities. We had lunch plans, but last minute he wasn’t available until the afternoon. I was also trying to see my goddaughter, Sofia, while I was in town. I had plans to pick her up from school and take her to Universal Studios, and I chose to do that instead.

I thought I would see him next time.

And now I’m devastated because there will never, ever be a next time.

Why didn’t I pick up the phone and call him and just say, I really want to see you. How do we make it work? I could have taken Sof to dinner instead. She would have still loved that.

When he got his medical procedure in September, why did I send emojis and well wishes over Instagram? This really bothers me. Every time I think about it I start crying. I’m filled with rage and guilt. I fucking hate Instagram. It gives us this illusion that we’re staying connected. Social media enables all of us to be shitty friends while being 100% convinced we’re the exact opposite.

I remember seeing his stories and thinking, man, I wish I was in LA so I could make T some soup and take it over to him. Why the fuck didn’t I call? Why did I just trust what I could see and assume everything was okay?

The obvious answer is because I thought there was time. Always another trip to LA. Another yoga class we would try. Another lunch hearing the waves of the Pacific pound the rocks. Another phone call on his drive home from Palm Springs. I felt certain we would eventually get our schedules to line up because we always had before.

I didn’t know I was choosing Sofia instead of T. I thought I was choosing Sofia that day and T another day. There was supposed to be another day. And now I can’t stop thinking about who else I love I’m doing this with right now.

Even though I know in my heart I’m a good friend, there are only so many hours in the day. I run a business, I have clients I really care about, I have a relationship and a to-do list that usually makes me feel overwhelmed. So for every thoughtful connection I nurture, I also have people I love whose lives I know almost entirely through Instagram right now.

I know where they went on vacation. I know what they had for dinner. I know their kid lost a tooth and they got a new job and they’re renovating their kitchen. I send hearts and notes and I cheer them on. They send hearts and notes and they cheer me on. We tell each other we miss each other. We say we need to make plans but we never do. Keeping up with one another has replaced actually showing up for one another. And no matter how much we want to call that a friendship, it’s just the facade of one.

I knew what T was doing. I didn’t know what T was going through.

So what do I do with all of this regret? I’m in full non-acceptance of reality right now and in a continuous loop of all the things I wished I’d done differently. But if I don’t do something with all this regret it will end up being a useless loop of pain and suffering that will lead me into a pit of despair. I can feel it lurking in my bones.

If I’m being totally real, for once I don’t think the answer is to let it go. To do breathwork and metabolize it. To let the pain integrate and move forward. At least not yet. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to let it hurt. To let myself feel so uncomfortable that I remember exactly what this feels like the next time I look at my phone and think, I should call them. Or the next time someone I love crosses my mind and I send them a thinking of you, I miss you text. And I better fucking remember how I feel right now the next time I’m in someone’s city and our schedules don’t quite line up. No more: we need to make plans soon. I am going to feel this pain until it’s etched into my nervous system. The next time, I’m not going to punt it. I’m going to make the time.

The love I have for T was 100% real. I meant it every time I told him I loved him. I meant it when I said I missed him. I meant it when I thought about making him soup from 1,234 miles away. I meant it when I thought I’d see him, next time. But right now, I would trade every one of my good intentions for one more chance to actually show up.

I stand corrected. Regret is not a useless emotion. I’ve said that so many times but now I know I just didn’t know any better. Regret is not here to torture us with all the things we can’t go back and change. We can’t change what we already did or didn’t do, but we can sure as fuck change what we’ll do next.

I can’t call T today. I can’t rearrange that afternoon in May. And I can’t go back and turn an Instagram heart into a hug. But there are people I love who I can make time for today. And no matter how wonderful your intentions are, or how busy your life is, you can too.

I told you at the beginning that I wanted you to hurt with me. I meant that. I hope some part of this makes you uncomfortable enough to look at your own life and ask who you’ve been meaning to connect with outside of social media. Who you keep saying you need to see. Who you love deeply but mostly keep up with through a screen. Who you’re so sure you’ll have more time with.

Call them. Make the plan. Do not flake.

