The Letter Waiting to Be Opened

There’s an envelope sitting in my drawer right now.

I wrote it to myself in January 2025. Sealed it. Haven’t opened it since…

Inside that envelope, I’m talking to my future self the version of me reading it in January 2026. Guiding her. Pointing her toward the life I wanted her to have.

I can vaguely remember some of what I wrote. Something about growth. Something about trust. Something about building.

What I couldn’t have written, what I couldn’t have possibly known is that 2025 would try to break me.

The Year Everything Fell Apart

Let me be honest with you.

This year has been brutal.

We went through things in my household that I’m still processing. Things so intimate, so heavy, that I’m not ready to talk about them publicly yet.

But I can tell you this: we were one decision away from leaving Amsterdam entirely.

We put our place on the market. We managed all the logistics. We were ready to move away, to leave everything behind and start over somewhere else.

I lost so many nights of sleep over this decision. Lying awake at 3 AM, running scenarios in my head, trying to figure out what the right choice was.

Things were crumbling. Very intimate things. And I was broken.

I’ve never felt so much stress in my life. It really felt like everything was coming down. Everything.

My household. My business. My sense of direction.

Some mornings I’d wake up and think: “I don’t know how much more of this I can take”

The Failures (The Ones That Hurt)

And then, on top of everything personal, my work started failing too.

April. I launched a community space. I was so excited. I invited women in. We started building something.

3 months later, I shut it down.

The platform was wrong. The structure didn’t work. And I felt like I let down every single woman who trusted me enough to join.

That wasn’t the only thing.

2 programs. Launched. Flopped. Radio silence.

I kept doing what I knew worked… the 1:1 coaching, the live group programs. The things I could control.

But inside I felt like I was failing at everything new I tried.

And the stress from home bled into my work. The stress from work bled into home.

I wanted to quit The Sync Way more times this year than in all the years since I left my 9-to-5 combined.

Some mornings I’d open my laptop and just stare at the screen, thinking: “What’s the point?”

Then A Door I Never Expected Opened

Just when I thought things couldn’t get more overwhelming, something unexpected happened.

🔗Musa, a period tracker app, reached out.

They wanted me to join their board of advisors.

I read the email twice. Then 3 times. 🔗Board of advisors? Me?!?!?!

I’ve never been an advisor. I’ve never sat in boardrooms discussing product strategy or company direction. I’ve never negotiated equity in my entire life.

And yet here they were, asking me to be part of building this app. To bring my expertise on cycle health into their product development. To help shape how women track and understand their cycles.

Part of me wanted to say no. My household felt like it was falling apart. I was planning to leave Amsterdam. I was losing sleep over decisions that felt too big to make.

How could I possibly take on something like this?

But another part of me thought: “What if this is exactly what I need right now? What if saying yes to something new is what pulls me forward?”

I said yes.

And suddenly I was in conversations I’d never had before.

It felt surreal.

Here I was, in the hardest year of my life, and I was becoming an advisor. Negotiating equity. Participating in building something bigger than myself.

Nothing about this was in that letter I wrote in January. But it was happening anyway.

Then My Phone Rang

May.

An email comes through. Then a call.

🔗Mira, the hormone monitor company, wants to launch 🔗a podcast. And they want me to host it.

My first thought: “Are you sure you have the right person?”

I’ve never hosted anything. I’ve never interviewed anyone. I talk to a camera for Instagram, sure. I coach women live, yes.

But interviewing? That’s a completely different skill set.

And this wasn’t some casual side project. This was a production agency. A brand. Serious guests with serious credentials.

• 🔗Priyanka Jain, Forbes 30 under 30, founder of 🔗Evvy, a multi-million dollar company

• 🔗Karina Vazirova, founder of Femtech Labs one of the most influential voices in women’s health tech

• Alisa Vitti, the woman whose book 🔗In the Flo changed my entire life

And they wanted me to interview them.

I said yes anyway.

The Ride That Almost Made Me Quit Before I Started

First recording day.

I leave my apartment an hour early because I’m that person when I’m nervous. The studio is 30 minutes away. I need buffer time. I need to breathe.

The Uber is late. Traffic is insane. I’m calculating in my head: “If we don’t move in the next five minutes, I’m going to be late. I’m going to be late to my first professional recording. They’re going to fire me before I even start.”

We’re in an electric car. Every time the driver brakes, which is every thirty seconds because Amsterdam traffic is a nightmare at that rush hour, the seatbelt digs into my chest and stomach.

I can feel the nausea building. That pre-vomit feeling where your mouth starts watering and your body goes hot and cold at the same time.

I couldn’t eat that morning. My stomach was in knots. This felt worse than university exams. Worse than my first day at my corporate job. Worse than launching The Sync Way.

Because this time, I wasn’t just representing myself. There was a brand. A production team. A guest who’d carved out time in her schedule for this.

