This morning I woke up feeling meh. But sat in my garden with a cuppa tea before riding my quad to work (which always gets me buzzed up!)

I felt dizzy. Bloated. Headache. Sore throat. Not exactly the glowing Monday energy I’d love to project. I told my kindergarten kids and breathed deeper than usual.

1pm hits and I cant do it anymore. The first thing my mind did — because of course it did — was reach for an excuse. New moon energy. Mercury something. The cosmos is just doing its thing.

Maybe that’s true. But here’s what’s also true:

I can take responsibility for how I feel without beating myself up about it.

Both things can exist at the same time.

I returned home.

Slept for 3 hours.

I didnt even let that guilty aunty come up, but went for a walk instead.

Got caught in the storm and lightening after my LONESOME walk (couldnt believe I was on the beach alone!) but felt refreshing.

Most people don’t choose peace.

Not really.

Especially you, momma…

Most of us are living in a low-grade hum of fight or flight

chasing the next achievement, the next distraction, the next version of ourselves that finally deserves to rest.

I wrote Chill Out and Cheer Up because I was one of those people.

I still have my moments. Like today.

One Goodreads reader described the book as feeling “like I’d spoken with a friend and was being given some great advice and support.”

That is the whole point. Not perfection. Not performing wellness.

THAT is draining you more than you think…

Just a friend saying — hey, you don’t have to keep running.

That’s what COACH is for, too.

It exists to remind you of something you already know but keep forgetting in the noise:

You have the power to slow down.
You have the power to choose differently.
You have the power to stop reacting and start living intentionally.

So today, I’m not pretending I feel amazing.

I’m choosing to be gentle with myself anyway.

I’m drinking water. I’m moving slowly. I just made golden milk with my fresh coconut milk, but my tummy is still MEh…

I’m writing to you instead of pushing through something that doesn’t need to be pushed through.

I’ve shown up here every Monday since November 2024.

Not because every week feels inspired. Not because I always feel well.

But because showing up for this newsletter is how I prioritise myself and how I show you what that actually looks like in real life.

Even today, feeling the way I do, I’m still here. That’s the practice.

That’s the flex. Not the highlight reel.

The quiet, unglamorous choice to take care of yourself and keep your word to yourself even when it’s hard.

What would it look like if you chose peace today? not because everything is perfect, but because you decided it was enough?

Leave a comment

With love from Costa Rica 🌿
Grace

Ready to Chill Out and Cheer Up? The revised edition, 5 years later from Paradise instead of the mental clinic, is out. It’s full of the real talk, the gentle tools, and reminders you didn’t know you needed.

I appreciate you being here.

Since you subscribed to Live with Grace, you are here to slow your pace:

You don’t have to push harder; you need to soften smarter.

My resources for us to rest and be our best together:

🌻 My bestselling self-help book Chill Out and Cheer Up, new revised edition, written for the version of you who is ready to come home to herself.

🌻 The Parents Handbook Guide, your companion for more presence, peace, and play with your children every day. Chill Out and Raise UP!

🌻 Join The Seed circle, a soft space to hug your nervous system and nurture your inner child for more peace, prosperity, and play in daily life!

Subscribe now

It's been more than 24 hours with no running water or electricity where I am in Costa Rica. Ok, so wifi is back but I kinda want it to go again… I was comfortable in my reading bubble and 🌎.

Instead of losing my mind, I found peace in mind

❤️, soul and spirit.

Today, I'll remind you how to return within🌻

You fear the dark?

You fear being alone?

You fear the thunderstorm?

More than anything, you fear being alone with your thoughts and no distractions?

Sure, majority stuck to screens more than socializing these days.

But fear heightens BECAUSE you're blocking your intuition and spirit with so much damn noise.

News drop: you don't fear anything.

You are only born with two fears(!!!). Go read my newly revised best-selling self-help book Chill Out and Cheer Up to find out what they are and how to rewire your brain.

Nor do you have to fear yourself.

Love is the answer.

Return to now.

When we return to love in the here and now, then we remember our power and peace.

When we practice this daily, every moment, we attract what we are:

More than enough!!!!

I've recently let someone new into my home and ❤️

It's been terrifying but exhilarating at the same time.

Do you believe in synchronities or coincidences?

I do.

This was one.

We met at the start of my landing here in CR.

post-ecstatic dance (our first one too) we hit it off like a 🏠 on 🔥 (that's what they say hey)

Then we didn't meet up again.

Timing wasn't right.

We had our inner-work to do (at least I can say that about myself).

Nearly 9 months down the line and I saw him on my Instagram. Ooh, “could message him…” I thought…

In that moment, he popped up.

Beat me to it.

We met up.

And from there it's history ;) ahahaha no.

But meanwhile I connected so well with a guy in Mexico City. He is translating my self-help book into spanish. He loves my writing. We connected on deep conversations and eye contact.

But there's distance. I told him. He respected me so much and wrote a beautiful poem about silence…

Point is:

the ❤️ wants to do what's right

The body wants to feel safe and held

The mind wants to control what feels good

Then theres the spirit that craves alignment

Your gut and intuition is always speaking to you:

So LISTEN.

that's it. When you listen, love is everywhere…

When you choose yourself, everything and everyone chooses you!!!

I moved across the 🌎 alone and priprtised myself like never before the past year that it's now my time to receive like a 👑.

It's your time too,

Always has been.

You just have to remember ther power in choosing yourself:

you inspire others to and your light shines bright!!!!

Start small, think big.

This magnetic energy is waiting for you:

Speak your desires out loud.

Spark it up again.

I dare you.

Life is waiting.

Love is waiting.

Wealth is waiting.

All your dreams too.

🌻 Chill Out and Cheer Up: the 5 years later revised edition written from paradise is now available:

“A warm and encouraging read that combines practical advice with genuine compassion, helping readers find more calm, confidence, and joy in everyday life.”

With gratitude

Grace

Today I'm writing you from bed. Yup, it's only 7.30pm but I'm ready to retire… it's been a tough day but I'm okay.

A good night's sleep is UNDERRATED!

I learn to ride the ebb and flow, and you deserve to.

Even on Mondays starting rushed not ready,

Awaking with neverending to-do lists,

Meetings and sore wrists,

Not to mention

The constant pain in your neck.

Or tight shoulders

And jaws.

Cos guess what?

You don't need more hacks, but:

Chill tf out. Quite literally.

A Goodreads reviewer described Chill Out and Cheer Up as feeling "like a friend is talking to me through the book”.

“In a genre crowded with experts, gurus, and grand promises, this book takes a refreshingly different approach. Instead of telling you how to transform yourself, it offers simple reminders about handling stress, appreciating small joys, and being kinder to yourself when things don't go to plan.”

“Sometimes that's exactly the kind of wisdom we need.”

Soooo…

Your day is planned to a T.

I met a friend for a matcha latte yesterday.

He showed me his hourly schedule. All planned out.

Even on Sundays…

I asked “what's your day of rest then?”

He said mostly Saturdays.

I replied Sundays are mine (since childhood being brought up in a christian household, I've stuck to it).

He curved his lips up and said “that sounds good but then don't you feel like you're rushed into Mondays!?”

I said, “quite the opposite. I'm restored to take on the week ahead.”

But then today hit me.

The heat, the kids, the whacky post full moon energy… plus my period is coming.

So I stopped after a few sweet words from colleagues because:

I took my daily siesta and disn’t feel 💯 to hold my women's circle as I lay in bed with the AC (still going!).

