Life, however, had other plans.

In March, I spent ten days in the hospital. In April, another ten. In May, four more.

I found myself wondering what was happening. I thought things might be getting better. Each hospitalization felt like a setback, another issue emerging just as the previous one had been addressed. Although each stay was necessary and helped stabilize me, I struggled to catch my breath. At times, it affected my sense of hope.

Still, I kept taking the next step.

One of the hardest parts of those hospitalizations was being unable to create. I couldn’t paint. I couldn’t write. Cognitive fatigue made even simple tasks difficult. I had to practice patience and remind myself that healing is rarely linear.

Today, I am writing this from home, recovering in a recliner using voice dictation software because I am unable to type with my hands. During those long days in the hospital, I kept lists of things I wanted to think about and eventually write about. This essay is one of them.

As I move closer to publishing Leading Bravely, I wanted to share why I wrote this book and who I hope it might serve.

Why Did I Write Leading Bravely?

Painting, Writing, and Meaning-Making

Painting is intuitive, spiritual, and personal. I paint primarily for myself.

Writing feels different. Even when I begin with my own experience, I am aware of the possibility that someone else may be listening.

Writing this book has been an act of love, vulnerability, reflection, and meaning-making.

One of the hardest decisions I have ever made was resigning from my position as Head of School after my medical leave. I loved the work, but I no longer had the physical or cognitive capacity to lead in the way I believed the role required.

To make that pivot, I had to let many things go. My income changed dramatically. Travel disappeared. I sold my car. For the first time in my adult life, I no longer had the freedom that comes with getting behind the wheel and going wherever I wanted.

Perhaps that is one of the central lessons of becoming: something new often asks something old to be released.

For the first time in my life, I also had uninterrupted time to pursue creative work. Calling this a silver lining feels uncomfortable. Cancer, grief, disability, and the loss of my son are not gifts. And yet they led me to ask different questions.

What was I being called to learn?

What was I being called to create?

How could I make meaning of what was happening?

Because journaling has long been part of my daily practice, I was documenting much of what I was experiencing in real time. Through writing, painting, therapy, prayer, and reflection, I began to understand that meaning-making was becoming an important part of my healing.

Not healing in the sense of fixing.

Healing in the sense of integrating.

At some point, I began to wonder whether these reflections might be useful to others. That question became the seed of this book.

I wrote this book because I wanted to understand what it means to live—and lead—when life changes everything.

There is another reason I wrote it, one that is harder to explain.

In a way, I feel that Javier has been with me throughout this process.

Not in a way that I can prove or explain. It is simply my experience.

Since his death, there have been moments when I have felt his presence beside me—encouraging me, nudging me forward, reminding me not to give up on the work that still feels mine to do.

Grief has changed my understanding of relationships. I used to think that death ended them. Now I believe relationships continue, though in a different form.

Writing this book became one way of honoring that ongoing connection.

Who Is This Book For?

This book is for people who find themselves standing in the gap between the life they imagined and the life they are living.

What My Work Taught Me About Becoming

For nearly thirty years, I worked in education and leadership. Much of my professional life was spent helping people and institutions navigate change. Whether the conversation was about leadership, equity, culture, belonging, or community, I found myself returning to the same fundamental question:

How do we become more fully ourselves?

Real transformation required reflection, humility, curiosity, and a willingness to be changed.

Over time, I came to understand that growth is an ongoing process of becoming.

For years, I have also been concerned about the ways we think about leadership.

Too often, leadership is measured by power, visibility, authority, certainty, or the ability to produce results quickly. Yet some of the qualities I value most—compassion, humility, integrity, self-awareness, and the willingness to listen deeply—are often treated as secondary.

As I watched events unfold in our communities, our institutions, and our broader society, I found myself wondering what might be possible if we expanded our definition of leadership.

What if leadership was not primarily about authority?

What if it was about how we show up for one another?

What if leadership began with self-awareness, honesty, and the courage to act in alignment with our values?

Javier and I often shared concerns about the state of the world and the ways people use—or misuse—power. We talked about fairness, compassion, and responsibility. While I cannot speak for him, I know those conversations shaped me. In many ways, this book is an extension of questions we both cared deeply about.

What does it mean to lead well?

And perhaps even more importantly:

What does it mean to live well?

This book is my attempt to explore those questions.

I am not writing as an expert. I am not offering formulas, guarantees, or answers. What I do bring is lived experience.

I hope Leading Bravely feels less like a prescription and more like a companion.

A companion for people navigating loss, uncertainty, illness, transition, or profound change.

A companion for leaders questioning old definitions of success.

A companion for those trying to integrate mind, body, heart, and spirit.

Most of all, a companion for anyone trying to live courageously when life has cracked them open.

If this book offers comfort, companionship, or encouragement to someone navigating their own season of loss or transformation, I will be grateful.

And if, in some small way, it also serves as a testament to the love I continue to carry for Javier, then it has already fulfilled one of its deepest purposes.

It spoke of integration and wholeness — of returning to oneself. I entered those spaces, as many of us did, because I was searching. I wanted steadiness. I wanted meaning. I wanted relief from the fracture that life can sometimes bring.

And yet, somewhere along the way, something began to feel different.

What once felt grounded can now feel curated. What once seemed humble sometimes carries hierarchy just beneath the surface. In some corners, healing itself has started to look like performance.

I don’t write this with cynicism. I write it with a kind of tenderness and some grief.

Recent headlines involving prominent spiritual figures have unsettled many of us. Whether or not individuals are ultimately implicated in wrongdoing, the moment has invited a deeper question: what happens when we place spiritual teachers beyond scrutiny?

Pedestals change perspective. They magnify charisma. They soften accountability. Over time, they distort our understanding of power.

Perhaps the Question Is Not Spirituality — But Power

I remain drawn to contemplative practice. Silence still steadies me. Reflection still feels essential. I believe deeply in the human longing for transcendence.

What I find myself questioning is not spirituality itself, but the way awakening has been packaged and sold.

The marketplace offers certainty, step-by-step formulas, branded pathways, and credentials that imply authority:

“Five steps to alignment.”
“Ten practices for abundance.”
A certification that confers the title of “healer.”

