Walking down the ice cream aisle.

What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

Mine is coffee. A good, creamy, just-the-right-hard-to-find-not-so-sweet-but-great-flavor coffee ice cream.

But Vanilla.

Look at the shelf: vanilla takes up half the freezer. Plant-based vanilla, no-fat vanilla, full-fat vanilla, less or no sugar vanilla, French vanilla, Homemade vanilla, Madagascar vanilla, bean-flecked vanilla…

Vanilla goes with anything. Served in coffee. Topping the warm apple pie. Vanilla is safe. Vanilla doesn’t offend. Vanilla is what you serve when you don’t know what people want.

And it made me think.

The Vanilla Life

The dream of the perfect life – the one that gets sold to us in a thousand different packages but, when you taste it, it’s always vanilla.

The vanilla of having it all: money that you don’t have time to spend or count, but gives you the sugar high of “I’ve made it.”

With all the glorious toppings:

• The movie-perfect romance (with conflict conveniently edited out)
• The children that fit oh-so-nicely in the pretty box that’s been previously chosen for them
• The titles wrapped around your neck and office walls like lights around the Christmas tree
• The house in the one and only neighborhood
• The body that turns heads you really wish they never turned
• The curated life that talks about the challenges without depth, because there is no depth ( unless is cleverly borrowed)

Vanilla. Sold in different containers with different names and just enough twist to trick us that this one is different.

The New Vanilla

You can now chase the self-glorifying dream – but this time make it sound noble. Dress it up in healing, in conviction, in whatever works that sells.

The wellness empire that’s really just another status competition.

The spiritual journey that’s really just another ego project.

The “authentic life” that looks suspiciously identical to everyone else’s authentic life.

The minimalism that costs a fortune.

The slow, laid-back living that requires a team of people to maintain.

The freedom that comes with a very specific aesthetic and price tag.

Still vanilla. But well, different. This time is organic vanilla. Small-batch vanilla.

There is a Vanilla Promise

Chase all the things that are supposed to prove and justify your existence.

Chase all the things that might make you feel good, that might bring peace to your heart and end the war in your mind.

But there is this interesting pattern –  they  all promise sometime in the future.

All conditioned by IF.

If you work hard enough.
If you sacrifice enough.
If you optimize enough.
If you achieve enough.
If you become enough.

And there’s this thing about vanilla: it’s rarely amazing by itself. Or it gets boring fast.

It’s great with warm apple pie.
It’s good with chocolate cake.
It’s fine with berries and cream.

Vanilla always needs something else to make it worthwhile.

And so does the vanilla life. It’s always conditional. Always waiting. Always dependent on the next achievement, the next milestone, the next round of applause, the next proof that you’re finally enough.

Your Flavor

What if there’s a flavor, your flavor, the just-right-for-you flavor that doesn’t need anything added to be complete?

Not then. Not if. Not with.

The flavor that’s great now. The flavor that you can taste and enjoy.

The life that doesn’t need to wait for permission or achievement or the right conditions to feel like it’s worth living.

The version of success that actually resonates with what you want in the depth of your being, not what you’ve been taught to want.

The relationships that feel like coming home to yourself, not like an endless performance.

The work that engages you,  and brings out the best in you, not just impresses others.

The days that feel full because they’re aligned with your highest values, not someone else’s highlight reel.

That life? It’s there. Hidden under all the borrowed beliefs. Passed by in the rush to nowhere. Buried under the “shoulds” you’ve learned.

How We Lost Our Flavor

Most of us never even considered our own flavor because right from the early days we were trained to develop a taste for vanilla.

We learned early: this is what success looks like. If you want to be happy – this is the only recipe. Follow it step by step. Pay the price.

There was always someone to model the vanilla way.

Barely anyone to help you explore different flavors.

We got to a point where we cannot even imagine contentment in the middle of crisis.

Happiness and fulfillment while living in a trailer and traveling the world. I mean, not a huge bathroom that’s worth making the top of “The Best of HGTV”?

