I want to tell you about someone.

Her name is Meredith Alvarado, and next week, you'll hear her voice. She and I are launching a podcast called Thriving Humans. Yes, it’s the same name as this newsletter and the same name as the work I'm doing now, and she is my co-host. Before that happens, I want you to meet her the way I did.

It was years ago. She'd come to one of my live online classes way back when the parenting support I offered was only on the telephone. Think landlines. It was that long ago. She was looking for support for her then four-year-old, and after the call we kept talking. Somewhere in that conversation, she mentioned casually- the way that someone mentions they switched coffee brands- that she and her husband were in a huge transition. They were selling their big house, moving into a converted warehouse in the city, getting rid of their cars, quitting their corporate jobs, and raising their four-year-old homeschooled child in a completely unconventional way.

I remember sitting there fascinated, thinking: who does that?

As I continued to listen, I was struck by the intentionality, the desire for something different, and the steps they were taking to make this happen. They were getting rid of most of their possessions to head towards this dream. Even after all these years, I remember her talking about all the donation bags and boxes on the front porch, releasing all that was no longer needed from their old life to fit into this new version. Honestly, I remember being just as curious as them about how it was going to unfold.

But what made the impression on me wasn't the experiment itself. It was how she was making the decisions. Not as a performance, not as an identity, not as a story to tell. She was paying attention to what was actually right for her and her family, and then she was taking the steps and doing the things. Most people can't tell the difference between what's right for them and what they've been told should be right for them. And if they can, they often don’t take the steps. Meredith could and she did.

The experiment worked. They sold the car they had kept parked on the street just in case. And they marveled that they did it and all that they learned about themselves and each other. I got to follow along from a distance as they continued evolving and trying new things that felt like the right next step for them.

Interestingly, despite living far apart for much of the time we’ve known one another, our paths kept crossing. Retreats. Conferences. Healing Story Circles in my living room. We’d connect, have experiences together, then go our separate ways again, only to meet up again another time.

Since I’ve known her, she has always been dedicated to finding holistic solutions in every facet of her life. I knew that whatever Meredith was interested in was something she had researched down to the last detail. She started selling natural body care products and I trusted her opinion about them. If she said a thing was safe and non-toxic, it was safe and non-toxic. And she was a trustworthy narrator of her own experience in a way I found really refreshing. It was never preachy, but always an example of her staying connected to her own internal guidance and doing the things that were right for her regardless of what anyone else was doing or not doing.

But we never worked together. Our lives kept going in different directions. I moved to Mexico. She moved to Arizona. Our kids grew up and, in a strange piece of timing, moved out of our houses within a few months of each other. Now we were both suddenly on the other side of something we had dedicated ourselves to for decades.

And then in the quiet of the other side, unknowingly both doing work that was trying to honor something neither of us had been taught to honor-- our own humanness, first. Not work first. Or what other people thought we should be doing first. Our own humanity and needs first. And on some level, we were looking around for other people doing the same.

So, we met. First just to catch up and then we met again to talk about how we might work together.

The night before that second meeting, I had a dream that we had a podcast together. It was fun and easy, and we got to have a lot of amazing conversations together that helped other humans find their own way.

I told her about the dream. I said the word podcast out loud.

She screamed YES.

Not an interested yes. Not a let-me-think-about-it yes. A whole-bodied, full-hearted, this-is-what-I-was-waiting-for YES. And it was in that moment that I knew my dream was exactly right. We are interesting people. We’ve had a lot of interesting experiences we want to share, not because we want attention, but because these are the stories of how you center the next right thing to find your own path. And this is the next right thing for each of us professionally.

That's how we got here.

What I want you to know about Meredith, before you hear her, is that she walks her talk. I hope you'll feel that in the first episode and trust it over time. She has lived a rich, deliberately unconventional life because that's what was actually right for her, and she's done it without making a spectacle of it. She has raised a human who stayed connected to what they actually needed, rather than what the world told them to need. She eats the food she eats because it's right for her, rests the way she rests because it's right for her, shows up where she shows up because it's right for her, and walks away from what isn't without apology or drama.

She's curious. She's kind. She starts with herself.

And then that ripples out into the people in her world, into her work, and into the world itself.

That's who you're about to meet.

I'll write you again next week, from both of us, with a little more to get you excited about the podcast.

In the meantime, if you have five minutes today to listen to yourself, to notice what your body actually wants, to notice what you've been overriding, try it. That's the work she and I are both doing, and it's the work the podcast is about.

It's time.

Be curious. Be kind. Start with yourself.

With love,

Rebecca