The BIG Changes I Made in 2025

In 2025 I made a few big changes.

Some of them were changes I thought I might never be able to make.

There’s one in particular that, if I’m being honest with myself, quietly haunted me for years – let’s call it the big one, for now.

I was living a very full life – first in NYC, then in Costa Rica, after making my most dramatic lifestyle change to date.

The big one wasn’t stopping me from living an incredible life, but still, I felt a quiet whisper:

“If I never change my relationship with the big one, I might never experience my full ease and capacity.”

Another voice popped in:

“That’s ridiculous. The big one is not illicit or even unhealthy. In fact, it’s widely accepted, strongly encouraged, and enthusiastically embraced as a healthy part of everyone’s daily life. There are countless studies proving its benefits. It’s a hero, and a necessity.”

These two voices were both loud and dramatic, and neither of them was the full truth.

But there was a third voice – my deep intuition – quietly telling me that I did need to change my relationship with the big one.

It felt clear that doing so would bring so much more ease into my life.

That it would feel easier to focus, that I would feel less anxiety, and that it would feel easier to be in my body.

I knew the tension between my shoulder blades I’d been experiencing for years would lessen.

Part of me also felt like my capacity could be greater – that I could be doing more – but that piece was questionable, because I was already doing a lot:

• Working with multiple health coaching and copywriting clients
• Maintaining my own weekly newsletter-blog and social media
• Exercising regularly, cooking, cleaning, hanging out with friends
• Everything else that goes into running your own business and living in a foreign, developing country – lol, iykyk

Expecting more from myself was likely a product of the culture I grew up in, and unrealistic…

… but there’s no doubt things could’ve felt easier – and I’ve already proven that to be true, early in my journey changing my relationship with the big one.

Before we go further, I want to say that I’m surprised I’m even writing this to you.

2025 was generally a very chill year of rest, play, and grounding.

I was in Costa Rica for the whole year, after living and traveling in 10+ countries over the past seven years.

I didn’t think I made any truly big changes.

But then I started thinking about it more, and realized the changes I made in 2025 were seismic.

Ground-breaking.

Core-shaking.

Rearranging.

Foundation-rebuilding.

The kind of changes that bring deep relief, because you know you’re on your path.

Not the path.

Not her path.

Your path.

The kind of changes that don’t crackle and pop like fireworks…

… but glitter deeply, from their core – an iridescence you can only find in nature, when you least expect it, at the precise moment it’s occurring.

A quiet shine that’s unshakable and untouchable.

Seen only by those who know.

Those who live at a similar frequency.

Those who are truly, madly, deeply on their path.

Not the path.

Not her path.

Their path.

1 of 1.

These are the big changes I made in 2025 – including the one that haunted me for years – the big one (it’s #6).

1. Community and friendships.

For the first time in my life, in 2025 I prioritized community and friendships more than anything else.

This has never come naturally to me, after being raised in a very competitive, individualistic culture in New York.

So much so that at times I wondered if I’d ever have a strong sense of community in my life.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve placed the majority of my focus on my health, personal development, and career.

To place anything else higher felt dangerous – like I might not survive.

Over the past 5ish years, it’s become more and more clear to me how upside down that is.

Still, it was hard for me to really maintain an active sense of community and solid, in-person, text-all-the-time, deeply-connected, you-get-me-and-I-get-you friendships.

2025 was THE year I finally, fully prioritized community and friendships:

• Group dinners
• 1:1 hangs
• 5-hour conversations
• Ecstatic dance every week
• Community classes, like herbalism and painting
• Zumba 3x a week with the same women
• Waterfall adventures
• Hundreds of texts and laugh-out-loud memes exchanged

This is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done.

I feel happier, more connected, and my nervous system feels more regulated than ever.

Here’s the thing: We can’t heal and regulate in isolation.

We need to show our bodies that other people are safe.

That community is safe.

I used to think that most healing happened solo, now I think most healing happens in safe community.

As an introvert who’s been living alone and solo traveling for over seven years, being so much more social in 2025 was a HUGE change for me…

… and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.

2. Work changes.

In 2025, for the first time in my life (Do you notice a theme here? I told you these were big changes!), I made work the smallest part of my life, both in theory and in practice.

I didn’t set new business goals, I worked fewer hours than ever, and I didn’t think about work too much.

But… I still earned my typical income, and felt creative satisfaction from my work.

Did I save up a bunch or find some magical source of passive income?

No, but I’ll tell you exactly how I did it.

In the spring of 2024, I started working with a new copywriting client in my business.

About seven months in, they asked me if I wanted to switch to a part-time salaried position.

Everything would be the same in terms of the work, I would just get paid differently. It was a yes at the time, and still is today.

