Every January, I used to feel that familiar rush.

New year.
New chapter.
New me.

I truly believed that if I just started fresh and changed my circumstances, changed my environment, changed my life I would finally become the woman I wanted to be.ary, I used to feel that familiar rush.

New year.
New chapter.
New me.

I truly believed that if I just started fresh and changed my circumstances, changed my environment, changed my life I would finally become the woman I wanted to be.

But what I didn’t yet understand was this simple, humbling truth:

Wherever I went, there I was.

After my divorce and my move to La Jolla, I fell into a deep depression. I was in the throes of perimenopause. I cried into my pillow day after day. I started losing my hair, which only intensified the panic and vulnerability I already felt. I couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to “put myself out there” when I felt so unsteady inside.

When I finally did try dating again, it became painfully clear that although my life looked different on the outside, my internal compass hadn’t actually changed. The same patterns were still there quietly shaping the men I was attracting and the dynamics I was repeating.

I ended up pulling my profile down and taking a full year off from dating, not because I was giving up, but because I realized something important: I didn’t want to build love from a place that wasn’t yet grounded.

That year changed everything.

I searched for support, but I didn’t want more therapy. Therapy had helped me understand why I was the way I was, but it never gave me clear, practical direction on how to create lasting change. And lasting change is hard. Much harder than most people realize especially when it comes to deeply ingrained emotional and relational patterns.

That realization became the beginning of my real work.

It’s also what eventually led me to Michael, to the life I live now, and to writing Engaged at Any Age — not as a dating manual, but as a framework for self-mastery, discernment, and inner alignment.

Recently, Liora Whitlow of the Insight Collective, reflected on the book in a way that deeply moved me. She wrote that what stood out most was that the book isn’t about tactics or performance, but about internal shifts — breaking old patterns, understanding attraction without self-betrayal, and learning to date from confidence rather than urgency. She described the four-phase framework as creating structure without rigidity, helping women see where they are, why they’re there, and how to move forward intentionally.

That reflection felt like a full-circle moment.

As this new year begins, I’m not interested in resolutions that ask you to become someone else overnight. I’m interested in something quieter, steadier, and far more powerful: learning how to choose differently from the inside out.

If this is a year where you want to stop repeating the same cycles and start building real, internal change, the Engaged at Any Age audiobook is now live on Audible, Spotify, Apple Books, and more. It’s there as a companion, not a command, something to walk alongside you as you listen, reflect, and integrate.

You can choose your preferred listening platform here:

Listen to the Audiobook

More reflections will be coming through Evolving in Love, not about fixing yourself, but about understanding yourself, strengthening your inner compass, and allowing life and love to meet you differently when you do.