Get on the plane or drive across town in traffic. Sit across from them and look into their eyes. Ask them how they’re actually doing. I’d give anything to hear T’s laugh in real life right now. And it will never ever happen again. 🖤

Halloween has been my favorite holiday since I was a kid. And I’m a strictly camp wear scary costumes only. How about you?

I decorate the yard to the fullest, totally tacky, but a favorite on the block. I love dry ice punch and giving out full sized candy bars to sticky little greedy fingers. I adore everything about this time of year and so does Austin, Texas. Folks here decorate their homes about 100x more than they do for Christmas.

And yes, Palo and I have been known to coordinate. Obviously.

There’s another reason I love this time of year. The veil between worlds is thin, and everything feels a little more magical. My grandmother passed away a couple of years ago, the day before Halloween. I still miss her, so so much, but this month I always feel her a little closer.

Every year around this time, I lead an ancestor connection, which has become one of my favorite rituals. I’ll be doing it again this year, and if that’s your kind of magic, you’re invited. Everyone is welcome. I’ll share more soon. 🖤

And on a much less sacred note, I have also spent an unreasonable amount of time looking at Halloween decorations. (Like I have done every year for the past decade. Who else does this - please tell me it’s not just me.)

So if you love Halloween as much as I do but do not want to sift through 3,000 pages of crap to find the good stuff, here you go. I did it for you. I went down the Halloween rabbit hole and pulled together my favorite finds: the chic, the camp, the cute, and the slightly ridiculous.

Here are my favorites. Happy Halloween, witches. Let’s match. 🎃

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you.

This is love in my family. We feed you.

Persians don’t really accept “no thank you” as a final answer when food is involved. It’s more like the opening round of negotiations. I remember when my very American partner started visiting my parents’ house with me, I had to explain to her that boundaries aren’t really a thing when it comes to food. (This is true in most Persian homes, FYI.) “Just say thank you, take a little bit, eat the tiniest morsel, give an enthusiastic ‘mmm, that’s so delicious,’ and sneak the rest in the trash,” was my advice. That’s what I do. It’s just not worth the back and forth or the hurt feelings. They’ll ask if you’re hungry, feed you when you say no, ask if you liked it, then worry you didn’t like it because you only had one serving. And somehow, while you’re still full, fruit has appeared.

While my boundaries are slightly less insane (please don’t ever feel the need to eat at my house if you don’t want to), I’m still my mother’s daughter. Feeding people is my love language.

The first hint of fall, even if it’s still 96 degrees in Austin, and I immediately want a giant pot of something going on the stove all afternoon. The house smells incredible, something is simmering, and by the end of the day there’s enough food to feed us, whoever happens to come by, my neighbor, and still fill the freezer because who has time to make a healthy lunch every day?

This chicken soup is the one I make over and over again. It started in 2020 with Nicole Berrie’s Chicken Soup with Kale and Carrots from Bonberi, and I’ve made it so many times, and changed so many things along the way, it has slowly become my own.

This is not a quick weeknight soup. It is a slow-living, put-on-a-playlist, let-the-house-smell- amazing-all-day, lazy Sunday kind of soup. Make it when you’re home for the afternoon. Eat it with good sourdough. Give some to someone you love. Freeze the rest for the day you need someone to take care of you, and that someone happens to be you.

Oh did I mention this recipe is actually delicious and it’s:

• Gluten-free

• Dairy-free

• Grain-free

• No added sugar

• Low-fat

• Whole-food based

• High-protein

• Paleo-friendly

• Whole30-compatible

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I love clothes. I love beautiful things. I love expensive things. But some of my favorite things in my closet cost less than $100. And I have absolutely no interest in pretending otherwise.

What I don’t love is having a closet full of shit I don’t wear.

Somewhere along the way, I got much pickier about what comes home with me. Not necessarily more practical, because I am still me, but much less interested in buying something just because the internet has collectively decided we all need it this week.

My rules are pretty simple: Does it feel good on my skin? Will I still want to wear it in two years? Does it belong in a life that inspires me? If the answer is no, I probably don’t need it.

Mindless consumerism is for the masses. Buy fewer things. Make better choices. Which brings me to fall.

I could give you a list of 37 things you need to buy this season, but you don’t need 37 things. I don’t need 37 things. And by next October, 29 of them would probably look vaguely ridiculous anyway.