But healing, at least as I have lived it, rarely follows a clean arc. It moves slowly. It circles back. It asks us to stay with discomfort instead of rising above it.

Spiritual bypassing, once described as a personal defense, sometimes appears institutional now. “Stay positive.” “Rise above.” “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger”. And yet trauma does not dissolve because we rename it. Grief does not disappear because we reframe it.

When spirituality shields us from accountability, our own or someone else’s, something essential erodes.

A Leadership Question

Perhaps what we are witnessing is not only a wellness issue, but a leadership one.

When someone holds influence in a space of vulnerability, what surrounds them? Who offers feedback? Where is the boundary? How is harm addressed?

In education, medicine, and therapy, there are systems designed to protect the vulnerable. In many wellness spaces, structure is lighter — sometimes intentionally so.

I understand the appeal of looseness. Structure can feel rigid. But I have also come to believe that thoughtful structure protects vulnerability rather than restricting it.

When we are working with grief, trauma, attachment, identity — we are working with something tender. And tenderness deserves care.

Why I Hesitate With Certain Titles

I find myself cautious about the word healer. Healing is not something I believe one person bestows upon another. It unfolds in relationship with ourselves, with others, often in ways we cannot predict.

The language of guru or expert sits uneasily with me as well. I am less interested in cultivating followers than in creating spaces where adults can think for themselves.

The work I feel called toward makes room for anger and doubt. It welcomes complexity. It assumes that accountability and compassion belong in the same conversation.

What I Am Choosing

I am not stepping away from contemplative practice.

I am stepping more deliberately into questions of ethics and power.

I am drawn to reflective spaces where leadership is examined from the inside out; where influence is paired with responsibility, and humility tempers visibility.

I do not want to sell enlightenment.

I want to cultivate discernment.

Perhaps this moment does not require fewer spiritual conversations, but more honest ones. Less spectacle. More steadiness.

The invitation, as I see it, is not to abandon the search for meaning but to approach it with clearer eyes, steadier boundaries, and a willingness to examine power wherever it appears, including within ourselves.

“Don’t bring your authentic self to work. Bring your professional self. You can bring your authentic self to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Her comment made me pause.

Not because professionalism is unimportant, it is essential, but because the statement reflects a growing misconception about what authenticity actually means.

When did authenticity become synonymous with self-indulgence?

When did professionalism become code for emotional distance or cultural conformity?

Before rejecting the idea of authenticity in the workplace, it is worth asking a more fundamental question:

What do we mean when we talk about the “authentic self”?

Authenticity is not about behaving impulsively, centering oneself, or disregarding expectations. At its core, authenticity is alignment, the quiet but steady practice of ensuring that our actions reflect our values.

If we are fortunate, our personal values align with those of the institutions we serve. However, many professionals are aware that this is not always the case. Sometimes we accept roles out of necessity, opportunity, or commitment to a mission that only partially reflects who we are.

Throughout my career, there have been moments when I chose to act in alignment with my values even when doing so carried professional risk. When consequences followed, I did not view them as personal failures. I understood them as signals of misalignment.

I have also worked in environments where acquiescence was valued more than candor, and, as a woman of color, there were times when I withheld my perspective out of fear. Many professionals from historically marginalized groups understand this quiet negotiation all too well.

Yet authenticity does not require rebellion, nor does it excuse unprofessional behavior.

Showing up authentically does not mean saying whatever we want whenever we want. Nor does it mean disregarding workplace norms. Organizations function through shared expectations, including standards for communication, collaboration, and yes, even dress.

Early in my career, I sometimes believed that “speaking truth to power” required urgency rather than strategy. I wrote emails that were honest but not always effective. After one particularly pointed message, a supervisor pulled me aside and said gently, “If you keep writing emails like that, people may not want to work with you.”

At the time, I was frustrated. Eventually, I understood the deeper lesson: if I wanted to influence change, people needed to be able to hear me.

This realization reshaped my understanding of authenticity.

Authenticity without emotional intelligence can become performance.

Authenticity without awareness of context can limit our effectiveness.

Over time, I came to embrace what I now consider strategic authenticity — expressing one’s values with clarity while remaining attentive to timing, audience, and impact.

This is not capitulation.

It is leadership.

Yes, there were moments when I felt compromised, even complicit. But I had chosen to work within imperfect institutions, as all institutions are. If I wanted to serve effectively and create meaningful change, I needed relationships built on trust, not just conviction.

And in the long run, this approach mattered. I was able to help implement changes that aligned more closely with my values, and colleagues recognized the care with which those changes were introduced.

Authenticity and professionalism are not opposing forces.

The strongest leaders integrate the two.

Today, working as an artist from home, authenticity feels effortless. But institutional life taught me something invaluable:

Alignment matters, but so does discernment.

We must learn not only what to say, but how to say it.

Not only who we are, but how to express that self in ways that expand possibilities rather than close doors.

Recently, I was reminded of this while watching an artist perform on one of the world’s largest stages. His performance was unmistakably his: culturally grounded, expressive, and values-driven, yet it was also disciplined, intentional, and deeply professional.

Authenticity did not diminish excellence.

It elevated it.

Of course, not everyone will resonate with another person’s values. Alignment is never universal. But disagreement does not negate authenticity, nor does it diminish the quality of one’s contribution.

Perhaps the real misconception is this:

Authenticity is not about bringing your whole self into every space without reflection.

It is about bringing your integrated self — grounded in values, guided by wisdom, and expressed with care.

Because authenticity, when practiced thoughtfully, is not self-centered.

It is a form of courage.

In workplaces and in leadership, courage is never unprofessional.

Recently, while scrolling through LinkedIn, I noticed a series of videos about work–life balance. Each speaker offered a different perspective. I didn’t completely disagree with any of them, but I felt that most of the explanations were incomplete.

One person spoke about people who are “obsessed” with work, suggesting that the world needs these individuals because they are driven and get things done. These are people who spend most of their waking hours working.

Another speaker offered the familiar refrain: “You can have everything—just not at the same time.” The suggestion was that the key is presence: giving your full attention to whatever you are doing in the moment, while accepting that something else will always be negotiated or sacrificed.

Another perspective focused on data, pointing to countries with the best work–life balance—typically those that offer generous benefits such as paid time off, parental leave, and health care.

