This week was an emotional rollercoaster. And I heard every bit of it.
It started with gratitude. A man almost as old as my father came to install our dishwasher. It was a hot day. He was running around, sweating, working. And something hit me quietly. The comfort I live in, the safety, the small luxuries I move through without thinking so much of that came down to where and to whom I was born. The birth lottery. I watched him, and I heard that feeling clearly. Gratitude. Deep, humbling gratitude. The kind that makes you realise you have no business complaining.
And then by the end of the same week, I was feeling detached. Questioning my worth. A completely different emotional place.
I heard that too.
Both of those were me in the same week. And instead of pushing either feeling away, I sat with them. That’s the practice, not managing your emotions, but actually hearing them and letting them tell you something.
You can be grateful and sad at the same time. You can feel full and empty in the same breath. You can count your blessings in the morning and question everything by evening. That is not a contradiction. That is just life. And life only makes sense when you’re honest enough with yourself to hear what you’re actually feeling, not what you think you should be feeling.
That’s where your voice lives.
The voice that only you can hear. The one that speaks in the quiet, in the in-between, in the middle of an emotional week when everything feels like too much. It was there when I watched that man and felt grateful. It was there when I felt lost by Friday. It’s always there. Telling you what you need, what you want, what comes next.
But you have to be attuned to yourself to hear it.
And the more you listen consistently, honestly, without judgment, the stronger that voice gets. That is how you build intuition. Not from a book, not from advice, not from anyone outside of you. From the practice of hearing yourself over and over again until you learn to trust what you hear. Until that voice becomes your compass.
Your friends will show up. Your kids, your husband, and your parents will be there. But none of them can hear your voice the way you can. None of them can feel your needs the way you feel them. That responsibility belongs to you alone.
So don’t lose your voice for anyone.
Build that relationship with yourself. Protect it. Because you are the only constant in the life you are building. And that voice, the one only you can hear, is not just self-awareness. It is your intuition. And your intuition is the truest guide you will ever have.
Don’t stop listening to it.
What I’m Reading
Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams
A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.
South to Freedom - Alice L Baumgartner
A historical account of enslaved people fleeing south to Mexico and how this challenged U.S. slavery laws. This is for my book club, and I’m truly enjoying it.
What Else Dropped This Week
Off Script
Engineering Her Own Lane: Mitali Saxena on Reinventing Fashion, Tech & Herself
Under the Hood
The Bankruptcy Test: What Retail’s 2026 Wave Is Really Revealing
Note to Self
Life goes by quickly.
You don’t want to look up one day and realise you moved through it without really knowing yourself. Without knowing what you felt, what you wanted, what mattered to you in each moment.
Don’t wake up ten years from now asking what I actually wanted back then?
Every phase of your life is still you. The you who was figuring it out. The one who was hurting. The you who was hopeful. The you who didn’t have the words yet but felt everything deeply.
Know her.
Know the you in every season, not just the polished, put-together version. All of her. Because each version of you is building the next one. And if you’re not paying attention, life will pass, and you will have missed yourself entirely.
So listen. Feel. Write it down. Sit with it.
Know who you are right now in this season, in this moment.
Because this version of you deserves to be known, too.
Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.
— Sai Menon
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