Then I got a load of cancellations…

wow the universe works on vibrations!!!

I didn't feel bad, but delighted in solitude this evening instead.

Watching the hummingbird in my garden with the cows, butterflies and abundance of nature.

I felt abundant. Even when “down”.

You have the choice to not fill up your time with no time to breathe and stress out.

You deserve to chill out and cheer up

Not stress out and get down.

it's those 10 minute grounding practices that mean EVERYTHING!!

You don't need to do more

You need to soften smarter.

And that's why I'm here to remind you:

Rest to BE your best.

You need a real rhythm with no “lifehacks” that make you feel guilty after the first week, but simple daily steps to take that suit your busy schedule:

"The tips are simple rather than revolutionary, but that's exactly what makes them useful and easy to apply." 📖

Dance with discipline instead 🪩

having fun is 🗝️ right?

"What I liked most about this book is that Grace Grossmann doesn't come across as a guru preaching from a pedestal." 🌞 🌻 📖

Chill Out and Cheer Up understands youre human!!!!

"The advice feels

• practical,

• relatable,

• And rooted in real-life experience.

• It reads more like a conversation with a supportive friend than a typical self-help manual."

Grab the newly revised edition 5 years later from the other side…

Qhite literally.

5 years ago, I didn't wanna face life and stay in bed.

5 years later, I made my dream life living in Costa Rica come true living my passion as a kindergarten teacher in presence.

Now I wake up with a jovial joy in my step

Instead of dragging my feet in depression

This time, Chill Out and Cheer Up has the real-life turnaround after mental health breakdown.

You deserve to be guilt-free

You deserve to get out your head

You deserve to give space for your desires

You deserve to greet daily life with presence n peace

Available as an ebook or paperback

With gratitude

Grace

PS. get a good night's sleep 🪽✨

Today in my classroom, two Italian guys in their twenties turned back into little boys playing football with my kindergarteners in the humid heat, red-faced and beaming.

One of my children looked up at me, completely baffled and said: “I thought they were kids.”

I thought, yes. That is exactly the point.

Your inner child has not gone anywhere.

She is waiting for you to remember her.

Here’s how to return home to joy.

Last night, I cried.

Like I haven’t in a long time.

Like post-breakup last March, but this time full of ecstasy.

My mentor calls them tears from the spirit. I believe it.

Five years ago, I cried myself to sleep in a mental clinic, overthinking ways to kill myself. Suicidal thoughts didn’t leave me like piled-up washing you leave for days.

Last night I cried because I did it. I moved alone to Costa Rica. I found my dream job as a kindergarten teacher on the beach, in the jungle, wrapped in nature and enlivened every single day by the children who fuel my stories and my writing.

This is my life. And I am in awe of it.

This one is for the mums who question their power and are learning to remember their peace.

Sundays are usually my solitude day. My friend here jokes that she can never plan anything with me on a Sunday.

But yesterday I had energy, and a fellow writer and teacher from school invited me to her poetry book launch and asked me to translate two of her poems into English.

What an honour.

I got caught in the rain on the way. I sang life is an adventuuuure to myself to battle the fear and draw near.

Picked up a new friend, a volunteer staying at the same household I lived in when I first arrived here.

I know exactly how it feels to be new, without transport, without bearings.

It is my pleasure to take them around.

She was made up. Thanked me so many times after our beach walk and sunset.

We bumped into my friend with a beachfront house (heads up, that is absolutely where I am holding my retreat next year!! LOOK ABOVE AT THE SUNSET VIEW).

We were hyped off connection.

There are two volunteers at my school right now.

Italian guys, early twenties, three weeks in and their last day was today.

When they first arrived, they said they’d love to come play with my kindergarten class someday.

So this morning I said: come at 10:30 and play with the children outside.

And wow.

These guys turned back into boys.

Playing football with the little ones. Then tag.

Sweating in the humid heat, red-faced, beaming. Not stopping until they had to.

I stood on the side, reminding my kiddos to drink water, watching everyone light up.

One hour zoomed by, as it always does in present play.

As they said goodbye to the kids and we sat at the table, one child looked up at me completely baffled:

I laughed.

It reminded me of a story I shared in my book:

A child in my old kindergarten in Germany once thought I was a child, too.

He told me that adults don’t laugh as much as I do.

Brutal. Honest. Perfect.

This is what I want to say to you, mommas and poppas:

Your inner child is ready to play at any time of day. And so is yours.

• Present play soothes your nervous system.

• It grounds your body, quiets your mind,

• heals something in you that tight shoulders and daily doubt have been covering up.

To the mum waking up with fear of failing, following her everywhere, this is for you.

You don’t need to perform.

You don’t need to push harder.

You just need to remember: this is why we are here.

I invite you to join me tomorrow!!

A soul invite:

• For the mums al(READY) on their journey retunring to themselves

• No excuses on time because you know even 5 minutes can reset your NS

• for the women who need more womens cricles that enhance longetivy

• to feel more understood, seen, and heard

Tomorrow I am going live for the first time in a long time.

I used to go live every Monday for six months with Aneta.

Live with Grace

how much longer are you gonna allow yourself to suffer before you let go?

Listen now

a year ago · 37 likes · 1 comment · Grace Grossmann and Aneta

This time I am showing up for the mums who want to join a circle of others ready to hug their nervous system and nurture their inner child, to find more presence, peace, and play with their children every day.

I’m going live tomorrow at 6:30pm CST to share more about what The Seed circle looks like.

No pressure. Just an open door to find out more and BE MORE! 🌿

With gratitude, Grace

I appreciate you being here. I’m assuming, since you subscribed to Live with Grace, that you are here to slow your pace. You don’t have to push harder; you need to soften smarter. That starts with YOU! Here are my resources to rest to be our best together:

🌻 My bestselling self-help book Chill Out and Cheer Up, new revised edition, written for the version of you who is ready to come home to herself.

🌻 The Parents Handbook Guide, your companion for more presence, peace, and play with your children every day.

🌻 Join The Seed circle and come live with me tomorrow at 6:30 pm CST, a soft space to hug your nervous system and nurture your inner child.

Subscribe now

Dear friend, Ten days ago I asked if you’d walk with me for a while.

You did. I will never forget that.

I appreciate you.

Showing up…

Thats the work most people dont do, especially the mums who use time as the biggest excuse of all. It was SO refreshing when a mum the other day told me

Yno how REFRESHING THIS WAS TO HEAR? After running around for others the past decade as a yoga teacher and well-being coach (as well as therapising my friends and fam lol. Plus, the passionate self I am who tried making a community last year in my last year of kindergarten studies called “Healing Hearts Hub”.

I learnt a lot through it and also made some beautiful friends here who I praise for showing up and always wanting to grow like (check him out!).

I didn’t realise that others gotta want to change to change.

Read that again…

I just knew my light is here to shine, and I want to save others.

So I joined Substack chasing people…

Wanting to help everyone and anyone.

But the best thing to do first?

Save yourself first.

When you choose yourself, everything aligns; everyone around you chooses you too.

It is pretty radical, right?

Hence why my mantra I painted first moving into my new place back in January here in Costa Rica with a beautiful island I dreamt of writing from is ahead of me on the turquoise European-style furnished kitchen counter:

I DONT CHASE, I ATTRACT WITH GRACE.