Finally, one speaker made the point that we can’t actually separate work from life. We spend roughly a third of our day working. It is, undeniably, a significant part of our lives.

I didn’t reject any of these perspectives outright. In fact, parts of each resonated with me. But the idea that intrigued me most, and the one that felt most unfinished, was this: work is not separate from life; it is part of it.

And that idea deserves deeper exploration.

What I’ve come to believe is this: when we talk about work–life balance, we often miss the deeper issue. The problem is not simply how many hours we work—it’s whether the work itself is aligned with who we are, what we value, and the life we are trying to live.

“We Need People Who Are Obsessed with Work”

I don’t know how much objective truth there is in this statement, but I do know that there are people who genuinely enjoy working. They enjoy their work, they are willing to invest long hours, and they find real satisfaction in what they do. We used to call these people Type A personalities.

I see myself in this description, to an extent. I am a high achiever. I am driven. I am a doer. I could attribute that to society, my parents, or my circumstances, but for better or worse, this is part of who I am, and it worked for me for a very long time.

It is also who my husband is. So when he stays up until 3 a.m. writing a proposal or finishing a report, I understand it.

Here’s the thing: when you are doing work that aligns with your values, work that gives you a sense of purpose, it doesn’t always feel like work. Sometimes it feels like creativity. Sometimes it feels like play. Sometimes it feels like service.

As someone with more than 25 years in education, I often felt deeply aligned with my work. I intentionally chose institutions and roles that reflected my values. That didn’t make the work easier. In many ways, it made it harder—because I cared.

Working in education gave me a sense of purpose. I was working with students, trying to improve their experiences, trying to strengthen institutions in ways that would ripple outward and impact lives. I was getting paid, it wasn’t volunteer service, but at times, it felt like service.

All of this is to say: working long hours does not automatically mean someone is unhappy, unhealthy, or obsessed. For some people, meaningful work is a source of vitality.

“You Can Have Everything—Just Not at the Same Time”

This phrase is often presented as wisdom, and I hear it most frequently directed at women—especially working mothers. As a former single, working mother, it sounds very familiar.

I don’t disagree with it entirely, but I think it needs more nuance.

When I work with women—whether they work outside the home or remotely—I often engage them in a simple exercise. I ask them to track how they spend their time, not using a spreadsheet, but a pie chart.

Together, we identify categories based on basic human needs. I usually limit this to six to eight categories so the exercise remains manageable. These often include:

• Work

• Sleep

• Relationships (family, friends, partner)

• Physical activity

• Spirituality

• Creativity

• Learning

• Leisure

At the end of each day, they create a pie chart that reflects how their time was spent. After a week, we sit together and look at the patterns.

The questions I ask are simple:

• What do you notice?

• Which areas are getting most of your attention?

• Which areas are being neglected?

What often becomes clear is this: there aren’t just two categories—“work” and “life.” Life is made up of many needs, and balance is less about equal slices and more about ensuring that, over time, all needs receive some attention.

I also believe that our needs change across seasons of life. At 53, I find that my need for spirituality is greater than my social need, and I’m at peace with that. The social slice of my pie may be smaller, but it still matters.

An empty nester may suddenly find space for parts of themselves that were once sidelined. What matters is not perfection, but awareness.

It’s also worth naming that the phrase “you can have everything, just not at the same time” often carries a gender bias. It is far more commonly offered to women than to men. We seem comfortable asking women what they will sacrifice—for a season, or longer. How often do we offer this framing to men?

Benefits and Balance

I believe deeply in benefits, not because they guarantee work–life balance, but because they support health, dignity, and well-being. I believe medical care is a human right. I believe we should support women and families if we value the next generation.

But it is entirely possible to work for an organization with excellent benefits and still live a life that feels deeply unbalanced.

Which brings me to what I think is missing from many conversations about work–life balance.

Alignment Matters More Than Balance

What if the reason we feel unbalanced isn’t that we work too much, but because we are not aligned with our work or our organization?

When we spend most of our time doing work that feels meaningless or that conflicts with our values, it becomes much harder to feel well. All work involves stress. Doing hard things is part of growth. But when our values are out of alignment, the cost is higher.

Over the years, these questions about alignment, meaning, and season-of-life have become central not only to my writing, but to my work with others. Through my coaching practice, Spirit, Sand & Sea, I work with individuals—many of them women in leadership—who are navigating transitions, burnout, illness, or a quiet sense that something no longer fits.

The work is slow, reflective, and deeply personal. It’s not about doing more. It’s about listening more honestly to what your life is asking of you now.

I also want to acknowledge that meaningful work is a privilege. Many people don’t have choices. They work to survive, to support their families. Sometimes that is the meaning. That was true for my father, a physical laborer, whose purpose was to provide for his family.

But if you are someone who does have a choice, I believe this is where courage comes in.

Leading bravely may mean taking a risk—not toward better balance, but toward deeper alignment. It may mean seeking work where your skills, talents, and values are needed and respected. Work that honors your humanity. Work that fits the season of life you are in now.

Balance is not something we achieve once and for all. Alignment is something we return to, again and again.

If these questions about alignment, meaning, and courageous change resonate with you, you’re not alone. This is the heart of the work I do through Spirit, Sand & Sea—creating space for reflection, clarity, and reorientation during times of transition. You’re welcome to explore more at your own pace, if and when it feels right.

I wanted to share a brief personal update.

A medical crisis brought our snowbird experiment to an early close and sent us back home sooner than planned. I’m stable now, but the sudden shift was hard. Christmas week was spent mostly in bed, and at times it felt like full recovery was an elusive dream. Still, I showed up for myself each day in the ways I could—focusing on nourishment, rest, and patience, even when all of that felt incredibly challenging.

Despite everything, there is meaningful news I’m grateful to share.

My first solo art exhibition, Rituals of Renewal, opens on January 7th in Providence, Rhode Island. This show means more to me than I can easily put into words. It feels like a quiet affirmation that creativity can coexist with grief—and that art can be a vessel for restoration, even when life feels fragile.