These are the six things I actually want to wear on repeat:

1. The Paris shoes

I spotted these on a woman at the airport in Austin and would have bet money they were designer. They were $55.

I proceeded to walk 20,000+ steps a day in them in Paris. Cobblestones, stairs, entire days on my feet, and not one blister. Not even a Band-Aid.

Meanwhile, I have owned $400 shoes that started drawing blood before lunch.

I like a $55 shoe that embarrasses the expensive shoe.

🩰 SHOP THE SHOES

A note before you come for me for recommending open-toed shoes in the fall: I live in Austin. It’s still 90 degrees here. 🥵 I also just bought a second pair because I am certain they will sell out, so consider yourself warned.

If you live somewhere where it actually feels like fall, these are my favorite loafers. Wear them with a sexy sock. You’re welcome.

👞 SHOP THE LOAFERS

2. The chunky sweater

This sweater is chic as f*ck. It feels like being at home on the couch under your favorite blanket, except somehow you look like you should be walking along the Seine.

Which is basically my entire fashion philosophy: I want to be comfortable without looking comfortable.

🍂 SHOP THE SWEATER

3. The perfect T-shirt

There is nothing particularly exciting about buying a T-shirt, but a really good one is the thing I end up wearing more than almost anything else I own.

I want it soft, I want it to hang correctly, and I want to be able to put it under a sweater or trench, wear it with jeans or black pants, add jewelry (or not) and leave the house. It shouldn’t require thought. It should just make everything else look better.

🖤 SHOP THE TEE

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4. The black pant

Every woman needs a pair of black pants that make her ass look good and don’t make her want to unbutton them halfway through dinner.

These are the ones.

Wide leg, comfortable, sneakers during the day, heels at night. If I have to stand in front of the mirror trying to figure out what the hell goes with a pair of black pants, the pants have failed.

🍁 SHOP THE PANT

5. The trench

I am convinced a trench coat is one of fashion’s greatest scams, and I mean that as a compliment.

You can be wearing the most basic thing underneath it, throw on a trench and sunglasses, and suddenly you look like you have somewhere important to be. Add a red lip, as my grandmother and my mother would insist. Very little effort. Suspiciously good results.

🧥 SHOP THE TRENCH

6. The square sunglasses

I have never understood owning 47 pairs of sunglasses. Give me one really good pair that works with everything and makes me look approximately 17% more mysterious.

These do that.

Also useful when you don’t feel like putting on makeup, making eye contact, or explaining yourself.

😎 SHOP THE SUNGLASSES

Obviously, I own more than six things. I’m a Persian minimalist, which is basically just a normal person. But I’m much more interested these days in having a closet full of things I genuinely love wearing than a closet full of options.

I want things that feel good. Things I reach for constantly. Things that still feel like me after the algorithm has moved on to convincing us we all need something else.

And yes, sometimes that thing costs a lot of money. Sometimes it costs $55. The price isn’t really the point.

Knowing what you actually like is.

If you’re new here, hi, I’m Neelou. I write about style, ritual, beauty, travel, money, people I love, people who get on my nerves, Persian things, wellness things, and whatever else I currently have opinions about. Basically: consciousness & shoes. (If you haven’t already deleted Instagram you can connect with me here.

I lose things constantly. My phone (even when it’s in my hand), my sunglasses (while sitting on top of my head), my keys, Palo’s leash, whatever I was holding four seconds ago. Ask everyone who’s ever waited on me by a door. It’s the only thing my very patient partner cannot be patient about.

And then there’s Maman Shaheedy’s key. The gorgeous silver one she used to use to open her jewelry box. I will always remember her chubby, perfectly polished fingers turning the lock. She’s been gone more than twenty years and that key has stayed with me the whole time. I’ve lost it exactly once, at Soho House in West Hollywood, and I didn’t realize until I was home, halfway into a breathwork session with House 11. I touched my pocket and silently gasped when it was empty. I felt ill, like I left my body, but I managed to keep my composure until my Zoom ended and then I raced back to Soho House.