The 9 to 5? Oh, that’s a trap, right? But we forget that there are people who love to close the working chapter at 5, and have all the remaining hours to themselves – and a steady paycheck.

The work you bring to incredible levels of excellence only because it stems from burning passion, from deeply held values, not because you chase fame, recognition, and financial gains? Well. That’s for the dreamers. And we have to be practical. 

During one trip to Europe , up in the mountains, we met the family of a shepherd. Our boys played with their son. A happy child, full of innocence and endless energy, running around, showing and explaining freely. A cascade of enthusiasm and joy rolling down the grassy hill, in a laughing competition “ who can do this without getting dizzy?” My boys asked him “ How old are you?” Barely stopping to pay attention to the fun-interrupting question he answered “I don’t know.”

No, he was not making fun. He was not avoiding the answer. He didn’t play a role.

An icy cold shower down all our primed for success spines – can you even imagine to live your life without knowing your age? Without wanting more, better? Without having big , incredible, never-heard-of goals for your life? Without maximizing your potential? Just live?

The Rush to Nowhere

We’re all rushing down the ice cream aisle, grabbing vanilla because we made it look like it’s the only safe choice, and we don’t have time to stop and actually figure out what we want and why.

And then life becomes a race in the dark, chasing the light at the end of the tunnel. We never even bother to ask – could there be a light in the tunnel? Is there a way that I could make the light in the tunnel? Is there only one tunnel? Can I break free before the end of the tunnel? Could I turn left or right, up or down?

When is it time for us to ask: Am I living someone else’s recipe for a good life?

We’re following the instructions we absorbed from:

• Parents who were terrified we’d struggle the way they did
• Culture that profits from our insecurity and conformity
• Social media that rewards quick wins, performance and keep you busy in bite-size glitter
• A success narrative that’s fundamentally about proving rather than being

My obsession – Is there a NOW life that feels like home?

The key to living the life now – not then, is surprisingly simple.

It starts with questions, not answers and pre-made recipes:

What if there is another way than the “as seen on TV” version?

What if you don’t have to want what you’re supposed to want?

What if success for you looks completely different than success for your neighbor, your sibling, your old classmate ?

What if success is not about figuring it all out?

What if the life that would actually satisfy you requires less achievement and more presence? Or more silence and solitude than loud, shiny, constant networking? Or more mess and less perfection?

What if your flavor is so specific, so particular to you, that no one else would even understand why it works for you?

Finding It Is Easier Than You Think

You don’t have to figure out your whole life. You don’t need a vision board or a five-year plan or a complete roadmap to a life of perfection.

You just need to start paying attention to the moments that speak to you. When your heart vibrates. When you feel again. Deeply. Honestly.

Not when you feel most impressive. Not when you’re winning or achieving or getting external validation.

When you feel most ALIVE. Present. Things that bring the best in you, Moments that you don’t have to orchestrate. Moments when you forget where you are. When you forget time.

Pay attention to the longing in your heart, and what it wants you to know. Don’t cover the longing with goals. Listen to the story first.

Those moments are breadcrumbs leading you back to your flavor.

Stop Shopping for Vanilla

Before you buy another version of the vanilla life, before you sign up for another program that promises the dream, before you commit to another version of someone else’s success template

Check the whole ice cream aisle.

Do I actually want vanilla?

If you do. Go for it. Have all the vanilla you want. Create a new version of vanilla. Enjoy it in every big or small scoop. I’m not here to take away from your joy.

But if you don’t, or if you are not sure – explore, ask questions, find the flavor that brings out the best in you.

Shared with Love,
Gabriela.

If you don’t know where to start, how to find your flavor, if you get lost in questions that don’t seem to take you anywhere., soon I’ll open the doors to The Re-coding Protocol – the only framework that takes you from naming what you want, through identifying the hidden beliefs that stop you from having it, to very clear, practical and effective protocols to re-code them at the root.

Read more here. Sign up here to be the first to know when I open the doors.

I don’t pretend I KNOW. I write from my experience and from my heart, hoping that what I share is the support someone needs on their journey. I reserve the right to be wrong and change my mind as I grow in my own understanding.