The exhibition will be on view January 7–30 at
The Gallery at Central Congregational Church
296 Angell Street
Providence, RI 02906

Rituals of Renewal was recently featured in Natural Awakenings magazine, and you can read the brief here:
https://www.naturalawakeningsboston.com/2025/12/31/558112/providence-gallery-hosts-powerful-exhibition-on-art-grief-and-inner-restoration

None of this erases my grief. But it does help me envision a future where my life holds meaning and purpose—and where my work contributes, in some small way, to something greater than myself.

Thank you for being here and for reading. Your presence matters more than you know.

With gratitude,

Rosanna

P.S. I want to acknowledge the reports this morning of a U.S. attack on Venezuela. I condemn this act of violence and oppose it unequivocally. War and military aggression only deepen suffering for civilians who have no say in these decisions. My heart is with the families who have lost loved ones, and I stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people. No nation should be subjected to violence in the name of power, politics, or profit

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Bravery is not always loud. Sometimes it looks like walking slowly. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like choosing to live—with intention, tenderness, and hope—inside a body you are still learning to love.

For most of my life, my strength lived in motion—walking fast, hiking long distances, moving through the world without hesitation. Then cancer, surgery, and a stroke changed the landscape of my body. This is the first time I’m writing about what it feels like to inhabit this new physical reality—not just the medical details, but the emotional terrain.

Ten months ago, I had a hemipelvectomy. Half of my pelvis—the entire left side—was reconstructed, and my hip joint replaced because cancer was destroying it. The tumor was removed. Twenty years ago, this surgery would have required the amputation of my entire left leg. I am profoundly grateful for the carbon-fiber and titanium holding me together.

The surgery lasted seven hours. When I woke, my side was lined with roughly seventy-five stitches from knee to waist. The goal was to improve my quality of life, and in many ways, it did. The chronic pain that had shadowed me for months was suddenly gone. But in its place was something else—I could no longer walk.

Learning to walk again has been slow, aching work. Bone, muscle, tendon, and nerve had all been severed or disrupted. Even now, after months of physical therapy, parts of my leg remain numb; some muscles still don’t respond; tendons hesitate to support what they once held with ease. I have progressed from a walker, to crutches, and now to a cane. That is progress. But my mobility will never be what it once was. I may never run again. I can accept that. What is harder to accept is that—even with the cane—I still need another person beside me when I walk outdoors. Cancer treatment has weakened me further: twenty-five pounds lost, appetite gone, fatigue constant. A stroke during surgery compromised my left side even more.

Only now am I beginning to understand the emotional weight of all of this.

My husband and I love being outdoors. We hike, we swim, we explore. Since I’m not working and he can work anywhere with Wi-Fi, we decided to spend a month in the Dominican Republic—somewhere we’ve always dreamed of living part-time after retirement. We chose the Samana Peninsula: remote, lush, salt air, ocean at the door, forest at our backs. A place we’ve always felt free.

But this time, I discovered a truth that broke me open.

To move through the airport, I needed a wheelchair—something we hadn’t anticipated. Once there, I couldn’t walk long distances. I couldn’t manage uneven ground or sand. I couldn’t enter the ocean without my husband holding me steady against the waves. Heat made my leg swell. Fatigue pulled me down like gravity. Every step was effort; exploration, exhaustion.

I was suddenly living inside a body that felt unfamiliar—fragile, dependent, limited.

As someone who has built a life on autonomy, strength, and self-reliance, this has been an emotional reckoning. I cannot move through nature the way I once did. I cannot wander, climb, or even stroll the beach without support. The things I once did without thinking now require negotiation, caution, and help. I am learning, sometimes painfully, what it means to navigate the world with physical challenges.

I am humbled. I am grieving. And I am learning.

This, too, is a kind of loss—one that requires a new way of being, a new relationship with my body, my environment, and my independence. I don’t yet know what living fully looks like from here, but I am beginning the work of finding out.

Because even in limitation, life asks us to keep living.

I don’t share this for sympathy—I share it because loss comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s not the loss of a person or a dream, but the loss of ease, movement, freedom. And like every loss, it asks us to adapt, to grieve, and eventually—slowly—to grow in a new direction.

I am learning to build a life inside this new body. A life with slower steps, maybe smaller distances—but also deeper presence, softer gratitude, and a tenderness I could never have accessed before.

This is not the life I expected. But it is still a life worth living bravely.

Cancer changed that—not as a gift or blessing, but as a truth that rearranged my life.

There is no silver lining to illness.
But there is clarity.
And in this season, that clarity has given me the time and permission to return to the parts of myself I deferred for too long.

The Meaning of Closed Doors

Throughout my life, I’ve reflected on the meaning of doors closing—jobs not offered, relationships ending, opportunities dissolving, plans uprooted. I learned to see these moments not as failures but as redirection.

Even when they arrive wrapped in heartbreak or disappointment, closed doors often point us toward what is actually meant for us.

This moment in my life feels like one of the clearest examples of that truth.

Unexpected Invitations

Almost immediately after I resigned from my position, new paths opened.
I was invited to show my art in a gallery.
I was accepted into a craft fair.
I suddenly had hours in my day to write—without squeezing creativity into the edges of exhaustion.

These opportunities have felt like lifelines. Painting, writing, creating… these acts bring me back to myself. They anchor me on days when nausea, exhaustion, or grief make it hard to get out of bed. They remind me that hope and beauty are still available, even when the body is weary.

The Practical Realities

Yes, I worry about finances. But surprisingly, I’m discovering that my life doesn’t require as much as I once thought. I shop less. I cook more. We go out to eat less often.

Maybe—just maybe—I don’t need to earn as much as I believed to feel steady, safe, or whole.

When the Body Breaks Down

This morning, I cried for nearly an hour. Pain, frustration, nerve aches, nausea, grief—sometimes they all converge at once. My husband sat with me and reminded me that it’s okay to feel everything, that strength isn’t measured by how well we avoid breaking open, but by how gently we allow ourselves to soften.

Creativity has become my lifeline—my way back to hope, possibility, and myself.

After the tears subsided, I thought of my tiny studio (really a guest room) overtaken by paints, brushes, canvases, and half-finished ideas. The thought of sitting down to paint small scenes of color and light gave me a reason to move.