“GET UP! Please.” I practically yelled at the man who’d taken my seat. The key was sitting perfectly patiently beneath the couch pillow where I’d taken my meeting. My relief was palpable. And I felt terrible for being so careless but looking back I’m pretty sure my grandmother just wanted to stay at Soho a little longer. She was a social butterfly.

This key has traveled everywhere I have. Its place is in my travel altar. I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice: you really need a travel altar. Seriously though, everyone needs one so get to making one. Mine contains a beautiful tapestry to lay my sacred items on, Ganesha and Lakshmi Ma figurines (the same two I’ve been chanting with all month), a little sacred smoke (to represent Air), some matches, my clearing spray (representing Water), usually a few candles (Fire, my favorite), a gorgeous grounding garnet (repping the Earth), my Wild Unknown deck, and Maman’s key. My travel altar comes out of the carry-on before a single item of clothing gets hung up, right after I’ve found the light switches. Because a hotel room is beige and strange and belongs to nobody and everybody at once, all that chaotic energy clinging to everything. You gotta clear it, protect your space, set your things down in one small corner, call in your Allies, and voilà, the vibe is totally different. The whole room becomes yours.

Altars are so special to me. A place to sit and contemplate. A respite. A portal to connect us to the ethereal. In fact, I remember every home I’ve ever lived in by its altar. And every Airbnb and hotel room the same way.

Right now, my altar has more space than ever before. An entire wall. (Yay for Austin and all its spaaaace.) In Miami my altar moved around, bedroom to living room to office, depending on what I needed that month. In LA it was the corner of a nightstand. In NYC, a windowsill barely wide enough for a candle and a photograph, because that was all the space I had. The size was never the flex. The practice was.

This is a practice I learned from women. And I don’t remember exactly when or how I was taught, the way most of us learn the practices worth keeping. Both of my grandmothers set the haft-seenevery Nowruz, my mother still does, and so do all the women in my family on both sides. It’s never identical. Everyone has their own favorite seven seens, arranged in their own particular way. Sabzeh grown from seeds with love, serkeh displayed in an elegant crystal glass, the ornate mirror angled to catch the light from the Sun. That’s the part I love most. The tradition is thousands of years old, and still nobody agrees on the details.

It’s not just us. Your people build altars too, I promise. You’ll start seeing them everywhere once you’re looking. A candle kept burning under a photograph on the hallway table. Ofrendas built for Dia de los Muertos, to remember the dear ones. A bowl of water set by the door so that whatever crosses the threshold is cleansed. We’ve been making sacred corners inside our homes in every language for as long as we’ve had homes, and probably when we were nomadic too. Because we’ve always needed a place for magic to meet us halfway.

That’s why I love my altar so much. It’s the one place in the world where I can just exist. Where my walls don’t creep up, where I can be unapologetically messy, where keeping it together and being on doesn’t matter. It’s where I give myself permission to be totally vulnerable. Where I can ask for support and guidance. And almost as soon as I do, I remember that the help has been here the entire time. My grandmothers, my ancestors, my allies, whoever else is watching, and the part of me that already knows exactly what to do. None of it is on me alone. It never was. I just forget, constantly. I bet you do too. My altar is where I remember.

Our homes shape us more than we shape them. What we look at every single day changes us, our nervous system, our focus, the mood we walk around carrying without ever noticing where we picked it up. I don’t think it’s coincidence that I feel like a different person walking into a room with the flicker of candlelight, reggae playing, and the smell of fresh lilies, than I do walking into one with fluorescent lighting, a pile of unopened mail, and yesterday’s dishes still in the sink. So sit with this for a second. Hear this question from the center of your heart space instead of your mind. How do the different parts of your home affect the trajectory of your life?

Your altar can 100% alter the direction of your life. Below: my only rule, what’s on my equinox altar right now, the three questions to answer before you build yours, and the ritual for the 22nd.

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This year, my mantra has been LET IT BE EASY.

The fall equinox is almost here, yay! For the western hemisphere that means sweater weather, pumpkin spiced everything, leaves changing and Practical Magic on repeat. The shift in seasons is making me feel moody and reflective so I’ve been thinking a lot about what let it be easy really means. (Because let’s be real, I am pretty sure we can all agree, this year has not been easy.) Autumn naturally asks us to slow down at exactly the point in the year when most of us start doing the opposite. Calendars fill up, the holidays are suddenly around the corner, and we start thinking about everything we said we were going to do this year that we haven’t done yet.