I’ve been working part-time hours and earning a full-time income since 2018, but streamlining to one client on salary has freed up a ton of mental energy.

Making work a smaller part of my life has been incredibly healing, and I feel so excited to birth new creative projects when the time is right.

Right now, I am healing, growing, recalibrating, and still loving my work, without making it the central focus of my life.

3. Dance dance dance.

In 2025 I danced almost every single day.

Zumba three times a week, ecstatic dance once a week, and solo pole dance sessions once a week.

A major 2024 study found that dancing led to the largest reduction in depression symptoms, beating out running, walking, yoga, strength training, psychotherapy, and SSRIs.

While I’ve never been diagnosed with depression, I have been diagnosed with PTSD and have definitely struggled with my mental health at times, especially from 2020-2024, on and off.

I can say without a doubt that along with community and strong friendships, dancing is one of the things that’s helped my mental health the most.

I’ve felt so much pure joy and ecstasy throughout 2025, and I know for sure that dancing very often is a big reason why.

4. Pole.

This one is so big it deserves its own category.

2025 was the year I got back into pole dancing, after rarely practicing for almost seven years (since I moved out of NYC).

I started renting my friend’s studio once a week and guiding myself through an S Factor-style class, and it’s like my therapy.

There is so much I process in that space – just me, the pole, and music.

My first session back, I had done laundry and chores all day and was feeling kind of weak and sweaty, so the pole was pretty slippy and slidey, in my tropical climate.

But the next week was cooler, and I found myself doing almost all of the strength tricks I developed over five years of S Factor classes in New York.

I was so impressed and thrilled – it’s really a testament to the power of cross-training, and muscle recovery:

We can take significant time off from certain practices and come back just as strong, or stronger.

I’m incredibly grateful to have pole back in my life.

5. Constructive rest.

I moved at a very fast pace for a very long time, living in New York.

When I moved to Costa Rica, I naturally started moving a lot slower, but in retrospect I was still moving pretty fast, mimicking the pace of life my nervous system was used to.

In 2025, I realized just how slow I need to go, and I slowed down my lifestyle without guilt.

A huge tool that emerged for me is Yoga Nidra – a form of yogic guided meditation that takes you into non-sleep deep rest (NSDR).

When I worked at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in my 20s, my boss did Yoga Nidra, but I never tried it until recently.

It’s become my go-to, heavyweight nervous system regulator, and there’s simply nothing like it.

Yoga Nidra reboots your nervous system and helps process emotions and trauma without re-traumatization, which is so important.

It’s also really helped reduce the chronic tension / sometimes pain I’ve had between my shoulder blades for years.

I’ve been practicing with Ally Boothroyd on YouTube, and I feel so grateful to have found her.

Her Yoga Nidra tracks are my absolute #1 recommendation to anyone navigating nervous system regulation – or anyone who just wants a soothing new practice!

6. Relationship with stimulants – this is the big one.

I’ve been questioning my relationship with caffeine and alcohol for a while, and especially over the past few years.

In 2024 I drastically reduced my intake of both caffeine and alcohol, but was still dabbling.

I would have a couple coffees per month, and a couple cocktails or glasses of wine.

Toward the end of 2024, I stopped drinking coffee and alcohol almost completely, but was still drinking caffeinated tea, not thinking it had nearly the same effect as coffee.

I have reduced chocolate too, but it doesn’t affect me nearly the same, so I’m primarily talking about coffee and caffeinated tea here.

Around December 2024, I realized I was experiencing all my coffee symptoms, just drinking tea: Anxiety, chest and upper back pain, and digestive issues.

So I stopped drinking caffeinated tea as well, at least for the most part.

I’m not completely “sober,” and I may have one occasionally.

In 2025, I had maybe one caffeinated tea per month, and toward the end of the year, stopped even that.

Caffeine is something I’ve always had an awareness of, and over the years, became something that haunted me, as dramatic as that sounds.

Caffeine became the big one – the thing I knew I needed to change, but didn’t know if I could do it.

It was SO hard to fully admit how much it was affecting me, because it’s so widely accepted, both socially and medically.

Plus, I was never a heavy coffee drinker. I would have one cup a day (and even skip some days or take breaks), but even that was way too much for my body, personally.

The process of getting off caffeine and feeling a true difference in my body has taken longer than I expected.

So many books and teachers tell you to take a break for 2-4 weeks then go back to it if you’re not feeling different.

This is doing you a huge disservice.

If you’ve been drinking caffeine for years or decades – even one cup a day of coffee or tea – it can take a lot longer for your body to come off it.

Caffeine is truly a drug.

Right now it’s been over two months since I’ve had any caffeine besides chocolate, and I’m feeling a huge difference.

Before this, I would typically have one matcha, or something similar, per month.