A Question for You

If you’ve experienced an unexpected twist in fortune—an illness, a layoff, a breakup, a loss—maybe this is the moment to pause and ask:

What is something you’ve longed to do that you’ve been postponing for years? Not because it didn’t matter, but because you didn’t feel like you mattered enough to do it.

Maybe life isn’t closing in on you. Maybe it’s redirecting you.
And maybe now is your moment.

Come See Me This Weekend

I will be selling my artwork and creations at Hatch Street Studios in New Bedford, MA, this weekend, Nov. 22 & 23. If you’re in the area, I would love to see you.

If you’re not nearby, you can visit my artwork at:
👉 www.rosannamariastudio.com

I hope something there brings you a sense of beauty, breath, and hope.

With love,
Rosanna

People cannot bring their full selves to a team or organization if they feel unseen, undervalued, or excluded. Too often, leaders underestimate how much power they hold to shape the culture of belonging. When equity is absent, people retreat and hide parts of themselves, withhold their ideas, and protect their hearts. When equity is present, they show up with courage. It ensures that all voices are heard, that opportunities are distributed fairly, and that differences are not only tolerated but respected and celebrated. It invites authenticity. It signals safety. When people experience fairness and respect, they begin to trust because the environment itself feels trustworthy.

Without that trust, transformation is shallow, more about compliance than about authentic change. But when trust is built through equity, transformation becomes a collective act of courage.

Traditional leadership often centers on dominant perspectives: productivity, profit, hierarchy, and efficiency. These are not inherently wrong, but they are incomplete. They tend to value output over well-being, results over relationships, and the loudest voices over the most marginalized ones. Equity asks deeper questions: Whose success are we measuring? Who benefits from our current definitions? Who is left out or left behind?

To lead equitably is to broaden the lens and recognize that true success is collective. It is not just about the growth of an organization, but about the flourishing of its people. It is not just about metrics, but about meaning. When leaders expand their definition of success to include belonging, dignity, and shared prosperity, transformation becomes not only possible but sustainable.

Doing the inner work of self-examination, reflection, and ongoing learning has been essential in my own leadership journey. These practices helped me do the difficult work of shifting institutional culture, especially around diversity, equity, and inclusion. I had to learn to hold compassion for myself and for others. One diversity workshop is not going to change an institution. Real transformation requires a long-term, personal and organizational commitment to learning, growing, and healing.

Leading this work is not for the faint of heart. There is so much at stake, people’s sense of safety, belonging, and dignity. It requires courage to stay the course, especially when leading equitably can be received with both praise and backlash. I received my share of backlash. There were moments when the criticism was sharp, the resistance was personal, and the emotional toll was heavy. These experiences were challenging, stressful, and often painful. But they also transformed me. They deepened my empathy, clarified my purpose, and strengthened my conviction that equity work is not just professional, it is spiritual. It calls us to lead with humility, patience, and courage, even when the path is uncertain and the outcomes are slow to emerge.

When equity is woven into leadership, people feel more connected to their work, to one another, and to a shared sense of purpose. Teams built on fairness and belonging are stronger, more innovative, and more adaptable in the face of challenge. Equity fosters resilience. It creates communities that can bend without breaking, where people support one another through uncertainty and remain grounded in shared values. It’s what allows organizations to move from surviving to thriving.

At its essence, equity reminds us that we are interdependent. My liberation is tied to yours. My well-being is bound up in the well-being of others. That recognition transforms leadership from an individual pursuit into a collective practice of care and accountability.

Without equity, leadership risks being performative. With equity, leadership becomes transformative. Equity is not just a value to aspire to; it is the foundation on which trust, growth, and resilience are built. It is the heartbeat of courageous leadership, the force that allows us not just to lead bravely, but to lead humanly.

“Where might you be called to expand your definition of equity in your own leadership?”

I was born in New York City.

When people asked, “Where are you from?” I would always say, “I’m Dominican.”

Some insisted, “But you were born in New York.”

And I would reply, “I may have an American passport, but I am Dominican.”

Both were true.

I am American—yet rooted in Dominican soil, the daughter of Dominican parents.

From an early age, I was enchanted by the landscapes of Quisqueya: the lush Cibao Valley, the misty hills of Jarabacoa and Constanza, the endless beaches that crown the island’s coasts.

When I was little, my family took long drives from the Cibao to the beaches of Samaná. We’d stop along the way for sodas and bathroom breaks, and by the time we arrived, the sun would be high, the sea still, and the air thick with salt and coconut. More often than not, we were the only ones there. Those days were marked by silence, sunlight, and the ocean’s embrace.

There were no resorts then—just sand, sky, and water. The purpose was simple and pure: to be in communion with nature.

As an adult, I kept returning—to Laguna Gri Gri, Playa Ballenas, Playa Rincón, Las Galeras. While others flocked to the east for entertainment, I kept seeking stillness. Because we don’t need more noise—we need more healing.

We need to breathe clean air, to eat food that nourishes, to rest deeply, to surrender to the natural rhythm of the world.

Not long ago, I took a whale-watching trip off the North Atlantic coast. After hours at sea, the whales appeared—graceful giants gliding through the waves, some with their calves. The marine biologist on board explained that these whales feed in the Atlantic and migrate each year to the Bay of Samaná to give birth before returning north.

She pointed out one called Sal (Salt), recognizable by a scar along her fin—an old wound from a ship’s propeller. Sal had given birth seventeen times, each journey carrying her from the northeastern United States to the Dominican Republic.

Her story stirred something in me.

I felt bound to her—as though her migration mirrored my own.

Like Sal, I have traveled that same route many times, seeking rest, healing, and belonging in the waters that raised me.

Spirit, Sand & Sea

Since my childhood in Washington Heights, I’ve felt the pull of both sea and sand—of roots and tides—the deep rhythm of ancestry mingled with the promise of new shores.

As a first-generation Latina of Dominican heritage, I inherited stories of migration, resilience, and reinvention. Those stories became the ground of my creative and professional life.

Today, through Rosannamaría Studio and Spirit, Sand & Sea, I stand at the intersection of art, leadership, and healing.

Spirit is the canvas. In my studio, I paint with oils—but also with memory, myth, and the sacred feminine. My paintings are meditations in color and form, reflections on grief, hope, transformation, and belonging.

