If I had to describe 2025 in one sentence, it would be:
2025 was the year I learned how to be with the chaos without becoming it.
Honestly it was one of the hardest years of my life.
I don't know how many nights I told my husband I didn’t want to do it anymore. Maybe even that I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was so overwhelmed and underwater that I could literally feel the weight of it on my chest at night, like being crushed under a boulder. I genuinely considered going back to being an engineer for the first time since I quit in 2022. It would mean a stable income again, my nights, weekends, and holidays back, affordable insurance, a 401k, less pressure, less weight, less responsibility, and maybe most importantly: a clearer line between work and family.
I wanted to give the reins to someone else so badly.
Exhaustion distorts perspective, and I was exhausted.
Mid-2025, I started working with my psychologist on it. For months we focused on Gaidama and my relationship with the business (and with myself). At the time, I was working 12-hr days regularly. On especially busy days, I’d meet her over Zoom because I didn’t have time for an in-person visit but craved the space and clarity our meetings created.
Together we worked on my tension until something finally shifted.
Nothing was magically fixed. Running a business wasn’t suddenly easy. The stress didn’t disappear. But I found something I had lost: alignment.
I mapped out all the people, pressures, expectations, and voices pulling me in different directions, like a spiderweb. In the center, I wrote down my core values and principles. That simple exercise gave me an immediate release of pressure. Visualizing how I felt allowed me to instantly separate myself from it.
It was like zooming out to watch a storm from space instead of getting tossed around inside of it like a rag doll. I felt grounded. I discovered respect and appreciation for the storm instead of feeling like I was a victim of it.
The more I learned to say no, the more space I had to say yes to the things that actually matter, like reinvesting myself creatively into Gaidama.
I also realized that I had been chasing growth for growth’s sake. I was diving into decisions headfirst, trying to hit targets that I couldn’t even see, only because I thought I was supposed to. I was forcing the music instead of listening to it.
After I realized what I was doing, it was all too easy to let it go. I almost couldn’t believe I’d held on for so long. I replaced constant pushing with strategic rest.
I slowed the pace down and gave myself and Gaidama some room to breathe. Almost immediately we found our magic again.
Someone once told me: You don’t have time to rush.
I love that expression so much. I’ve also heard “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” There are countless expressions that basically say the same thing: Slowing down does not mean losing.
Now when a timeline starts feeling too tight and there’s resistance building against it (production delays, lack of preparation, funding issues, whatever the case may be), I pause, breathe, and reevaluate. I go back to my spiderweb diagram and ask myself why. Am I acting out of principles, or for something else?
I’m starting to notice that the universe stresses me out as a clue that something needs to be checked.
With space to breathe, I can spend more time designing things that feel true. Flores Eternas came from that place. It feels like home. It feels like us.
The Hard Parts
The hardest part from a personal point of view was my family. When I’m present with my kids, I’m a really good mom. But this year, my bandwidth was too thin. There were too many times when they needed me and I didn’t show up the way I wanted to, and that hurt in a way that’s hard to put into words.
Professionally, I spent an embarrassing amount of money learning what doesn’t work. I hired marketing teams that sold certainty and delivered chaos. I was told I should be “printing money” when I was actually just cleaning up very expensive messes. In October, I fired my last agency and decided to take marketing back on myself.
It was scary at first, because I’d been told that I should be sending X amount of marketing emails and SMS messages per week and pumping out Y amount of new paid media ads per month, and that is a full time job on its own. But I soon realized that while one day that pace may serve us, forcing it unnaturally just because other companies are doing it was doing more harm than good.
Ultimately I questioned everything this year: my decisions, the brand, the pace, and myself.
Letting Go
At the start of the year, I was convinced that success was a math problem. If I just pushed ads harder then we’d grow faster and hit bigger numbers. Everything would fall into place.
Instead, it hollowed me out.
Growth became a black hole instead of a source of pride. I had to let it go. I dialed back paid media, stopped trying to force new releases, and redirected energy toward the parts of the business that I love, like the content, our athletes, creativity, and R&D.
It reminded me of trying to get pregnant years ago: the more you try to force it, the harder it gets. When you release control, things can finally move.
I’ve finally accepted where I am, and where Gaidama is, instead of where I thought we should be.
I also let myself get stretched too thin by staying personally involved in almost everything. In the beginning, my proximity to every moving piece served us well. But Gaidama grew faster than I could adapt.