We’ve sat together with pressure and positive thinking, doubt and fear, greed and little things. We’ve walked outside into nature, reached toward connection, and carved out space for solitude.

And now we arrive here.

At the chapter I saved for last.

The one that contains all the others.

Love yourself.

That is the last chapter in Chill Out and Cheer Up, because everything comes from the love within…

I know how it sounds.

Another wellness buzzword.

Another thing to add to the list of ways you’re not doing enough.

Another affirmation to write on a sticky note and feel vaguely guilty about not believing.

That is not what I mean.

I mean something much quieter. Much more radical. Much more real.

Stop waiting for someone else to tell you that you are enough.

I waited a long time for that permission. From a partner. From a version of myself I kept thinking was just around the corner, once I’d fixed a few more things, healed a few more wounds, figured a few more things out.

The permission never came from outside.

It never does.

I wrote this book grieving my best friend in sweet Sevilla. 3 years later, self-published in a mental health clinic — grieving, depleted, searching for my own way back. Five years later, revised from the other side in paradise where I teach kindergarteners by day and hold women’s circles in the evenings in Costa Rica, with a coconut tree outside my window.

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The journey back to yourself is possible.

And when you make it — your children get the best version of you. Not the performed version. Not the exhausted version. The real one.

You are not just raising a child. You are showing them what a fully lived life looks like.

Live it well. For them — and for you.

🌿 The tiny shift that contains all the others:

Say one true, kind thing to yourself today. Out loud if you can.

Not an affirmation. Not a performance. A true thing. The kind of thing you would say to a friend who needed to hear it.

You are that friend. You have always been that friend.

Leave a comment

🌻 The doors are open. Come home.

Ten days ago, this was a letter. Now it is something more.

For those of you ready to keep walking with me, here is where we go next:

🌱 The Seed — €7/month or €50/year founding price: Your weekly Tuesday hour of rest. Somatic movement, breathwork, guided learning, nervous system resetting, inner child living. The tension in your shoulders — we work with that together.

Every week. One protected hour. Yours.

Plus exclusive posts, early access, discounts on everything.

Founding price of €50/year closes Friday. After that, it returns to €60/year. 🌱

The weekly letter stays free. Always.

But if these ten days have felt like coming home — there is a deeper home waiting.

Get the book, Chill Out and Cheer Up

Become a founding member — The Seed:

Subscribe now

Wherever you land — you belong here.

You don’t need to try harder to be okay.

That’s the whole book. That’s the whole message. That’s everything.

With so much love, Grace 🌿

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Dear friend, Day 9.

Today, I want to give you permission for something that might feel deeply uncomfortable.

To be alone.

Not lonely. Not checked out. Not scrolling in the same room as your family while technically present, but actually nowhere.

Quietly, beautifully alone.

We live in a world terrified of stillness.

We fill every gap — every waiting room, every school pickup, every spare moment — with noise. With input. With anything that keeps us from sitting with ourselves.

And I understand why.

Sitting with yourself can feel confronting when you haven’t done it in a while.

When the silence arrives, so do the feelings you’ve been too busy to feel.

As with anything, the more you practice, the more peace arises.

Here is what I know and knew as my grieving 21-yearoldself:

I wrote this book grieving my best friend in sweet Sevilla, Spain.

I got to know myself in solitude AND connection (the combination makes life better!).

Solitude is a gift many are afraid of these days…

Get to know yourself again — solitude is medicine for the soul to make you feel whole.

Chill out and cheer up: you deserve a mind that works for you and life that fulfills you!

The child who learns to be alone with themselves becomes the adult who is never truly lonely.

They have built an inner world rich enough to sustain them.

They don’t need constant external validation but learned to come home to themselves.

We can learn this too. At any age. At any stage.

For mothers especially, solitude feels like a luxury you haven’t earned.

One more thing on the list of things we’ll do when the children are older, when life is quieter, when there’s more time.

There will never be more time.

There is only now.

Five minutes of genuine solitude — phone in another room, no agenda, just you and your breath and the quiet — is more restorative than an hour of half-present scrolling.

I promise you this from experience.

The mornings I protect — my hour with no phone or distraction before the day begins, but just the birds singing and roosters screaming (LOL! they wake me up at 4am evrey morning and I arise smiling!) — are the mornings I show up as the version of myself I actually want to be.

For my kindergarten class. For my community. For myself.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

Give yourself five unscheduled minutes today.

No phone. No list. No purpose.

Just you; not as a mother, not as a partner, not as a professional.

Just as a person. Breathing. Existing. Enough.

Leave a comment

🌺 🌱 Something I’ve been quietly building is ready:

Nine days ago, I asked if you’d walk with me. You did.

What I’ve seen in these nine days is a hunger for something more than a weekly letter.

A hunger for real rest. Real community. Real support.

You are NOT alone in this all, momma:

Those tight shoulders?

The morning rush?

That stiff neck?

I want to tell you about The Seed:

• Every Tuesday at 7 pm, we meet live together for one hour of genuine rest.

• Somatic movement. Breathwork. Laughter. Connection. Guided learning you can apply to your life straight away. A space to finally let go of that constant tension in your shoulders — the one that never quite leaves. This is your weekly hour. Protected. Held. Yours.

• The recording of my Chill Out and Raise Up parenting workshop — yours free as a founding member!

  

• Early access to everything I create and discounts on workshop recordings and future offerings.

The Seed at €7/month is for:

The mother who is ready to stop rushing and start returning.

As a kindergarten teacher, well-being coach, yoga teacher, healer, and author with over a decade of working with children and people across four continents, I have watched something happen in every classroom, in every country, in every culture:

The children who thrive are the ones whose mothers have come home to themselves.

This is that space.

Every week we slow down together.

We release the pressure and rush that modern motherhood has normalised.

We return. To presence. To play. To the version of you your child needs most still now.

Not the performing version. Not the rushing version. The one who remembers…

What it feels like to be a child herself.

Because here is what no parenting book tells you:

The most powerful thing you can do for your child is return to your own inner child first.

One hour. Every Tuesday. €7 a month.

Rest to be your best and watch your child do the same. 🌱 Plant the seed and feel freed.

Subscribe now

For the women who have been here since the beginning

I’m offering a founding price of €50/year.

This price closes when the series ends this week.

One hour a week. The most important appointment you’ll keep. 🌱

The weekly letter stays free. Always. No pressure, ever.

But if these nine days have felt like coming home — The Seed is your next step.

For the mum who is ready to go deeper more than ever before.

For the mum with no exucses anymore.

For the mum who makes time.

Who wants tools, community, and real support alongside these letters.

This is where the real work begins. Gently. Together.

Tomorrow is Day 10. The last letter. I have saved the best for last.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Eight days of walking together.

Eight mornings of arriving in your inbox and inviting you to be present and at peace.

I see you. You are not alone.

Nor were you meant to do this alone.

Although I have the best of friends and family, during my hardest days, I kept silent.

I held so much inside until I was very unwell, so if this is you, please share. I’m here.

Everyone struggles at some point; it is only human. You are only human with a lot of emotions that need to be moved, spoken and let go. You arent weird, you are love.

I make space with grace; always have done…

When setting intentions before my first temazcal (sweat lodge experience!) yesterday, I realised this. I said my intention out loud, heart beating:

I TAKE space with grace.

I have always been the listener, hence why i hone so many great connections.

I give space, but have found it hard to take space…

Not anymore, not me. Nor you!

