Between Dreams and Stability

Summer has a way of testing your resolve.

In New York City, many of my Embody Pilates clients disappear to the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, or Europe. The city settles into a different rhythm. Businesses slow. Projects pause. Yet rent, responsibilities, and the realities of everyday life don’t take a summer vacation.

If you’re building a business or chasing a dream, you probably know exactly what I mean.

Lately, I’ve found myself having some honest conversations. Not just with friends or clients, but with myself.

The kind of conversations that make you ask: What actually matters? What needs to happen today? What can wait?

Building a wellness business while pursuing a life in the arts isn’t simply a balancing act. It’s learning to live in the space where practicality and possibility meet.

For years, I thought the answer was, I can do it all.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized the goal isn’t doing everything.

It’s doing the right things, at the right time, while protecting the parts of yourself that make you feel most alive.

From the outside, my life probably looks exciting.

I’ve lived in France, earned a degree in French Literature, taught theatre and dance in Paris, developed film and television projects with producers in Hollywood, returned to New York City to build a growing wellness business through Embody Pilates, and continue writing music, performing, and telling stories through Kreation.

People often hear those things and assume the hard part must be over.

It isn’t.

What they don’t see are the quieter moments.

The budgeting.

The months when business slows.

The projects that almost happened.

The opportunities that fell through.

The mornings where I wonder whether I’m asking too much from life.

The truth is, success rarely feels as polished as it looks from the outside.

Looking back, though, I don’t think the biggest milestones are what have shaped me most.

Yes, living in Paris changed my life.

Yes, learning how to pitch television and film transformed the way I think.

But so did the client who has trusted me for over a decade.

So did writing one more page when I wanted to close my laptop.

So did deciding to film one Pilates video instead of waiting until everything felt perfect.

Those moments rarely make headlines.

They’re the moments that build a life.

Every now and then I laugh and think, why couldn’t I have just wanted one career?

Maybe I would have become a nurse or a banker.

Maybe life would have been steadier. More predictable.

Maybe I would have spent less time wondering whether pursuing art alongside entrepreneurship was worth the uncertainty.

But then I smile.

That was never going to be my story.

I’ve never wanted to choose between creating something meaningful and building something sustainable.

I’ve wanted both.

Not because I believe I should have everything.

Because I believe a life can hold more than one calling.

The challenge isn’t deciding which dream deserves to survive.

It’s learning how those dreams can support one another instead of competing for your attention.

For me, that means building Embody Pilates with the same intention I bring to writing music and film.

It means creating a business that gives me the financial stability to continue making art.

Not because money is the goal.

Because freedom is.

I’ve also learned something I wish someone had told me years ago.

People often project their fears onto lives they don’t understand.

They worry because your path doesn’t resemble theirs.

Sometimes those fears sound like practical advice.

Sometimes they sound like concern.

Sometimes they come from people who genuinely love you.

But they’re still their fears.

Not yours.

One of my favorite sayings is, “By letting go, it all gets done.”

Not because life magically works itself out, but because once we stop trying to control every outcome, we’re finally able to focus on what we can control.

Showing up.

Doing the work.

Taking the next small step.

Trusting that another one will follow.

At forty-three, I don’t have everything figured out.

Business still has slow seasons.

There are still dreams that haven’t happened yet.

There are still days when I question whether I’m asking too much from life.

But when those thoughts creep in, I’ve learned to look backward instead of forward.

A little girl who grew up with very little somehow found herself living in Paris.

She somehow built a business in New York City.

She somehow keeps writing songs, stories, and films she still believes in.

If that younger version of me could never have imagined the life I’m living today…

Perhaps the version of me sitting here now can’t yet imagine what’s waiting around the next corner.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe we aren’t meant to have every answer.

Maybe we’re simply meant to keep becoming.

Not someone richer.

Not someone more successful.

Simply someone more fully ourselves.