Sand is the ground of community and leadership—the steady, lived practice of building inclusive systems and spaces. My career in education has been about this: creating structures that hold people with humanity and courage.

Sea is the cycle of return—the fluid threshold where endings become beginnings. Through retreats, coaching, and creative workshops, I invite others to dive beneath and resurface renewed.

Like the whales that migrate between the Atlantic and Samaná, I’ve learned that home isn’t fixed—it’s a rhythm.

It’s the journey between what shaped us and what we are becoming.

It’s the courage to keep returning, again and again, to ourselves.

When we reclaim our voice and honor our story, we reclaim our power.

And in that reclamation, we find our way home.

🐳 Thank you for reading.

Did this story speak to you?

I believe we all carry migrations within us — stories of leaving and returning, of loss and becoming. If you felt that pull while reading, I invite you to stay connected.

Subscribe to Living & Leading Bravely for essays on courage, creativity, and transformation — and share this post with someone who might need a moment of stillness today.

Visit Spirit, Sand, and Sea for resources and to begin your own journey.

Because I can.

Because I have agency.

And so do you.

You are the narrator of your life.

You get to tell your story.

It doesn’t have to be objectively true.

It only needs to be true for you.

If you choose, you can be the heroine of your story, not the victim.

Meaning-making and holding on to hope involve finding purpose in life’s experiences and cultivating an outlook that allows you to see light even in the darkest moments, through struggle, pain, and loss.

To own our story is one of the most powerful things we can do.

When we take ownership, we reclaim our narrative from the hands of circumstance, from the voices of others who have tried to define us, and from the noise of fear and shame that can so easily drown out our inner truth. Meaning-making is how we remember who we are, even when the world forgets. It is how we transform pain into wisdom, and chaos into coherence.

I begin by asking questions:

What does this mean?

Why did this happen?

This is what I’m doing when I reflect, when I write, when I paint. I am not simply recounting events—I’m weaving them together into something that makes sense. I’m turning fragments into form. In making meaning, I learn self-awareness. I find purpose. I give my life shape and hope.

In my story, there are no mistakes, only humans doing human things: stumbling, learning, trying again. Every heartbreak, every wrong turn, every detour has brought me closer to understanding myself and the world around me.

In my story, there are no coincidences. Nothing happens by chance. Every encounter, every loss, every moment of grace holds a lesson if I’m willing to look for it. Meaning-making is an act of faith; the belief that life is not random, that our suffering can be transformed into something useful, something sacred.

In my story, we are all interconnected. What I do matters. My choices ripple outward in ways I may never see. I am not alone in my becoming. I am part of a web that stretches across generations, linked to my ancestors, to the people I love, and to those I will never meet but whose lives I can still touch through my actions.

This awareness keeps my ego and my fear in check. It reminds me that my power is not for hoarding but for sharing. It keeps me honest. It keeps me humble. It keeps me in service of others, not in service to self.

From that awareness, I choose abundance instead of scarcity.

I choose love instead of fear.

Think about what this means as a mother, as a community member, as a leader.

Where might you reclaim authorship in your own story?

What meaning might you make from the parts of your life that still ache?

For me, this awareness changes everything about leadership. It means my work is not about control, but about care. It means I am called to hold space for others to make meaning of their own stories, to see their strength, and to find their purpose.

It calls me to think strategically about what is needed now, and what will be needed in the future.

To ask what is sustainable—what kind of world I want to leave behind.

To think about what will benefit the collective, not just the individual.

To bring everyone in and recognize each person’s contribution.

It means thinking about the growth and evolution of the people and things I’m responsible for.

It means I must have courage, not just for myself, but for others. Because courage is contagious. When one person stands in truth, others find the strength to do the same.

It means I have to take care of myself, so I can take care of others.

Because healing is not selfish. It is an act of leadership.

I cannot control the events of my life, but I can control how I respond to them.

I can choose how I will remember them.

I can choose what they will mean.

That is how I lead.

That is how I live.

By making meaning.

Visit my website here.

Not because I wanted to defy anyone, but because the systems I worked within were built to reward compliance more than conscience.

As a school leader, I often found myself standing in that tension — the invisible intersection between values and expectations. It’s a place that every woman leader eventually finds herself: the crossroads between what we know to be right and what the world expects us to do to survive.

Integrity and the Cost of Belonging

Integrity, at its core, is about alignment between what you believe, what you say, and what you do. It sounds simple, but in practice, it can be excruciating. Institutions are often shaped by fear of conflict, fear of loss, fear of being wrong, and integrity disrupts that fear. It demands honesty. It demands courage.

And courage has a cost.

I have learned that integrity can make people uncomfortable. When you refuse to look away from inequity or stay silent about harm, you challenge the unspoken rules of belonging.

You risk being labeled as “difficult,” “emotional,” or “too much.”

But what’s the alternative? To betray yourself to fit in?

That, I learned, is a far greater loss.

Women and the Patriarchal Playbook

In Leading Bravely, I write about how women often undercut one another in patriarchal systems — not because we are unkind, but because we’ve been conditioned to believe there isn’t enough room for all of us.

We learn early that visibility can be dangerous, that ambition must be softened, and that success often depends on our ability to make others comfortable. We internalize scarcity: that one woman’s rise means another’s fall.

So we play by the rules.

We smile. We smooth. We stay silent.

But every time we do, we chip away at our own integrity.

We shrink to survive.

True leadership, the kind that transforms culture, requires that we unlearn those rules. It asks us to lead with presence, compassion, and conviction, even when that presence is misunderstood or misread as defiance.

Ego Is the Mask; Integrity Is the Mirror

The ego is the part of us that wants to be seen, validated, and safe. It seeks control, recognition, and approval — all natural human desires. But left unchecked, ego can become the mask we wear to survive in systems that reward performance over presence.

Integrity, by contrast, is a mirror. It reflects back the truth of who we are — even the parts we’d rather not see. Leading with integrity requires us to face that reflection honestly, to notice when we’re being guided by fear, pride, or insecurity instead of purpose and compassion.

When ego leads, we protect our image.

When integrity leads, we protect our values.

The hardest part about leading with integrity is that it holds up a mirror.