You have a voice, so speak up.

Even when today you feel its “Better to stay silent” or "you wanna keep the peace” (ugh that was always me!). Say your opinion. Speak your truth. Shoulders back. You got this.

Subscribe now

Today I want to start with the lie:

The lie that says you should be able to manage this on your own.

That needing people is a weakness.

That being independent is not needing anyone.

That asking is burdensome and letting others down.

The strongest version of you is the one who figures it out alone without a fuss.

I believed that lie for a long time.

It cost me everything.

Quite literally…

My life.

“Healthy connections heal our souls and soothe our minds. We crave contact to guarantee the feeling of being wanted.” — Chill Out and Cheer Up: A Ten-Step Guide

That’s from this chapter, Connection.

It sounds simple — obvious, even. But how many of us are actually living it?

How many of us are surrounded by people and still profoundly, privately lonely?

Healing is not a solo journey.

Even when it feels like one. I am sick of hearing everyone saying it is, because sure, a part of it is. BUT GET OUT YOUR EGO — we are sold a lie!!

The parts where you gotta integrate and feel you are doing everything in teh quiet and nobody to cheer you on (I promise, all the work is worth it. Even crying and dancing alone in the kitchen or crying yourself to sleep.)

Looking back at every moment, I came back to myself; there was always someone nearby. A word. A look. A hand that stayed. A warm embrace I needed.

A friend who didn’t try to fix it just sat beside me in it.

That is connection. Not the performed kind. Not the highlight reel.

The real, quiet, unglamorous kind that says — I see you. You don’t have to pretend here.

And you are missing out on it because of this screen you are more addicted to…

Mothers are so practiced at being the one who holds everyone else together.

Women ARE the holders and healers, after all.

I was just never taught to give from a place of being filled.

WE forget that we are allowed to be held.

The most behaviourally challenging children are often the least connected ones.

Not because they are difficult, but because disconnection feels dangerous to them.

Your calm, your presence, your willingness to repair after a rupture — that is the most powerful parenting tool you have.

And it starts with you allowing yourself to be connected too. To your own needs. Your own community. Your own circle of women who get it.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift — from the book:

Reach out to one person today. Not to vent. Not to fix anything.

Just to say: I was thinking of you.

That’s it. That’s the whole practice. Watch what it gives back.

Leave a comment

🌱 Chill out and cheer up

These eight days have reminded me of the original idea why I wrote Chill Out and Cheer Up…

When my best friend suddenly passed away a decade ago, I had to give back.

My heart hurt, but I knew I was here to inspire.

I sat down to write and help others heal.

I poured my heart into COACH.

People felt it:

I dedicated my life to healing others.

I listen, I learn, I love.

A forgotten art so many take for granted: listening.

So I listened to my intuition and revised my self-help book 5 years later…

5 years after first self-publishing from the mental institute, 5 years on, now living my life in paradise, Costa Rica…

5 years wiser after mental health issues, heartbreaks, and resilience to move across the world alone and start again.

She is here!!!

REVIVED & REVISED!

You deserve a mind to work for you, not against you. Chill out and cheer up now!

As a subscriber to my newsletter, if you hit reply, you can get my e-journal that goes with this. Works like therapy.

Tomorrow: Solitude.

The most underrated gift you can give yourself.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

PS.🌱 A little something I’ve been building:

These eight days have shown me there is a real hunger to live with grace, and I provide this kind of space.

Gentle. Honest. Human. A deeper home.

A place for the women who want to keep walking with me beyond these ten days with weekly lives, monthly circles, and a community of women returning to themselves together.

I’m putting the final touches on it now. More very soon. 🌱

I am writing this with the sound of birds outside restoring me daily.

I live by the water in Costa Rica. I don’t think it’s an accident.

I ended up here because some part of me knew I needed to be reminded — daily, unavoidably, beautifully — of something I kept forgetting.

That I am not separate from nature.

Waves allow me to come and go.

Allow each emotion to flow.

THAT is your problem:

No ease, rest, or flow.

Nature reminds us… of our nature.

The majority of people live in RUSH RUSH culture. You too?

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Feel it in your shoulders since the moment you wake up?

The way they are tense from the get-go.

You have forgotten to LET GO!

What if you look around?

Reconnect to relax.

We live in a world that has pulled us so far indoors — into screens, into schedules, into the relentless hum of productivity — that we have forgotten something our bodies have always known.

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Nature heals

Not metaphorically. Not spiritually only.

Literally, physiologically, measurably.

Even a ten-minute walk makes you feel better!!

Me getting outside for fifteen minutes away from screaming kids and heightened energy.Feeling my feet in the sand and water. Wow, it helps a ton. Every time.

Twenty minutes outside reduces cortisol (the stress hormone) in adults and children.

I mention in detail in my book about the Japanese use of forest bathing, shinrin-yoku.

The research behind it is extraordinary.

Majority of my readers Loved this chapter the most…

Because nature is our TRUE NATURE!

Immunity improves. Anxiety drops. Focus returns.

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Your child doesn’t need more. They need a puddle. A patch of grass. A bug to crouch beside for ten minutes while you resist the urge to hurry them along.

And so do you.

Nature never says no. I love that so much.

Because we say no constantly. To rest. To slowness. To ourselves.

And nature just stays. Keeps offering. Keeps showing up.

Keeps being exactly what it is without apology.

What would it feel like to live like that?

I watch the children in my class look outside our classroom window and exhale in a way they don’t exhale anywhere else.

Something in them settles. Something remembers.

They are not learning to connect with nature.

They remember that they never left it.

We are just doing the same.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

Step outside today. Even for two minutes.

Feel the ground under your feet. Look up at the sky. Let the air touch your face. HUG A TREE! I provide a tree meditation in my book.

You don’t need a plan. You don’t need a destination. You need to remember that you are part of something much larger and much older than your to-do list.

That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

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Tomorrow, something shifts in these letters.

We are in the final stretch, and I have something special to share with you. 🌱

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

I want to start today differently.

Before you read another word — look up from your screen for a moment.

Notice one thing around you that is quietly, ordinarily beautiful.

A patch of light. The sound of your child breathing. The breeze or sunglight on your skin. The warmth of whatever you’re drinking. The fact that you are here, reading this, means some part of you is still looking for the way back to yourself.

That. Right there. That is what today is about.

• On Sunday, when writing these newsletters, a dragonfly came to visit me. She is yellow (my colour if you didnt catch on yet!). I tried to let her out and shoo her away, but she wanted to stay.

She is still here and hope she doesnt die(!), but I saw her as a sign of ALIGNMENT! I kept looking up at her and felt seen, heard, and reflected in her beauty.

Little things.

This is my favourite chapter in the book.

Not because it’s the most dramatic or the most profound, but it is the most true.

We spend so much of our lives waiting for the big next mooment…

The holiday. The achievement.

The day when everything finally falls into place, and we can exhale and say — yes. This is it. Now I can be happy.

But that day has a funny way of never quite arriving.

Because life isn’t lived in the big moments. It’s lived on Tuesday afternoons.

The school runs. The quiet kitchens. The ordinary, unremarkable, completely irreplaceable now.

I wrote that line years ago, and I mean it more today than I did then.

Children know this instinctively. Watch a two-year-old with a puddle. Watch a five-year-old discover a snail. They are not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow. They are completely, utterly, gloriously here.

We used to be like that, too.