And I had no idea if I could pull it off.

The Moment I Went Completely Blank

I walk into the studio. 15 minutes to spare.

The producer walks me through the setup. Microphone. Headphones. Screen in front of me showing the guest on the other side, Priyanka Jain, sitting in her studio across the ocean.

She looks calm. Ready.

I look down at my script. I’ve prepared for this. I have questions written out. I have backup questions. I have notes on her background, her company, her journey.

The studio manager’s voice comes through my headphones: “Okay, we’re live. You can start whenever you’re ready”

I take a breath.

I look at the camera.

I open my mouth to say my first line.

And my mind goes completely, utterly blank.

Not just “I forgot what I was going to say” blank.

I mean: I don’t know where I am, what I’m doing here, or what words even are.

10 seconds of silence that feel like 10 minutes.

Heat rushes through my body. My face is burning. I can feel my hands shaking.

I’m letting everyone down. The brand. The production team. Priyanka, who drove to a studio for this. Myself.

I somehow stumble through that first question. Then the second. By the third, I’m on autopilot, just trying to survive.

When the recording ends, I smile, say thank you, and walk out of the studio feeling like I just failed a test I’d been studying for my entire life. I spiraled a lot that night…

The Teaching That Changed Everything

I had 2 weeks before the next recording.

I couldn’t go back into that studio feeling the way I felt after the first one. Something had to shift.

So I did what I always do when I’m stuck: I went back to Kabbalah teachings.

Kabbalah isn’t a religion, it’s an ancient system of wisdom that existed before religions. And there’s one teaching that kept coming up for me:

When you enter a conversation from a place of lack, trying to get something from the person in front of you, you will always feel fear.

Validation. Approval. Confirmation that you’re good enough, smart enough, worthy enough.

That’s what I was doing in that first interview. I was trying to prove something. To Priyanka. To the production team. To Mira. To myself.

I was operating from lack.

But when you enter whole when you’re not trying to get anything, the entire dynamic shifts.

You’re not there to perform. You’re there to give the other person a platform. To be genuinely curious. To learn from them.

You’re not trying to prove you belong. You already belong.

*There’s a podcast episode that I love with David Ghiyam and Melissa Wood-Tapperberg where they talk exactly about this. 🔗I’ll link it here.

The Second Interview (Where Everything Changed)

Second recording day.

Same studio. Same setup. Different guest.

But this time, I walked in with one intention: “I’m here to learn from you. I have nothing to prove.”

The studio manager’s voice: “We’re live.”

I smiled at the screen and asked my first question not from a script, but from genuine curiosity.

And oh my God, everything was different.

I was relaxed. My flow was smooth. The conversation felt natural. I wasn’t performing. I was just... present.

When that recording ended, I walked out of the studio feeling like I’d finally figured out what I was supposed to be doing.

The Thing That Wasn’t on My List

The podcast obviously wasn’t in that letter I wrote to myself in January.

I couldn’t have known this opportunity would come. I couldn’t have planned for it.

But here’s what’s wild: I’ve had a vision board as my phone background for the past 3 years. And on every single one, there’s been a picture of a podcast.

Not the details. Not the how. Not the when.

Just: One day, I’ll have a podcast.

And it happened… just not the way I imagined.

Not my own podcast. Not on my timeline. Not with my plan.

But it happened.

What This Year Taught Me

Direction matters. Vision matters. Goals matter.

But attachment to the outcome? That’s where we suffer.

I had goals this year. I had plans. And most of them failed.

The community space I built and had to shut down. The programs that flopped. The mornings I wanted to quit.

But the thing I never planned for? The thing that wasn’t on my list? That’s what ended up changing everything.

So as you head into next year, set your goals. Make your vision board. Write your letter to your future self. But leave room. Leave space. Leave openness for the opportunities that will come in ways you can’t predict.

Aspire for what you want. But don’t grip it so tightly that you miss what’s trying to find you.

(So grateful for the people who, along the way guided me. God placed some very special humans in my path to reminded me of my why… and that was enough to fuel me forward)

The Envelope I’ll Open in January

In a few weeks, I’ll open the letter.

I’ll read what January 2025 Teo thought December 2025 Teo would be doing.

And I already know: most of it won’t match reality.

But I also know this: the woman who opens that envelope will be someone who didn’t quit… even when quitting felt like the only logical option left.

That woman is stronger than the one who wrote that letter in January. Not because everything worked out. But because she learned how to keep going when nothing did.

And that’s better than anything I could have written.

Love, Teo

P.S. What’s one thing you’re aspiring for in 2026? Not attached to how it happens… just aspiring for? Comment below and tell me. I’d love to know what you’re calling in 🧡

Also, I’ll add below the latest episode we released yesterday. If you’re in for some fun while talking all things women’s health, this one is for you…