Taking that out and finding other things that are even more satisfying made a huge difference – that’s how sensitive I am, and how harmful caffeine can be for some people.

I know how extreme, unnecessary, or even ridiculous this may sound, but if you’re sensitive like me, giving your body a long break from caffeine might really transform your health.

Very few people are willing to look at caffeine, because it’s so culturally ingrained and addictive, but the truth is that it can be linked to almost every chronic symptom and/or disorder.

If you want to get an idea of how many people deeply struggle with caffeine – physically, mentally, and emotionally – just like any other drug, join the Quitting Caffeine Facebook group, and read Caffeine Blues.

Alcohol is less complex for me personally, but also very important.

After drastically reducing my drinking in 2024, it just became less and less interesting to me.

When I would have 1-2 drinks on occasion, I didn’t like the way I felt (nauseas and dizzy, mild hangover), and would go right back to not drinking.

In the second half of 2025 I went six months without drinking, and it felt great.

I had one and a half drinks a couple weeks ago, and it was fine, but I have no interest in drinking again any time soon.

Like with caffeine, I’m not totally sober.

There may be a moment I choose to have a drink, but going from being a frequent social drinker to someone who rarely drinks has dramatically improved my physical and mental health.

Getting honest with myself about caffeine and alcohol is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made:

• My nervous system is more regulated than ever.
• I feel more social and outgoing – caffeine and alcohol made me feel anxious and withdrawn, after the initial high.
• I feel like I’m getting my full personality back after feeling somewhat stifled in recent years.
• I have much less upper back tension / pain, after struggling with it for years.
• My anxiety is lower than ever – I feel calm and clear-headed.
• My digestion is better than ever.
• My skin is clearer than it’s ever been in my life.
• My monthly cycles are SUPER regular, like clockwork.
• My luteal and menstrual phases are much easier.
• I have more natural energy, focus, and drive, while honoring the pace my body needs right now.
• I feel more spiritually connected and intuitive than ever – caffeine and alcohol were blockers. 

If your intuition is telling you caffeine and alcohol are taking from you more than they’re giving to you, you’re probably right, and it’s worth exploring your relationship with them.

7. Sugar.

In 2025 I started eating more sugar than I ever have in my life.

Mostly fruit, honey, maple syrup, and other natural forms of sugar, but white sugar as well.

I’ve never been someone who was aiming to eat as little sugar as possible, but it wasn’t something I prioritized in my diet.

In recovering from my ED, I developed a very healthy relationship with sugar and desserts (no restriction, yet no binges), but still, didn’t exactly see sugar as an essential nutrient.

Sugar has been widely villainized for so long, that I didn’t realize it could be so healthy and necessary – until 2025.

Plus, when I would eat fruit in the past, I would notice blood sugar spikes, energy fluctuations, dizziness, and digestive issues.

In 2025, I came across the work of Ray Peat, and the research on sugar being essential for every cell in the body.

I learned that certain cells – like some brain, nerve, and red blood cells – can ONLY run on sugar.

Without sugar, they cannot function.

In combination with what my intuition was telling me, this research felt like a big nudge to add in more sugar.

So I started eating more sugar, especially fruit, and noticed a big improvement in my energy, digestion, and so much more.

Now, it’s very clear to me when I haven’t had enough sugar in a day – my energy is low, and I feel moodier.

When I eat some fruit or other sugar, I perk up immediately – and I don’t crash. I have very steady energy and moods.

I think it’s a combination of other physical changes I made (like skipping caffeine and alcohol) and the mental shift of acknowledging how important sugar is that helped my body break it down better.

The way we view something like sugar influences how it impacts our bodies.

If we see it as “bad,” we go into a slight stress response when we eat it, and we can’t metabolize it as well.

Since adding in more sugar, I also lost a few pounds, unintentionally.

I don’t typically weigh myself – but I do when I weigh my suitcases: I subtract my weight from the total weight while holding each suitcase lol.

Seeing sugar as healthy is still very controversial, so please trust yourself and the research that resonates for you.

For me, it’s been incredibly healing to include more sugar.

If you’re curious about this, How To Heal Your Metabolism by Kate Deering is a good place to start exploring, while consulting your intuition – and a doctor when needed.

2025 was very stabilizing, fortifying, and incredibly fun.

I feel like I’m laying new groundwork for what’s to come.

I have so much to give and share, when the time is right.

I’m so grateful for every past version of myself, who I am right now, and what I’m stepping into.

I feel like I’m just getting started.

What was your favorite thing about 2025?

A friendship, a class, a meal, a trip, a special spot in nature?

I would love to hear from you, and I’m wishing you a spectacular, nourishing 2026.

Leave a comment below. <3

Much love,
Lula