And we can find our way back — not through grand gestures or elaborate practices — but through the smallest, most ordinary acts of attention.

The first sip of coffee before anyone else wakes up. A song that finds you at exactly the right moment. Your child’s hand in yours.

The way the light falls through the window of mz classroom reminds me why I chose this life.

Notice it. Let it land. Let it be enough.

Because it is.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

At some point today — just once — stop what you are doing.

Look around. Find one small thing that is already good. Already enough. Already yours.

Don’t photograph it. Don’t share it. Just feel it.

That’s the whole practice.

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Tomorrow we will go outside. Nature is waiting. 🌿

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Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Day 5. Halfway. Can you feel it?

Today’s chapter is the one that surprises people most. When I tell them the next step is about greed, I watch their faces shift. A little uncomfortable. A little defensive.

Greed? But I’m a mother. I give everything.

Exactly.

That’s exactly what I mean.

The greed I’m talking about has nothing to do with money or ambition or wanting more than your share.

It’s the hunger that grows quietly in women who have been giving and giving and giving — and one day find themselves grasping.

Scrolling endlessly. Comparing. Consuming.

Reaching for something they can’t even name.

That reaching? That’s not greed.

That’s starvation.

Living in scarcity can also be greedy. Living in abundance is where greed turns to love, expansion, embodiment, and all you are meant for!

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I know this feeling intimately.

There were seasons of my life where I was so busy pouring into everyone else that I had completely forgotten what filled me up.

I didn’t even know what I enjoyed anymore, what I needed. What was mine.

And so I reached. For the phone. For the next thing. For the version of someone else’s life that looked, from the outside, like it had something mine was missing.

That’s from this chapter. We are born givers.

But somewhere along the way, giving became our only mode.

And we forgot that receiving is not selfish.

It is necessary.

When I visited Kenya at eighteen, I met children who had almost nothing by Western standards. No toys, no screens, no carefully curated routines.

They were the most joyful, generous, alive children I had ever seen.

They shared everything — food, laughter, games — with no expectation of return.

Joy does not live in things. It lives in connection.

And the most important connection you keep forgetting to tend to?

The one with yourself.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

The next time you notice yourself reaching for the phone, for food, for something you can’t quite name —

Pause. Put your hand on your heart. And ask:

“What do I actually need right now?”

Not what you should need. Not what would be convenient. What is true?

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Even if you can’t give it to yourself immediately, just knowing changes everything.

Tomorrow we slow all the way down.

Little Things. My favourite chapter.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

You live in fear because you dont know better, but you really do. Lets remind you.

Day 4. We’re nearly halfway, and I want to say thank you for being here.

It means more than you know.

Today, we go somewhere a little deeper.

Fear.

Not the dramatic kind. Not spiders or heights or horror films.

I’m talking about the fear that lives quietly underneath everything in all of us.

The one that doesn’t announce itself. The one that runs the show below, in our bodies.

For years, I didn’t even know it was there.

I thought I was afraid of failing.

Of being judged. Of getting it wrong.

But underneath all of that was something much quieter, much older:

What if I do everything right — and it still isn’t enough?

That fear kept me busy. Kept me performing. Kept me giving and teaching and showing up and smiling — long past the point where I had anything left to give.

Stopping felt more frightening than burning out.

It was only when my best friend asked me when I was exhausting myself teaching yoga daily:

“If you had a broken leg, would you still be going? You would be resting after seeing the doctor. Well, your mind is the same. It may be a bit broken right now, and you need to go to the hospital.”

The next week, she took me to the clinic after I had a terrible experience.

That’s from this chapter of the book.

What I’ve learned — slowly, imperfectly — is that we don’t conquer fear by ignoring it or pushing through it or drowning it in positive affirmations.

We conquer it by getting curious about it.

Fear-based living looks like over-protecting. Over-correcting. Over-scheduling.

Saying no before you’ve even heard the question. Projecting your own unhealed fears onto the people around you — your children, your partner, your friends — without even realising you’re doing it.

I did all of it.

The moment things started to shift wasn’t when I got braver. It was when I got honest.

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When I moved to Costa Rica alone, the fear was loud.

BUT MY FAITH WAS LOUDER!!!!!!!!

A new country, a new life, a new version of myself, I wasn’t sure I could pull off.

Underneath the fear was something louder still — faith.

Faith that I was capable.

Faith that had been planted in me, somewhere along the way, by someone who believed in me before I believed in myself.

Faith that God has got me in every step and all is working out for me.

The presence of faith.

Well, it is stronger than anything, my friends…

it is magical. and makes you delusional! (the good kind!)

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

When fear shows up today — and it will — don’t fight it.

Sit beside it. And ask it gently:

“What are you trying to protect me from?”

Then ask one more:

“Is that still true?”

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Tomorrow we will talk about Greed. The kind that follows your every step in the shops and at night, convincing you that OYU NEED MORE: Nah, you dont.

YOU ARE MORE.

THAT IS THE SHIFT:

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With love, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Day 3. And what a day to talk about doubt.

Today I am doing something that, not so long ago, a very loud voice in my head told me I had no business doing.

I am holding my first live parenting workshop — Chill Out and Raise Up — right here in the school I teach in Costa Rica. In person. With real mothers.

It is our school’s beautiful rancho that I go to ecstatic dance every other Sunday in.

It is the place I first entered and envisioned myself holding classes and workshops…

Only a few months ago, and now look at me?
I DID NOT LET DOUBT DETER ME.

Here I am dancing in it during the Guanacaste festival.

IF this were me 5 years ago, I would be going through all these questions in my head:

Who am I to stand up and teach this?

What if nobody comes?

What if they come and leave disappointed?

Doubt is clever like that.

It dresses itself up as humility. As realism.

As that sensible friend who just wants to protect you.

But what it’s really doing — if you let it — is keeping you small.

Keeping you quiet. Keeping you exactly where you are.

What does doubt sound like to you? Holding you back daily??

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That’s the line from this chapter that I come back to again and again.

Because doubt doesn’t disappear. I don’t think it’s supposed to. I think it shows up every single time we are about to do something that matters.

Which means if doubt is visiting you right now, you’re probably on the right track.

I almost didn’t bring this book out.

Chill Out and Cheer Up was on the back burner for a few years…

WAITING UNTIL THE DAY!

There was a version of me — exhausted, in a clinic in Germany, barely holding herself together — who genuinely believed nobody needed what she had to say.

That it had all been said before.

That she wasn’t enough of an expert, hadn’t healed enough of herself, hadn’t figured out enough of life to put words on a page and call it wisdom.

And yet.

Here we are.

I kept writing because I kept thinking about one woman.

Sitting somewhere, feeling like she was failing at something she was actually doing beautifully — just while exhausted, and unseen, and running on empty.

I wrote it for her.

It turns out she’s everywhere. She might even be you.

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I am here to remind you to rest and to show up as your best.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

The next time doubt shows up, don’t fight it.

Don’t try to positive-think your way past it.

Just ask one question: “What are you trying to protect me from?”

The answer will tell you everything.

A little something for my paid subscribers coming soon 🌱

Today’s workshop — Chill Out and Raise Up — is based on my Parent Handbook, a companion guide to this book written specifically for mothers. It walks through each of the ten chapters through the lens of your child’s world, because here is the truth:

Your inner world is your child’s outer world.

The recording of today’s workshop will be available for paid subscribers.

Stay tuned.

