The things we resist the most can become the very skills life asks us to offer.

I had just finished my third swimming lesson and was headed to my car. The date was Wednesday, June 24. I remember thinking that it was the first time I had experienced peace while underwater. It was the goggles, I told myself. I could finally see where I was going.

As I was walking toward the car, I learned that a couple I knew was getting divorced. The news stayed with me longer than I expected it to. I couldn't quite name why it made me so sad, considering I didn't know them particularly well. Was I grieving for them? Was it the echo of my parents' divorce? Maybe it was the quiet fear that one day it could happen to me, too.

Outside, the weather seemed to mirror whatever I was carrying within. Somber clouds hung overhead and rain fell like tears against the windshield as I drove through endless construction.

I needed to take my mind off the feeling, so while stopped at a red light, I checked my phone. I saw a missed call and text from a relative I had been estranged from. At that moment, I knew it had to be something important.

I quickly glanced at the text, knowing I only had about twelve seconds before the light changed, my eyes moving between my phone and the pedestrian countdown. It said: "There was an earthquake. We can't find your mom and brother."

Everything inside me froze.

The honks from the car behind me snapped me back to reality. The light was green. I started driving again, recalling all the stories I'd heard growing up about the possibility of a massive earthquake one day hitting home. I also remembered a documentary I had recently watched about earthquakes and the terrible devastation that follows. All I wanted to know was ... how bad was it?

As my throat began to tighten, I pulled over and Googled, "Venezuela earthquake today."

I saw a map of my country... still displaying the reclamation area that, to this day, doesn't really belong to us. Two bright red circles radiated over the capital under the headline: "Venezuela struck by 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes."

I put my phone down and continued driving.

Within seconds, I understood it was a catastrophe. I knew the country's infrastructure couldn't handle a disaster on this level. I knew that for a country already suffering, this would only bring more misery. And that's when it hit me: There was a high chance that I just lost my immediate family, or that they could be buried under rubble, waiting to be rescued.

As the rain poured, the fog on the windshield merged with the cloudiness of my eyes, making it hard to see. I set the wipers to their highest speed, but nothing changed.

I continued driving alongside the lake. The wind grew stronger. The crack of thunder melded with screams coming from somewhere deep within me.

"No..."

"God, please no..."

"Oh no..."

"Please... no..."

One hand stayed shakily on the steering wheel while the other reached for something I couldn't hold.

Years earlier, I remember that paying for groceries for my mom while we lived in separate countries had become one of the greatest sources of tension in our relationship. We had developed a routine. She would go to the store, text me the total price, and I would pay the business directly through the online pay network Zelle. It sounds simple. But over time, as my life became busier and her needs increased and our relationship became more complicated, those transactions stopped feeling like acts of love. They felt like obligations. We argued about it often.

Sometimes, we wouldn't speak for months. I hated the way money quietly shifted the balance of power between us. I hated that giving no longer felt joyful. Eventually, I stopped. Not because I didn't love her, but because I didn't want our relationship to revolve around financial transactions. I wanted generosity to come from freedom, not resentment.

Around that time, I also left my in-laws' family group chat. To most people, that probably sounds insignificant. To me, it wasn't. As a highly sensitive person, group chats often leave me feeling overwhelmed. I never know how much to participate, and I find myself unexpectedly hurt when I share something that disappears into silence.

Without realizing it, I had spent years slowly removing myself from the very systems that required instant communication and real-time financial coordination.

Back to June 24.

I arrived home wanting only to tell my husband the news.

As I walked into our baby's room, my husband was holding our son to help him fall asleep. I covered my mouth, trying not to let my shaking and crying wake up our son. I simply showed my husband my phone with the text I had received and looked at him in desperation.

I quietly left the room and immediately began calling and texting people I hadn't spoken to in years, asking if they had heard anything or could help me find my family.

A few hours later, we finally learned they were alive. They had taken shelter in someone else's home. Later, I was able to speak with them and hear their stories, their fear, and the beginning of the devastation unfolding around them. My mom told me, "At one point, I was just waiting for the building to fall down. I hugged your brother tightly. I thought we were going to die."

A few days earlier, a close friend had asked me why I would never want to go back to Venezuela. I had planned to reply that night and explain all my reasons. But to be honest, that night, for the first time in eight years, the only place I wanted to be was there.

In the days that followed, I couldn't stop thinking about the families who hadn't received the phone call from their loved ones that I eventually did. I kept returning to one question: What can I do from here?

With the knowledge I had and my previous work experience, I came up with an initiative to help those most affected by the earthquake, and I invited some of the most talented humans I know in their respective fields to work with me. Together, we worked around the clock to launch the initiative within five days.

And in one of life's greatest ironies, this is how it works:

A donor signs up to give financial aid. They're matched with a local family. A WhatsApp group is created. The family—or a local volunteer (Camello)—shops for what they need and sends a photo of the bill before paying at the register. In real time, the donor pays the business directly on the family's behalf. After payment, they receive a photo of the receipt. We called the initiative Camellos Internacionales.

The very processes that I had left behind out of pain became the bridge through which strangers could care for one another.

Life has a strange way of redeeming what once felt unbearable.

In yoga, we practice Ishvara Pranidhana, the willingness to surrender to something larger than ourselves—and Satya, the practice of meeting life truthfully, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

This month has reminded me that surrender is not about passive acceptance. It is about choosing not to harden our hearts, giving space for life to reshape us.

Sometimes, the things we resist the most become the very things life calls us to take up—and the things that once wounded us become the tools through which we love.

Encountering peace, I realized, has nothing to do with goggles. But it has a lot to do with accepting that—even in the middle of grief, uncertainty, and contradiction—the challenges before us are quietly preparing us to become exactly what someone else needs. 

If this reflection resonated with you, I'd love to continue the conversation.

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