Five Vulnerable Things: Vol. 018

On inconvenient gifts, true beauty, and remembering you are the main character.

Welcome back to Monsoon Season — the coziest place on the internet.

This is 5 Vulnerable Things, where I sit down every week and ask myself what I am actually learning right now. Not the polished version. The honest one. The kind I would whisper to a good friend over a chai. This space exists for one reason: radically vulnerable conversations that rejoice in what makes us human. Some of what I share will comfort you. Some of it might challenge you. All of it is true. Pull up a chair.

1. Our inconvenient misfortunes are always hiding a gift.

I heard a man tell the story of how he met his partner. He started with: my flight was delayed in Atlanta. And then he smiled like that delay was the most sacred thing that ever happened to him. Because on the next flight, he sat next to the person who changed his whole life.

I think about that a lot. The inconvenient thing that turns out to be the thing.

There is this intersection on my morning walk where the lights take forever to change. And for a long time I’d stand there annoyed, staring at my phone, counting seconds. Then one morning I looked up. A stranger smiled at me — a real smile, the kind you don’t expect. Another time I noticed a flyer for an event I ended up going to.

What I know now is this: when we decide that inconvenient moments are hiding a gift, they start to. Not because the universe rearranges itself, but because we do. We soften. We look up. We become available to the serendipity that was always there.

Try it. Next time your latte takes too long or the train is late or the Wi-Fi goes down, put your phone away. Look around. Notice who is next to you. The gift is rarely dramatic. Sometimes it is just a moment of being alive and present inside your own life.

That is enough.

2. The mirror is not showing you the truth.

I have been obsessed with mirrors since I was a little girl. And then one day as a young woman, I had this thought that stopped me cold: I will die never having seen my own face. Only ever a reflection. A reversed, two-dimensional echo of a face that other people see more clearly than I ever will.

This is why the people we surround ourselves with matter so deeply. They are our mirrors in a way that glass can never be. They reflect back the parts of us we cannot see ourselves — our warmth, our power, our blind spots, our light.

I dropped into an Afro dance class in Toronto once, on a trip. Somewhere in the middle of it, the teacher stopped the music and said — stop looking at the mirror to tell you the truth. Everyone in that room was laser focused on their reflection, correcting, adjusting, performing for the glass. And he said: the mirror is lying to you. The truth is in your body. The feeling that wants to come alive and express itself. That is the beauty. That is the truth.

I have been thinking about that ever since. Where in your life are you looking at the glass?

3. Beauty is a spiritual practice.

I spent over a decade in creative leadership at some of the most disruptive beauty brands in the world. And what I can tell you from the inside is this: we have gotten beauty catastrophically wrong.

We live in a moment where Botox in your twenties and Ozempic are as normalized as remembering to wear sunscreen. Where aging is treated like a plague. I understand the pressure — I live inside it too. But I want to push back. Audaciously and lovingly.

In Ayurveda, beauty is not a product or a procedure. It is a way of being. It comes from your spirit. You cannot buy it. You can only activate it from within.

I am a massive cinephile and I genuinely struggle watching films where an actor’s face no longer moves. Because some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen on screen are smile lines. Eyes crinkling at the corners. A nose scrunching mid-belly laugh. That is a human being radiating their soul. No procedure gives you that.

Here is what I actually believe: most of us are not doing this for ourselves. We are doing it to be perceived a certain way. That is worth sitting with. Whether it’s the iconic shelfie of brands and bottles, trust me, I’ve been there – none of it makes you feel more beautiful..the subtracting of things to reveal your true beauty is what does.

I am a woman who has not had work done and does not plan to. Ever. Not to judge anyone’s choices — your body, your sovereignty. But the noise and pressure is deafening, and somebody needs to be loud and remind people there is another way.

4. You have main character energy. So why are you living like the best friend?

I have been sitting with this one for a while because it is uncomfortably personal.

There is a version of me that shows up fully — electric, magnetic, present, taking up exactly the right amount of space. I have felt her. Other people have felt her too. And then there is the version that quietly fades into the supporting role. The one who amplifies everyone else’s dreams while her own sit in a journal, waiting.

I think a lot of us do this. We are so deeply capable of holding space for other people that we accidentally make everyone else the main character of a story that was always supposed to be ours.

The supporting best friend character is lovable. She is loyal and warm and everyone adores her. But she never gets the arc. She never gets the transformation. She is there to make someone else’s journey more interesting.

You were not born for a supporting role. The question is not whether you have main character energy. You do. The question is when you are going to let it run the show.

5. There is nothing a really long walk cannot fix.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

When I am spinning out, when the anxiety is loud and the decisions feel impossible and my nervous system is frayed — the walk is the medicine. Not a quick one. A long one. The kind where somewhere around the forty-minute mark your shoulders come down from around your ears and you remember that you are a body on a planet and most of the things that felt urgent are not actually on fire.

In Ayurveda, walking is considered one of the most balancing things a human being can do. It is tridoshic — meaning it is good for every constitution, every imbalance, every season. It moves prana. It grounds vata (airy - restlessness). It clears the mind without forcing it.

Whatever you are carrying right now — take it for a walk. Let your feet find the rhythm. Let the wind do what wind does. You might be surprised how much lighter everything feels when you come home.

Minutes meditated so far this year: 1,000 minutes (16 hours + 40 minutes)

Which one landed for you this week? Hit ‘leave a comment’ and tell me — I read every single one. And if Monsoon Season feels like home, share it with someone who will love it, too. 🧡

Until next time — stay soft,

Asa