Tomorrow we go into Fear. And I promise — it’s not what you think you’re afraid of.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With gratitude, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Day 2. I’m so glad you’re here.

Especially as you roll your eyes when you reaad “positive thinking” — I GET IT!

It can be toxic and mostly is these days. “Only positive thoughts” makes you feel guilty, and it sure did for me.

Today I want to talk about something that might ruffle a few feathers.

Positive thinking.

Stay with me.

I was the queen of it. Still am.

Sticky notes on the mirror. Gratitude lists. Affirmations before my feet even hit the floor. I was doing ALL the things — and underneath all of it, the same ache.

The same heaviness. Just now, with a layer of guilt on top, because I was doing everything right and still not feeling okay.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what I’ve come to understand and what took me far too long to admit:

Positive thinking, when it’s used to bypass what we actually feel, is just another form of pressure in a prettier outfit.

“The brain is plastic. It can change. It can be rewired. And that rewiring? It starts with you.”

That’s a line from this chapter of the book. I stand by it completely.

The brain CAN change.

But it changes through truth, not through papering over the cracks with forced optimism.

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We are wired, biologically, to be more negative than positive.

It’s not a personal failing. It’s survival.

Our brains scan for threat, not sunshine.

When we fight that or tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel what we feel, we don’t heal it.

READ THAT AGAIN.

We bury it. And buried things have a way of coming back louder.

Think about the people in your life: at work, at home, in your social circle:

Do most of them think positively or negatively?

It is SO much easier to complain. I have only realised in others the past few years because I was always the annoying, sheer optimist, still am. But when my mental health went down, I had to let myself feel. I had a lot of grief from my grandma’s passing, my parents breaking up, that I hadn’t truly felt.

So the positive thinking didn’t help.

What are you putting on pause that is stopping you from thinking well?

That’s what this work is really about. Not performing wellness. Not pretending.

Giving yourself full permission to feel what is true and treat yourself with grace!!!

Trusting that the feeling, when you stop running from it, will pass through.

Because it will.

Your child is not the problem — they are the prescription.

Children laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults? Around five.

Directly from my book too… crazy, ey?

Laugh a lil more today!!!!!

Somewhere between childhood and now, we swapped wonder for worry.

Curiosity for correction. Play for performance.

What if today you borrowed just a little of their lens?

🌿 Today’s tiny shift — from the book:

Instead of reaching for a positive thought today, try reaching for a true one.

Even if it’s uncomfortable. Especially if it is.

That’s where the real rewiring begins.

Tomorrow is a big day — I’ll be holding my first live parenting workshop here in Costa Rica, Chill Out and Raise Up, based on my Parent Handbook companion guide.

I am scared!! But a good kinda scared. All this is coming together in its own divine timing. I am here to remind mothers about their power within. I am ready.

More on that tomorrow. 🌱

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With gratitude, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Welcome to Day 1.

I know your inbox is a sacred space, and you dont have much time, but I promise to remind you how these next few minutes will nourish you from the inside out.

Today, we start where most of us actually live…

Pressure.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the obvious kind.

The quiet, daily, relentless kind that whispers you should be further along by now.

That whispers more, faster, better before you’ve even had your first cup of coffee.

Do you feel it? Are your shoulders tense, your tummy heavy, or your jaw clenched?

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Pressure is everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

These are the first words in my first chapter in Chill Out and Cheer Up.

Pressure makes you measure your worth, your actions, your every step…

You feel it??

For mothers especially, it is suffocating.

Because pressure doesn’t clock out when you do.

It follows you into the kitchen, into the bathroom, where you get thirty seconds alone.

It sits beside you while you scroll at midnight, wondering why everyone else seems to be holding it together so beautifully.

Here is what I know now:

They aren’t. Even if they were — that was never the point.

The most radical thing I learned in that clinic five years ago wasn’t a technique or a tool. It was permission.

Permission to stop.

Not forever. Not dramatically.

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Just long enough to ask: whose pressure am I actually carrying right now?

I do this now still and breathe in deeply to release completely.

I daily turn pressure into peace.

NOW IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

Because here’s the truth nobody tells you at the school gate:

Most of the pressure you feel today was never yours to begin with.

It was handed to you. By society. By your own upbringing. By a world that mistakes busyness for worth and rest for laziness.

You absorbed it so young that it started to feel like your own voice.

It isn’t.

🌿 Today’s tiny shift from the book:

Instead of asking “what do I need to do today?”

Try asking “What can I put down today?”

Just one thing. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be true.

Now share below! You could help someone release their pressure and remember we are all ONLY HUMAN! Give yourself grace. Move at a slower pace. Life is NOT a race.

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The beautiful thing about my revised edition of Chill Out and Cheer Up is that it comes with your own Chill Out and Colour In journal to track and integrate every emotion into a higher positive vibration.

Tomorrow, we will talk about Positive Thinking and why trying to think your way into feeling better might be making things worse…

F*ck toxic positivity. I am here to remind you of radical self-acceptance.

If today isn’t your day, then that is okay.

Remember, tomorrow is a new day.

Oh, and Mondays are always a bit harder ;) aha.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With gratitude, Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

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I want to tell you something nobody told me when I needed it most.

You don’t need to try harder to be okay. You need to soften smarter.

That’s it. Everything I’m about to share with you over the next ten days lives inside that one sentence.

It’s pretty crazy when you think about how we’ve all been taught that doing more leads to succeeding and achieving more… blablabla.

I believed that for years.

Until I had a breakdown and burnout.

I was a freelance yoga teacher, a well-being coach, a healing facilitator, a writer, and an English teacher. I was on the go constantly, giving and giving.

I ended up forgetting myself completely in the equation.

Then my body did what minds pushed past their limit eventually do. It stopped.

Five years ago, I found myself in a mental clinic in Germany — no choice but to be still.

In that stillness, something shifted.

I didn’t need to push harder.

I needed to soften smarter.

But how? My mind was racing more than ever, and I felt my body physically hurting from the pressure of life. I had no choice but to surrender, strangely.

It was also there, in that quiet (and boredom being constantly bullied by my mind), that I finally got my book, Chill Out and Cheer Up, out into the world — a book I had written four years earlier while grieving the sudden loss of my best friend.

Two of the heaviest things I’d carried, and somehow they became the foundation of everything I now teach and embody.

I know you know this feeling.

The constant need. Pick the kids up. Plan the meals. Show up. Scroll. Compare.

The low hum of being stuck, sad, overstimulated and somehow still feeling like you’re not doing enough.

That feeling is not a sign that you’re failing.

It’s a sign that you’ve been running on empty for too long.

This series is my answer to that feeling.

Starting tomorrow, I’m walking through the ten chapters of my revised book Chill Out and Cheer Up with you one letter, one chapter, one small shift, every day for ten days.

Here’s where we’re going:

Pressure. Positive Thinking. Doubt. Fear. Greed. Little Things. Nature. Connection. Solitude. Love Yourself.

Each one is a place we get stuck.

Each one holds a way through — not a fix, not a five-step plan.

Just a gentle switch. From what’s depleting you, to what will ground you.

Your nervous system needs a reset. Mine definitely did during the months in the clinic over Corona time. It was hell.

Now? I am in paradise, living my dream life in Costa Rica. I am here to remind you that with rest and surrender, you can make your dreams come true and flow.

Costa Rica was calling me for over a decade. I finally took the chance last August.

Nine months in, I am grounded and content. My soul sings daily, waking up to the roosters early (even if it is 3 am LOL!).