When you act from your values, you invite others to examine their own — and not everyone is ready to look.

In one of my most difficult professional moments, I made a decision that was both necessary and unpopular. It was rooted in equity, in the belief that all members of a community deserve fairness and dignity. But my choice disrupted long-standing patterns of comfort and privilege.

The backlash was swift. I was called idealistic. Accused of “making things harder than they needed to be.”

But I knew in my bones that integrity sometimes looks like inconvenience to those who benefit from the status quo.

Integrity isn’t about being liked. It’s about being whole.

Ego’s Trap: Performing Leadership

In patriarchal and competitive systems, leaders, especially women, are often pressured to perform confidence and control. We’re told to appear strong, decisive, unshakable.

But that’s ego at work: the illusion that we must prove our worth instead of embodying it. Ego wants to win the argument. Integrity wants to build understanding. Ego fears failure. Integrity embraces learning. Ego seeks visibility. Integrity seeks alignment.

When leadership becomes a performance, we lose the courage to be authentic.

When leadership becomes a practice of integrity, we regain our humanity.

The Transformative Role of Ego

The goal isn’t to destroy the ego — it’s to befriend it.

A healthy ego gives us boundaries, confidence, and agency. It’s what allows us to step forward, claim space, and use our voice.

But integrity reminds us why we’re leading. It roots us in service, not self-importance. It balances ambition with humility, certainty with curiosity, strength with empathy.

When ego and integrity are in balance, we lead from a place of grounded self-awareness. Our power becomes not a weapon, but a gift.

The Inner Work of Integrity

Living with integrity means facing yourself again and again, especially when the world tests your resolve. It’s an inner discipline, a daily practice of returning to your core values even when fear or fatigue tempt you to compromise.

Over time, I’ve learned that integrity is not just about what you do, but about how you become.

It’s the slow work of aligning your outer actions with your inner truth.

That alignment doesn’t always make you comfortable. But it will make you free.

To learn more about me and my work, visit my website: Rosanna María Salcedo

The side effects, though, are tough: nausea, fatigue, acid reflux, lack of appetite, and the rest of the unglamorous list. It’s tolerable, but it makes me cranky sometimes. Healing isn’t always graceful.

I also met with a nutritionist, since I’ve lost about twenty-five pounds over the past year and a half due to treatment. She told me the most important thing right now is to maintain my weight—and encouraged me to eat full-fat dairy, nut butters, and all the high-calorie foods I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. She even said it was fine to put butter on my vegetables, and that coffee and chocolate are perfectly okay. That made me smile.

For the first time in my life, I’m not restricting calories or worrying about gaining weight. It’s a strange kind of freedom—and a reminder of how much mental space we, as women, devote to monitoring our bodies. What if we could redirect that energy toward nourishing ourselves—truly nourishing ourselves—in every way that matters?

Each week I share reflections drawn from my forthcoming memoir, Leading Bravely — stories about resilience, identity, and healing after loss. My hope is to help readers find courage in their own transitions, and permission to live more authentically, no matter what life has taken or changed.

The Artist I Was Afraid to Be

Have you ever resisted a part of yourself that’s been trying to emerge for years?

That quiet voice that says there’s more to me than this — but you keep silencing it because life feels too demanding, too practical, too full?

For me, that voice was the artist inside me.

For decades, I resisted calling myself an artist. Growing up, art was never spoken about as an option. Livelihood meant stability. Success meant following a linear path — study hard, get a good job, and work your way up.

And for a long time, I was fine with that.

I loved being a student. I was curious, disciplined, and eager to learn. Eventually, though, I realized that my greatest joy came not from achievement, but from expression.

I loved to write, to paint, to create beauty.

Whether it was decorating my home, planting a garden, or writing a paper, it was the creative process itself that lit me up — the feeling of bringing something meaningful into being.

But as a single mother raising two children, I didn’t have the luxury of following my muse. I needed stability, so I built a career in education and leadership. The work was purposeful and demanding — and it left little space for art.

Then something terrible and extraordinary happened: I was diagnosed with cancer.

My body and mind could no longer keep up with the structure of a traditional job. What at first felt like a devastating loss slowly revealed itself as an unexpected gift.

The universe wasn’t just granting me permission to create — it was insisting on it.

After resigning from my full-time role as a school leader, doors began to open in the most surprising ways. I was invited to exhibit my artwork in a gallery. A nonprofit asked me to join its board.

Though I no longer earn what I once did, I now live each day doing what I love — painting, writing, creating, and contributing in ways that nourish my soul.

It’s humbling to admit that it took cancer to push me toward the artist I always was.

But here I am — living, creating, healing — and choosing to see this new chapter for what it truly is: a gift.

✨ Reflection Prompt

What part of you have you been resisting — perhaps for years — because life told you it wasn’t practical or possible?

What would happen if you gave that part of yourself permission to lead for a while?

If this story resonated, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
You can also subscribe to receive future reflections on courage, healing, and creative renewal straight to your inbox.

Before the diagnosis.
Before the loss.
Before the moment everything changed, and nothing would ever be the same again.

For me, there have been at least two such moments: the day I learned I had cancer, and the day I lost my son, Javier. Both times, the world as I knew it collapsed—not gradually, but suddenly, without warning or mercy.

And both times, I had to learn how to live again inside a life I hadn’t chosen.

When the Floor Gives Way

The day I was diagnosed with cancer, I remember sitting in the doctor’s office, feeling tears pool in my eyes, feeling dizzy. It was surreal. The words “advanced” and “metastatic” fell like stones, and everything after them sounded like a distant hum.

I thought I knew resilience. I had spent decades as a leader and educator—managing crises, solving problems, supporting others through loss and transition. But this was different. There was no one to save, nothing to fix, no plan to write.

What I learned in that moment—and in the long months of treatment that followed—was that resilience isn’t about strength. It’s not about pushing through, staying positive, or pretending you’re okay.

Real resilience is about presence.
It’s about allowing yourself to feel the full weight of what’s happening—the fear, the grief, the helplessness—without turning away. It’s learning to stay, even when it hurts.

After the Unthinkable

And then, not long after this life altering change, life broke open again.