I can sense the collective overwhelm circling like predatory birds. (If boundaries are tangled up in yours the way they were in mine, I wrote about the hardest one I ever set here.) So I’m going to share something that genuinely changed how I do life. How I relate to stress, productivity, and rest. How I schedule my calendar, see my clients, hang out with my friends and family. Basically, how exchange energy with the world. And it’s not another mindset shift. It’s focusing on the body instead of the mind and using our physical sensations as feedback. And it’s also a lot of nervous system regulation.

So what happens when you decide to retire hustle mentality, but still struggle with the effects of how long you were grinding? Here’s an inconvenient truth: your nervous system doesn’t calm down the second you want it to. And it also doesn’t relax just because you can rationally understand there’s nothing to be worked up about. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help to worry about why you’re not more relaxed either. It only calms down when it receives consistent signals of safety. Because safety, from a physiological standpoint, comes from very simple things like rest, nourishment, enough energy, predictability, and rhythm.

This is why you might feel exhausted even when it doesn’t quite make sense. (Think emotional labor.) Or why trying to think your way out of stress doesn’t always work. In a system that responds to biology first, these very normal behaviors can have the opposite effect. When your nervous system is overwhelmed, efforting, in any capacity unless it’s physical (think exercise), actually increases activation. Trying and doing, instead of being, keeps your system on high alert.

So, the solution isn’t mind-first. It’s body-sensation oriented, and you might want to try somatic release, like breathwork. This is also why doing less is often the most effective intervention.

Things to try: slower breathing lowers arousal. Repetition, like waking up and sleeping at the same time and eating regularly, reduces threat scanning. Predictable rhythm, like walking and tapping, conserves energy and tells the nervous system it does not need to stay vigilant. These are not just spiritual ideas. They are well-documented physiological responses. (If you want the research, respond here and I’ll send it your way.)

This is where mantra becomes so powerful.

Humans have been chanting for more than 3,000 years. The oldest Vedic hymns were transmitted orally in ancient India around 1500–1200 BCE. Chanting works wonders because it combines rhythm, repetition, breath, and focused attention. These are basically the ingredients of nervous system regulation. Over time, and it takes time, so don’t expect anything to change overnight, your system will learn a new baseline. Your reactivity will soften. You will feel more grounded. There is space for choice before a knee-jerk reaction.

I’ve watched this happen hundreds of times, both personally and with clients. Again, not overnight. But with consistency and repeated practice. It’s absolute magic.

You can start this now. You don’t need to join one of my live processes to begin working with mantra. Here is how you can start on your own.

First, choose a mantra that speaks to you. Something that sparks curiosity. If you don’t know where to begin, here are two books I love: Shakti Mantras: Tapping into the Great Goddess Energy Within and Healing Mantras: Using Sound Affirmations for Personal Power, Creativity, and Healing, both by Thomas Ashley-Farrand. They’re wonderful resources for learning about different mantras and choosing one that works for you.

Second, once you’ve chosen your mantra, commit to a period of time you’ll chant. As in, how many days. Commit to the same mantra and just choose a number. I always recommend 44 days. The repetition is the point.

Third, set an intention for this practice. The intention is like the destination in Google Maps. In my opinion, when you’re doing something, anything, without intention, you’re basically driving aimlessly.

Finally, do the thing. Start to chant. Every day! (Preferably first thing in the morning.) Find somewhere you can sit comfortably and without interruption. You can use mala beads if you have them, but you don’t need them. Close your eyes, take a few slow breaths, and begin chanting your mantra aloud. Repeat it 108 times. If you have a mala, that’s one full trip around the beads. If you skip a day, you have to start again.

Notice how you feel before you sit down to practice and how you feel afterward. Notice what changes over time.

This is a beautiful practice to do on your own. And there is also something very different, almost etherial, about chanting in community. I’ve been leading these processes for years, and there is a palpable power in numbers when a group of people commit to the same practice, show up together every day, and hold that energy for one another.