You DONT know you are meant for more, you ARE MEANT FOR MORE.

Your soul won’t stop reminding you until you prioritise and centre yourself.

AKA the manifestation of anxiety-ridden mornings, doubting yourself constantly while questioning “what should I do” or “who am I”, stressed out spots or pains in your body… all of these are signs from your soul to WAKE UP and smell the coffeeeee!! Not literally. But the beauty that is brewing deep inside you.

This is my gift to you — all of it, free, arriving in your inbox every morning.

In the next 10 days, you will be reminded about your power within.

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I will share excerpts with you from my ten-step guide, reviewed as a “mental hygiene guide” to get you through daily life and back to YOU, back to LOVE:

If these letters land for you — if you find yourself saving them, returning to them, or sending them to a friend who needs them — I’d love for you to come a little closer when the time comes.

I’ll be sharing something special at the end of the series. 🌱

For now — be here. Tomorrow’s letter arrives in the morning.

Rest to be your best. 🌿

With gratitude and a newfound glow,

Grace

Live with Grace | @treatyourselfwithgrace

Today didn't start the way I planned.

My legs were itchy again… a recurring thing that I normally breathe through, make breakfast, sing my way past, and get on with it.

But this morning, it escalated.

Tears, pain, and a slight panic attack.

The kind that reminds you your body is speaking, even when you don't want to listen.

I made chamomile tea. I looked at myself honestly.

I was not in a fit state to go and teach kindergarten.

So I went to the emergency clinic instead.

Paid $80 for the doctor to tell me he wasn't sure, prescribed antihistamines, and suggested tests. "Well, this is the jungle," I told him. He smiled.

Sure, life out here is like a dream, but paradise also comes with a price plus its battles.

I came home. Made breakfast.

Noticed how exhuasted I was, so went to bed and completely crashed for three hours.

I woke up with swollen eyes and low energy.

You know what? I let that be okay.

Mamas, I know you know this feeling.

The morning that derails before it's even started.

The body that's trying to tell you something while you're trying to hold everything together.

The moment you realise you cannot pour from an empty cup — and yet the guilt of stopping, even for a day, is its own kind of pressure.

That pressure is real.

It's the reason I'm writing this newsletter.

It's also the first chapter of my self-help book — now in its second revised edition, coming soon, stay tuned 🌻📖 — is called Pressure.

So here's my first love letter from my book:

Pressure is real

It rings truer now than when I first wrote it.

Whether you're managing jungle life in Costa Rica, school runs in the city, or the invisible load of being everything to everyone, the pressure doesn't announce itself politely.

It creeps in until your body forces the conversation.

Recently, jungle life has been hitting me all at once. Last week, the kids from my Monday nature walk came home covered in tick bites — a first for all of us.

My body is reacting to things I can't fully explain.

My energy is lower than usual.

Yet I keep showing up — maybe not perfectly, but I keep showing up.

That is the work.

Detachment is the power:

Here's what I've been sitting with: chaos theory.

I met an Iranian guy at a hostel around the corner this weekend — Buena Vida, two friends' place with a pool and great energy — over tacos and a very necessary margarita.

He introduced me to chaos theory, and honestly? It helped.

In simple terms, chaos theory says that small things — a butterfly flapping its wings — can set off massive, unpredictable outcomes.

Systems look random, but underneath, there's always a pattern.

The chaos is not the absence of order. It's the transition between order and something new.

Sound familiar?

That's motherhood.

That's healing.

That's life.

That's the moment your whole morning falls apart, and somehow, by afternoon, you're okay again.

You are not broken when things feel chaotic.

You are in transition.

So how do I get from pressure back to peace?

For me, it's what I call "I reach relief"

It is the understanding that relief is not something that happens to you. You reach it.

Not through control, but through releasing control.

Through the flow. 🌊

Yes, I remind everyone and myself to "go with the flow"... my assistant teacher and I now say "vamos fluyendo" when challenges arise!!

Living by the sea for the first time is making this so clear to me.

The waves don't apologise for their intensity. They don't hold back their ease either.

They just come and go, come and go.

That rhythm is the reminder.

This weekend, when the pressure of Amazon KDP formatting was refusing to let me publish my book cover (dimensions — why?!), I closed the laptop.

Had a siesta (I swear by them, they make everything better), then walked around the corner, got in the hammock, shared tacos with strangers who became friends, and let myself be restored.

The socialising helped.

The letting go helped.

The margarita helped!

Monday morning came, and I was ready again, but then?

The itchy legs, swollen eyes, low energy, and all.

1) Noticing the pressure is the first step.

2) Admitting it is the brave one.

3) Moving through it? That's the miracle.

Read my last newsletter on why [detachment is your superpower] as it ties right into this.

This month's mental health tip (It's Mental Health Awareness Month 💛)

One of the biggest reasons I ended up in a mental health clinic for six months was pressure.

The pressure to keep up — as a solopreneur, yoga teacher, English teacher, wellbeing coach, and freelance writer in Berlin — while forgetting to put myself in the equation.

I thought stopping meant failing. I was wrong.

This month's tip: notice the pressure before it notices you.

Where in your body do you feel it? Your jaw? Your shoulders? Your chest? Your skin? Start there.

Name it. Then — and this is the key — do one small thing to release it. A siesta. A tea. A hammock. A truth told to a friend.

You don't have to fix it all today.

You just have to notice it and move.

Like, actually MOVE your body. I like to shake, tap, do Qigong and Yoga to reset and restore myself... how about you?

How do you get out of pressure and back into peace? Share below — let's help each other out. 💛

The second edition of my self-help book is coming soon, this time with a parent handbook alongside it — on how to rewire pressure into peace. Stay tuned.

Take care of yourself first,

With love and gratitude, Grace ✨

PS. I'm holding my first workshop here next wEEEEEK and the recording will be available to you, too 🌞

Even if you're living your dream life, enjoying your work and daily commotion…

I've learnt to flow with every emotion, but it can get tiring too. Especially as a woman.

We live in a world where we're expected to have the consistent energy of a man.

Let's face it, we aren't made for it.

Not even men! We aren't robots, after all.

So today, when I felt frustrated (and hot with this humid sticky weather now rainy season hits in Costa Rica and I'm not used to it!!!), I decided to ground myself in gratitude.

I always do, that's the 🗝️

I forgot my bikini for sunset. So I went on a walk.

My feet in the sand with no phone but my thoughts circulating.

I became the onlooker as the clouds passing by.

No judgment, just acceptance.

And pure gratitude for myself for making the decision to make my dream life come true.

No sunset is the same.

Nor is any day again…

So be grateful for the lessons that let us be more.

Rest doesn't mean you're falling behind.

Rest is the 🗝️ to be you and be free of worry.

I'm back in my flow of daily life where early nights mean everything. (I'm going to sleep after this and it's 8pm)

Point is?

Healing is exhausting.

Life can be too, and that's the beauty of it.

It's ok if you feel up and down, flow with it.

Don't fight it.

That's where we become in battle with ourselves.

Not everyday is gonna be 🌈 and 🌞, but it's how you decide to see it:

I decide to still be optimistic everyday.

I stand affirmed in my love, wealth and health.

When you do, then all works out for you…

I'm here to remind you to chill out and cheer up:

When you do, you come to appreciate life more.

Always recenter and remember the truth:

And with that said, Chill Out and Cheer Up reminds you of this, too.