When Javier died, the language of resilience felt almost insulting. How could any word contain that kind of pain? The loss of a child is not something you “bounce back” from. It’s a permanent amputation—a part of you gone forever.

For months, maybe years, I lived in a fog. The world felt distant and strange, like I had been dropped into someone else’s life. I went through the motions—work, meals, sleep—but nothing held meaning.

And yet, even in that desolate space, something quietly stirred. Not hope exactly, but a kind of instinct for life. I began to notice small things: sunlight on the floor, the smell of baked goods, the steady rhythm of my own breath.

Resilience, I realized, isn’t what lifts you out of grief.
It’s what keeps you company inside it.

It’s the force that whispers, “You are still here.”

The Slow Rebuilding

Over time, I learned that resilience is not about recovering what was lost; it’s about integrating it—allowing loss to become part of your wholeness.

In Leading Bravely, I write that grief reshapes us, but it can also refine us. It strips away illusion, ego, and the noise of other people’s expectations. It brings us back to what’s essential.

In the wake of Javier’s death and my cancer treatment, I’m working on rebuilding a life and an identity that looks nothing like the one I imagined. It’s quieter, more intentional, more sacred. I move more slowly. I listen more. I let myself rest.

I no longer strive for balance; I seek harmony.
I no longer chase purpose; I practice presence.

This, I’ve learned, is what it means to live bravely: to open your heart to a life you didn’t choose and still find beauty in it.

What Resilience Really Is

Resilience is not a single act of courage—it’s a thousand small choices made in the dark:

• To breathe through the fear.

• To reach for help.

• To sit with what is unbearable and let time make it softer.

• To believe, even without proof, that joy will return.

It’s what allows us to become larger than our pain—not by transcending it, but by allowing it to deepen us.

Resilience is the quiet strength of continuing to love in a world that has broken your heart.

Reflection

Take a moment with me:

• What part of your life do you wish you could trade or undo?
  

• What might it mean to live fully inside the life you have now, even if it’s not the one you chose?
  

• What small act of beauty, care, or courage reminds you that you are still here?

If you feel called, share your reflections in the comments or journal privately—your words might be the lifeline someone else needs today.

Author’s Note

This essay is adapted from my forthcoming book, Leading Bravely.
In it, I explore how resilience, integrity, and courage are forged in the fires of loss and how we can lead—not despite our pain, but through it.

I thought I knew resilience. As a single mother who raised two children while building a career, as someone who has endured divorce, as a Latina navigating predominately white spaces, I thought I understood what it meant to survive. But this cascade of losses brought me to my knees.

Resilience, I realized, is not about standing tall and unshaken in the storm. It is about letting yourself crumble, and then choosing—sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully—to gather the broken pieces and begin again.

The Myth of “Bouncing Back”

We often talk about resilience as if it were a springboard: you hit bottom, and then you bounce right back up. But real resilience is quieter, slower, and far less linear. It’s about surrender—about admitting that life has changed you, that you cannot go back, and that survival will demand a reinvention of self.

When I returned to work after surgery, I wanted to believe I could simply pick up where I had left off. But my body told the truth: I was not the same. The strength and stamina I once had were gone. My mind felt foggy, and the work I had once loved now felt impossibly heavy.

At first, I grieved this loss of ability almost as much as I grieved my son. To walk away from a role I had prepared for all my life felt like a kind of death, too. But in that surrender, painful as it was, I began to glimpse another truth: reinvention is not failure. It is an opening.

The Work of Reinvention

Reinvention begins with a question: Who am I now?

This question is not easy to answer when everything familiar has been stripped away. But loss, whether of a person, a dream, a job, or a former self, always invites us to redefine what it means to live with purpose.

I am no longer the head of an institution. I am no longer the mother of two children in the same way I once was. I am no longer the strong, tireless woman who could push through anything. And yet, I am still me, still a leader, still a mother, still a woman capable of meaning and beauty.

Reinvention has meant finding new ways to express those parts of myself. I write. I paint. I think deeply about leadership—not from behind the desk of a head of school, but from the quiet of my home, where I am learning how to live and lead courageously in a different way.

Living Bravely

Resilience and reinvention are not destinations. They are practices, renewed each day. They require courage, the courage to tell the truth about what hurts, the courage to step into the unknown, the courage to imagine that even in brokenness, beauty is possible.

I have come to believe that resilience is less about being unbreakable and more about being willing to be broken, and to keep living anyway. Reinvention asks us to release the story of the life we thought we would have, and to discover the life that is asking to be lived now.

For me, that means embracing creativity, connection, and storytelling. It means trusting that my leadership does not vanish just because I am no longer leading an institution. It transforms. It expands. It takes on new forms.

And it means remembering that courage is not the absence of fear or pain. Courage is simply the decision to keep going, even when the way forward is uncertain.

An Invitation

Perhaps you, too, are standing in the rubble of a life you didn’t choose. Perhaps you are wondering what resilience looks like when the old definitions no longer fit.

My invitation is this: Do not rush to rebuild the old life. Instead, listen for the life that is waiting to be created. Reinvention begins there—in the quiet, in the surrender, in the willingness to imagine something new.

Together, we can practice resilience not as “bouncing back,” but as the slow, courageous work of becoming.

Take a quiet moment and ask yourself: Where in my life am I being called to reinvent myself? What small, brave step can I take today toward that new beginning?

I’ve been looking for a way to stay connected with friends, colleagues, and community without posting everything on social media. As I grow older, I find myself wanting to write more personally—to a curated circle rather than the scrolling masses.

That’s why I’m starting a Substack: a space to share honest reflections on life, loss, leadership, resilience, and creativity.

2024 changed me forever. Within months, I was diagnosed with advanced cancer, lost my beloved son Javier, and had to step away from a headship I had spent my career preparing for. For a moment, I was brought to my knees. But with time, reflection, and the support of loved ones, I am finding a new path. I’m reinventing myself—writing, painting, and thinking about what it means to live and lead bravely.

In this newsletter, I’ll share essays, stories, and glimpses of my art. My hope is that you’ll find resonance, courage, and companionship in these reflections.

Thank you for being here. Your presence means more than you know. Please share my substack with anyone you think might enjoy it, and if this isn’t for you, you can always unsubscribe with a click.

With love,

Rosanna