So if you want to try mantra, start here. You have everything you need. And if you want to experience what happens when we do it together, you are invited to join my circle.

On October 10th, I’m beginning a new 44-day mantra process with Ganesha and Lakshmi, working with the removal of blockages and alignment with abundance and prosperity. We’ll practice together through November 24th, with daily live mantra and meditation, ceremonies, healing, and a community practicing alongside you.

You can read more about the Ganesha + Lakshmi process here.

If your system has been tired, reactive, or living on high alert, maybe there’s nothing wrong with you. Maybe life has been a little relentless, and you need a bit of support.

Practicing showing up Instead of perfection.

xx,

Neelou

She was unlike anyone I knew. She had these captivating, giant icy blue eyes, so I called her Tweety Bird. She wore a gold machine gun necklace and the matching two-finger ring. Baggy jeans with Timberlands. And I was different from our peers too, just in a less obvious way. I never hung out at the Persian tree with my fellow Iranians, and I didn’t belong to any of the other little tribes at Beverly either. I had friends, best friends, but I never seemed to be of a group in the way high school somehow demands. Neither did she. We found each other instead, and we were inseparable.

The following year she moved back to New Jersey. Our lives took very different turns after that because we’d been handed different circumstances. She left school. Her world became unstable in ways mine wasn’t. And I had the privilege of staying in school, going to college, and having both of my parents.

And still, we stayed best friends. This was the early 90s. There was no FaceTime. No texting. Long distance calls still cost actual money. Staying close to someone who lived 3,000 miles away required effort, and we made it.

We saw each other sporadically in the years that followed, until I took a break from college to move in with her and try modeling in NYC. We had so much fun and drove her older sister crazy. My modeling career was short-lived, but eventually I moved to New York for law school when I was 22. It was her, not my parents, not my boyfriend, who helped me find my first apartment in NYC, a fifth-floor walk-up on the Upper East Side.

We grew up together from opposite coasts and then from the same one, separated by just 11 miles and the George Washington Bridge. We traveled together. We intimately knew each other’s families. Fur-children. Boyfriends. Heartbreaks. Anxieties. Bad decisions. Careers. Houses. The people we had been before we became the people we are now.

She was more than my best friend. I’m an only child. She was my sister.

And then, in 2024, I stopped speaking to her.

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Hi, I’m Neelou.

In 2017 I started a company called SMUDGED because I needed to become someone I would feel proud of. I had a law degree I barely used, a resume that included peacekeeping work at the United Nations, a bi-coastal LA/NYC life that looked pretty perfect on paper, and a nagging feeling none of it was actually me.

So I left my life in NYC, built a business out of ritual, sacred smoke, and my ancestors’ guidance and I called it becoming “more authentic,” and it worked. It actually worked. I didn’t just create a brand around authenticity. I became more myself than I’d ever been.

I built a seven-figure business.

Our products landed in 17 countries and over 100 Whole Foods stores.

We sold out our Nordstrom pop-up three times in one season.

I signed with a top literary agency and became a published author with Penguin Random House.

I got featured in Forbes.

I became a breathwork practitioner and got to support thousands of people, among them veterans and first responders living with PTSD.

I grew House 11 into a membership community that over 1,000 women, from 27 countries, have moved through so far.

Impressive, right?!

I get to help facilitate the exact kind of transformation I went looking for when I stopped climbing the corporate ladder, law degree in hand, and quit pretending that living other people’s dreams was going to be my life.

But none of that is why I’m actually writing this.

Somewhere during the last year I started noticing a strange, ungrateful feeling creeping into my consciousness. Kinda like burnout with a touch of boredom. Which is confusing because I still love what I do and believe in it wholeheartedly. I think the authenticity meter shifted. Almost a decade ago, I built this business to be more myself and it turns out I made room for only parts of me.

There’s no meditation for the aspect of self that wanted to go to culinary school, loves to feed everyone instead, and embarrassingly wants to post every plate of it.

No mantra process for my opinions on culture, art, the nefarious side of the wellness industry. No room for little nuances like the six hours I’ll spend choosing a hotel, or the very unspiritual joy I get from the silhouette of a well-made dress, or the perfect shade of red lipstick.