I had to pull back hard. Gaidama needed my involvement to shift, even though it was uncomfortable at first (and frankly still is). But I started building new processes and gave my employees more training so that more of them could operate effectively without me. The more I build people and teams capable of putting out their own fires, the more bandwidth I have to consider our long term objectives and strategies.
As someone once told me, leaders do not owe everyone access to them all the time.
Where I Am Now
I’ve written this blog in pieces: early in the morning before my family was up, while my kids played Legos in the living room, at soccer practice between scrimmages, at the kitchen table waiting for dinner to cook, on airplanes, between meetings, after everyone else had gone to bed, you name it.
It’s mostly chaos. Nothing is perfectly organized, but I’m at peace with it now in a way I wasn’t at the beginning of the year. I feel synchronized with it. Like I know it, and I’ve let myself be known by it.
I’m deeply proud of the invisible work that most people never see: rebuilding systems, refining patterns, reorganizing teams, creating processes, optimizing the website, obsessing over fit, fabrics, and logistics. The mix-and-match gi sizing alone took countless hours to make seamless on the back end, and it works beautifully.
That’s what feels most me right now: thoughtful design, aligned creativity, and intentional execution.
This year, my jiu jitsu suffered. My sleep suffered. I think in some way, at some point, almost everything suffered.
But at this point I’m convinced that there is no perfect balance. There’s no spot right at the center of family and business and self to operate out of. I’ll always be leaning one way or the other, sacrificing something, overcommitting somewhere.
Recently, I made a handful of small decisions that helped tremendously. I stopped commuting to a co-op workspace and reclaimed about 40 minutes a day. I deep-cleaned and restructured my home office so that it feels like an office instead of like another living room. Now I have the benefit of a dedicated workspace without the commute.
I also canceled my gym membership and switched to at-home workouts. Home workouts aren’t for everyone, but it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made for myself in years. I was trying to pound workouts into my schedule where they didn’t fit, which was adding to my stress, not alleviating it. With the flexibility I have now, I’ve gotten a sweat and stretch in almost every single day.
My body and mind already feel better.
Not too long ago, my son said out of nowhere, “Mom, I love your business.” And just the other day I asked my daughter if she wanted to wear “cheetah, pink, hearts, or Gaidama” and her response was immediately “Gaidama.”
I had unconsciously assumed they would resent my business since I work so much, which naturally takes away from my time with them. Instead, my kids see Gaidama as part of me, as part of us. Something they help with, want to be a part of, and talk about like it belongs to our family.
And that matters to me more than any metric.
Looking Forward
I’m walking into the next year with perspective I didn’t have before. With more patience, more boundaries, and a deeper trust in my instincts. I’m choosing breath over worry.
I don’t know what “success” means anymore, and I’m okay with that. I know what alignment feels like. I know what resentment feels like. I know when I’m listening and when I’m forcing.
If you’re reading this and you feel like you’re drowning too, here’s what I’ve learned: you don’t need a breakthrough. You need breath. Three deep breaths. Five. Ten. You will physically, mentally, and emotionally feel an immediate change. And the more you do it, the more space you will create to do more. Small changes add up to big changes.
Try asking yourself these two simple, life-changing questions that I love and live by:
- What is the one thing that you could do (that you're not currently doing) that would have the biggest positive impact on your life?
- Can you break it down into a tiny, almost-impossible-not-to-do task and attach it to another habit you already have (in order to make it stick)?
The first is from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, and the second is from Atomic Habits by James Clear.
For me, the answer is meditation.
I tried forcing a meditation habit at first, but I couldn’t even keep up five minutes every morning or every night. Something always interfered: a crisis, exhaustion, a late night, an early morning.
So I stopped trying to force it and chose a goal that was even smaller (even more atomic): three deep breaths before reading to my kids at night.
That’s it.
I’ve done that every single night for nearly a year. And because I built a foundation there, I've naturally found myself breathing through stress more often and working more yoga into my routine. Three deep breaths before reading at night has evolved into a bigger step in the direction of a dedicated meditation time.
I have goals for 2026 both for Gaidama and for myself, but I’m approaching them with an openness that I didn’t have before.
I’m going to work hard, love harder, strengthen partnerships, prioritize creativity, invest more in my people, and enjoy the ride as much as I can. I'm going to breathe.