'“An uplifting read that will leave you feeling empowered and ready to take on whatever life throws your way. I find myself returning to certain sections time and again for a boost of motivation and encouragement."

★★★★★ Verified Purchase · United States

My second revised edition of my self-help book is taking longer than expected to come out.

Amazon with its technical issues pissed me right off this morning.

I don't have my editor to help me with these things this time, so I have the handy Claude to help.

It reminded me how much I'm doing:

Teaching and planning my kindergarten classes, revising my self-help book, planning workshops for parents based off it, plus women's circles, I thought wow: I do a lot.

Do you ever stop to be proud of yourself?

It's in these low moments that I invite you to do moreso…

Praise yourself for the work nobody sees behind closed doors.

I still made a healthy dinner this evening although I felt like scoffing pizza.

But it's also great here, as takeaway doesn't exist (the perks of not living in a city! Not everything is convenient and I actually adore it).

We've gotten too lazy anyway.

Now I'm just rambling, but I guess I'm still showing up as I am, reminding myself and you to

Treat yourself with grace 🌞💫🌈🙏🏻

That's why I'm here,

Have no fear

Draw near.

Grace

PS. You deserve to chill out and cheer up — not stress out and give up.

I know exactly how you feel — because I have lived every word of this book.

Stay tuned for its release soon… 🌻

Until then, go outside. Move your body. Look up. Smile at somebody. Laugh out loud. Take a deep breath in and out. Shake it out. You are enough.

When you’re physically present but mentally ten steps ahead…

When even your quiet moments feel loud…

This one is for you, mama.

Six days of sweet solitude in a frantic, but peaceful writing flow reminded me of what we need.

Carry on to the end to remember what gets you out of your head!

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I returned to my kindergarten classroom this morning with revived energy.

Two weeks away — a solo trip to Mexico for a friend’s wedding, followed by six days of complete digital detox.

Straight back to my paradise in Costa Rica on what I can only describe as a mad flow mission… last edits for the second revised edition of my self-help book, Chill Out and Cheer Up, with the odd quad drive, beach walk and dip!

Cacao in hand. Classroom to prepare. Heart wide open.

I was calm. Present. Most of all — grateFULL.

And then I felt it.

My assistant teacher was quieter than usual. She’s a mother, too.

I noticed it immediately, as I always do.

That particular silence isn’t peaceful, but the kind that hums with tomorrow’s worries and yesterday’s weight.

She was in her head.

I feel it with so many people these days. In fact, the majority. Mostly mothers.

The difference between my silence and theirs is this: mine holds peace.

Everyone is in their heads.

I get it. I used to live there too.

What brought me back?

Gratitude gets me grounded in the now.

Abundance reminds me I am already living everything I need.

Playfulness keeps me present… something I re-learn daily from my kindergarten class.

Which brings me to something I have been putting off for far too long…

I just came up for air of hyperaware

The past six days — no scrolling, no noise, no notifications.

OK, the odd messages, ofc… But other than that, a full digital detox while I went deep into something that needed my whole heart.

I revised, edited, and relaunched my book.

While high on inspo, fueled by coconut water, and cooled down with aircon!!

Chill Out and Cheer Up — Second Revised Edition — is officially in the world.

(Ok, in 72 hours or so… but still. Wow.)

This time, it came from a much quieter, much clearer place inside me.

This time, fueled by my first solo trip in foreveeeeeeer and high on love.

That time, I was grieving my best friend in sweet Sevilla.

Five years wiser. Five years more peaceful.

Five years further from the mental health clinic where the first edition was born — and deeper into the paradise where this one was revised.

Readers describe it as:

“An uplifting read that will leave you feeling empowered and ready to take on whatever life throws your way. I find myself returning to certain sections time and again for a boost of motivation and encouragement.”

★★★★★ Verified Purchase · United States

Here’s what those six days of silence reminded me:

We don’t need more information. We need more stillness.

We don’t need to do more. We need to feel more.

We don’t need to figure it all out. We need to breathe.

We don’t need to consume more. We need to CREATE!

You also dont need to go on these retreats or whatever, you just gotta sit there and be fully consumed by something bigger than you!

Your message, your love that enthrals you to share.

Your flow of creating that makes you hyperaware.

In ten honest steps, it’s an invitation to heal. Together.

This book was born from grief, published from a mental health clinic, and revised five years later from the other side — in paradise.

And for the mamas especially — the ones preparing lunchboxes while mentally writing tomorrow’s to-do list, the ones who give everything to everyone and forget to give anything to themselves — I also have a Parents Handbook to go alongside it.

Because playfulness, presence and peace aren’t just for our children. They’re for us too.

If you overthink, overproduce, and forget to BE — this book was written for you.

By someone who still has to remind herself of the same thing. Every. Single. Day.

You deserve to chill out and cheer up — not stress out and give up.

Stay tuned for the link. Coming very soon.

With gratitude,

Grace 🌻

P.S. If this email finds you mid-scroll, mid-spiral, or mid-overwhelm — take one breath before you do anything else. You just did something good for yourself.

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But we've forgotten in a 🌎 that praises external validation and families that steal our prioritisation.

Do you feel you're living for others or yourself?

Something that got me recently while visiting Mexico city was meeting a man who inspired me in more ways than one...

We spoke about star signs and spirituality.

He took me to beautiful parts of his beloved city.

He showed me his writing and it got me.

When asking me what my life is like in Costa Rica and then telling him about my daily life working with children, he replied

“You're passionate about it aren't you?”

I said “yes, I am”

He noticed by the way my eyes lit up.

I noticed by being here how I am so grateful for a life I've built in the past eight months doing what I love.

It's come from always following my ❤️ and finally prioritisng myself by moving across the 🌎 alone to start again…

(It's never too late to start again, just saying)

Why do you think you're boring when you're living?

On Substack recently, I've seen many notes declaring the ones who enjoy:

• Reading or writing

• Long naps (lol me)

• Walking in nature

• Etc…

Are the boring ones???

Sorry, what??

You are the exciting one who chose to carve your life the way you want it.

You are the brave one for breaking generational patterns.

You are the confident one for speaking your truth and taking space.

You are the courageous one for taking time in doing what makes you feel fine.

The list goes on.

And I'm here to remind you that when you chill out and cheer up, all comes your way.

• Yes, my bestseller self-help book Chill Out and Cheer Up described as a “coach in your pocket” is coming out for it's second revised edition soon with notes from my now wiser self going through MH issues. Stay tuned!

Next time you stop yourself from staying in because you think you're boring or saying yes to something because you feel responsible,

STOP:

listen.

What do you want?

That's when your power of peace arises.

Stop rushing around and starting resting around.

You're not boring, you're beautiful and others will notice that tranquility within you.

Today's my last day in Mexico city and I wanted to go on the cable cars (as well as do so many more things!!) but instead, I rested.

Ok, I went to the library and bought four more books this morning from my current Mexican author obsession, and then tried to eat but felt worse.

So I stopped.

I slept.

Diarrhea isn't fun, but I'm grateful for my healthy body, soul, and mind.

I'm grateful for this vacation.

It's fueled me with inspiration.

I'm looking forward to returning home and hibernating for the next few days to write and finish my edits!!! Eeeekll!!

I'm grateful you're here.

Keep drawing near and stop that fear.

You're not boring, you're LIVING! And that's the best thing you can do.

With gratitude

Grace