167. Looking at life through a magnifying glass.

Looking at the broader picture brings clarity and peace while focussing on one individual element brings the opposite or peaceful thoughts and feelings.

I was having a really hard time, stuck in my emotions and ruled by fear, so I did what all basic self-help books tell you to do: meditate.

I sat on the floor before going to bed, dimmed the lights, and searched for a guided meditation on YouTube. My breathing became deeper and slower, and my frenetic mind was given a time-out. Towards the end of the meditation, the guide said to listen to messages from our angels, and so I did. At first, I noticed how my mind was feeding me the same thoughts I’d been having all day, so I discarded them as soon as they popped up. I tried hard to focus, and even though I was thinking the whole time, this isn’t going to work, I was surprised by a message I’m sure was not mine.

The thoughts my mind was originally feeding me were logical human sentences—better yet, tasks from my to-do list or things I’d been ruminating on all day. I was familiar with them because they were my own creation. However, the message that came through towards the end made little sense to my human brain and rhymed. Now, I cannot write poetry, and if I ever were to, it would probably be at the same level as a primary school student’s. This angelic message was fluid, powerful, light, and visual—lacking grammatical context yet full of meaning and power.

The meditation ended soon after, and I tried to write it down as quickly as possible, but most of it had gone. The words I’d heard so clearly had vanished, and I was left with a feeling in my body but no words to put to paper. I’m sorry to disappoint you by not being able to recite the whole poem to you, but what I can tell you is that one part stuck with me and felt like a lightning bolt rushing through me, finally waking me out of the apathetic state I was stuck in.

“…looking at life through a magnifying glass” is (a part of) what I was told by my angels in the meditation. It finally made sense. I understood what I’d been doing for the last few weeks. Instead of looking at life with my open eyes and my open mind, I’d been living my life while looking at events, feelings, and thoughts through a magnifying glass. What I mean by this is that I had been ignoring the broader picture. I’d forgotten all about it, to be completely honest, and I was lost in my tunnel vision. To name a few examples: I got a message from Natural Cycles (the app I use to track my menstrual cycle) saying that it is irregular and would benefit from being checked out by a health practitioner, and so began my first rabbit hole. To give another example: someone was ignoring my messages and not paying me for my work, which triggered my second rabbit hole of worry and stress. Another example for you: C and I were having more little arguments than usual, and off I went down another rabbit hole, asking myself if we’d broken our magical love spell for good.

All of these magnifying-glass thoughts led me to live in a state of fear, fight or flight, stress, and anxiety because I was solely focusing on one tiny aspect of the whole picture. Instead of considering that the app may be wrong, I thought my body was. Instead of taking into consideration my current rocky sleeping patterns, I thought my body was wrong. Instead of listening to my body and knowing that everything was actually fine, again, I thought something was wrong. It had to be. And the more I heard myself think something is wrong with my body, the truer it became. But, if I remove the magnifying glass away from “my body is wrong,” while desperately searching for clues, and look at the whole picture, I’m able to see that I’ve started taking melatonin again because I’m having trouble sleeping, that I’m waking up a lot earlier than usual, that it’s now autumn and freezing cold, that I haven’t been doing as much exercise as a couple of months ago, that my mental state has been worse than it was a few months back, that my diet has changed now that different foods are in season, that C and I are confined to living in one room with a wood burner… There are so many different variables that play a part in each story, but they don’t all fit under the magnifying glass’s lens.

This illustration was made by María (@maria_the_koi) especially for this week’s essay - check out her Instagram and show her some love 🧡

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They say that man is the only animal that trips on the same stone twice, but I’ve been tripping on this same stone for years now. I’m not sure where the pattern comes from—maybe my magnifying glass would be useful to figure that out—but I tend to think that every tiny mishap in my life is my fault, and I never know how to fix them all. Many of those minor incidents are entirely my fault and can be put back on track with little difficulty, but a lot of the things that happen to me aren’t my responsibility and don’t need to be fixed by me.

The reason I believe these things are mine to own and confront is because I do believe, in part, that we create the reality we need or want in each moment. We each shape our own realities and lives—I get that. And we also have the power to change our realities in any given moment. Fantastic too. But we also interact with other people creating their own realities that collide, mix, and blend with others’, and as a result, are co-creating shared realities. And shared realities mean that each participant carries their own load. So, guess what? A lot of the stuff I’m carrying isn’t mine, and I can finally lay it down—or, as the spiritual gurus say, let it go.

fantastic book that’s blowing my mind and reconnecting me to myself, I owe this recommendation to my amiga Andrea.

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2. In the past I was a fan of portadasbien on Instagram however, now I can say that

   Jesús
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3. Mi gran amiga y mi compañera de podcast

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   entreoctubres
   y no solo eso, sino que ha dicho que va a escribir (de nuevo) cada semana y yo: feliz feliz y feliz. Esta semana ha escrito sobre cómo la música que escuchas representa los secretos de tu alma y me ha flipado. Read it here: algunas ideas sobre las que he estado reflexionando, edición Spotify Wrapped 2024.

4. Recomiendo con todo mi corazón suscribirse a la newsletter de

   Leticia Sala
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5. I have been loving

   Eatingpopos
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6. Sometimes the Internet is a beautiful place, I especially love it when strangers online become people you connect and support with even though you’ve never met, and that is the case with

   Caoilainn
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7. Girl Pope had to be number 7 porque it’s my lucky number and my favourite one. She has created my all time favourite gift guide and was kind enough to include some Dimanche Objects and vigas.works (

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