And I’m over my Spotify Wrapped being only breathwork tracks, when my actual year sounded like dance parties in the kitchen, music friends share as a love language, the soundtrack to living, not healing.

SMUDGED was built to hold the searching and the healing. And so the living was accidentally sacrificed. I’ve split myself in two: the founder who does the deep work, and all the other aspects of myself, but only gave one of them a platform.

Turns out hitting the goals you set in your twenties doesn’t resolve you. It just poses a new question. The first one, who do I want to be, not who everyone else wants me to be, is the one SMUDGED already answered. Now it’s: which parts of myself am I leaving out?

A lot, apparently.

So, this Substack is for the women who are, somehow, all of the following:

• deeply invested in becoming themselves, and just as invested in enjoying themselves

• capable of having a profound conversation about consciousness and an equally passionate one about where you got your shoes

• as obsessed with their bucket list as their f*ck it list (more on mine later...)

• ambitious as hell, but increasingly suspicious that achievement isn’t the point

• choosing a curious life instead of having it all figured out

• done shrinking themselves to fit inside a pretty little box

If this sounds like you, welcome.

I’ve been called a “modern mystic,” a spiritual business consultant, a wellness author, and a viceless vixen. (Yes, I hug actual trees, meditate every morning, barely drink and never do drugs, but I also religiously wear both a red lip and a red bottom, could negotiate a hostage release before lunch, love a five-star hotel, and I’ll never say no to a spa day.)

All of this is true.

And…

This is the first time since 2017 I’ve created something with no obligation to make it fit inside SMUDGED. I don’t have to turn every experience into a lesson, every curiosity into a healing modality, or every conversation into something useful for your personal growth.

I can just tell you what I think and how I feel.

And, as it turns out, there’s so much of both.

Like, about being Iranian and the very specific ways it’s shaped how I move through the world, including what it’s like never quite fitting into one culture, one city, one friend group, or one version of home, and the surprising good and bad that comes with that.

About getting older without disappearing. About beauty and why I’ll happily volunteer as tribute for the slightly unhinged treatments everyone else is curious about. About choosing not to have children, and the freedom and heartache that decision still carries.

About money, ambition, friendships, books, food, flowers, clothes, travel, hotels, culture, and the parts of the wellness industry I’ve built my whole career inside and have never really talked about publicly (there are reasons for that). And even though I’ve always kept my relationship pretty private, maybe I’ll let a few pieces of it live here. We’ll see.

I want to tell you about the things I spend an unreasonable amount of time researching. The things I buy and actually love. The things I hate, my most irrational pet peeves, and the things that really f*cking bug me. The places worth getting on a plane for and the ones that absolutely are not. What I’m cooking. What I’m reading. What I’m wearing. The tiny rituals I actually live by, not because they’re content, but because they’re mine.

Here’s what you’ll find here:

• lovingly unsolicited opinions

• the behind-the-scenes I would never share on Instagram

• recommendations I take entirely too seriously

• the things worth knowing, buying, or trying that I’ve already over-researched so you don’t have to

• stories I would have previously kept for my best friends

• and whatever rabbit hole I’m currently too far down to turn back (like astral projection and non-local consciousness…)

And all the things I haven’t figured out yet, because nobody has. Some people are just better at faking perfection. I’m here to divulge it all (well, mostly!). What’s working, what’s not, and everything in between.

Because I don’t want to build another world and then wake up one day wondering which parts of myself made the cut.

So, neelou joon is born.

Joon is a Persian term of endearment. Literally, it means life or soul, but we attach it to someone’s name to say something closer to dear. Neelou dear. My Neelou. The version of me that existed long before there was a company or a book or an Instagram bio telling you what I do. You can let this be the same for you, if you want. You are my joons.

SMUDGED gave us somewhere to search for ourselves.

Neelou joon is where we live.

All of you is welcome here.

If this is your vibe, subscribe. I have a feeling we’re gonna have a lot to talk about.

Subscribe now

xx,

Neelou

P.S. I’ve already queued up some opinionated, slightly feral, probably-too-personal posts — like the one about breaking up with my best friend of 30 years. Consider yourself warned.