MY MANIFESTO FOR VALUES CENTERED LIVING

Call me crazy, but I want to live in a world where honesty, integrity, bravery & truth are core values that we hold as a collective. And not just the pretty, convenient truths but the inconvenient ones too. The kind that require emotional vulnerability, courage, uncomfortable conversations & drawing clear lines in the sand. 

I want the messy decisions to be applauded. The ones we make based on our inner truths & most passionate core values, not solely on how they impact our wallet. Where, as a community, we touch & agree that our bottom line must be about igniting our fire, sparking our inner genius, continuous self-discovery, taking radical responsibility for our needs, and being in integrity with our own soul.

 Not just the dollars & cents. 

Hell-fucking-naw. 

I want us to grow brave enough to show up to this life as ourselves and to know with every fiber of our being that someone will be there to greet us the moment we take our mask off by saying, “Me too. You are not alone.”

I know this is pie-in-the-sky level shit and yet….it’s my dream.

That we each feel emboldened by our own unique desires & passions…without them being overshadowed by fears that we can’t have both, the dream AND a deeply nourishing love. Or that surrendering to our passions will relegate us to spending our entire lives financially hovering just above the poverty line, barely getting by. 

 I don’t want to have to abandon myself to succeed. 

I don’t want to become completely unrecognizable to the people I know & love to succeed.

I don’t want to have to discard my dreams to succeed. 

I don’t want to have to stop cursing, talking about kinky sex, or my deep devotion to God to succeed.

 I want it all.

For me and for you, too. This freedom is for all of us.

So I dream of a world where women & girls feel free to choose themselves first and create soulfully, thoughtfully, diligently, intentionally created lives that light them up. Lives that deeply matter to them. Where we’re encouraged to trust ourselves, to listen to ourselves, and to turn inward before we turn outward. A world where the heroine’s journey is celebrated and venturing off the beaten path is both the goal AND standard. Where exploration, creativity & curation are the only norms we’re pushed to follow and where the most profound questions always lead us back to ourselves. 

 I truly believe there’s only ONE thing that we’re all sent here to do:

Show up our lives with radical honesty, a willingness to surrender to What Is, and a commitment to let go of anything & everyone that tells us that we can’t be the person our soul is telling us to be (yes, in my world this is ONE thing, lol ). But this all starts with vulnerability & truth. 

 So listen to that small voice that keeps telling you, 

"There’s more for you than this.” 

Trust it. And follow it like your life depends on it…

because it actually does.

I WAS WRONG ABOUT SUCCESS.

I've recently redefined my personal definition of what it means to live a successful life. 
And I think it's a definition worth sharing. 

I used to think it was about leaving a financial legacy for others, who my (potential future) child might become, the impactful products I could create or simply having the ability to do whatever I want, whenever I want, every single day.

But this phase of my life has taught me that my beliefs are actually much simpler.
That less really does mean more.

A successful life, for me, is one that doesn't require me to betray myself just to exist in this world.
One where I don't befriend people who ask me to betray myself.
One where I don't partner and/or make love to people who ask me to betray myself.
One where I don't work with people who ask me to betray myself (or around those who betray themselves). 
One where I don't intentionally self sabotage as a means of betraying the very essence of who I am.

The truth is, I've never thought I was inferior to anyone (and I've recently heard from enough elementary school teachers to know I've been like this a LONG time!).
On the contrary, it's my incredible power that I've often been afraid of.
And most of the time when I've found myself in trouble, it's because I was busy trying to fit into spaces I didn't belong, with people who brought out the smallest version of myself.
So staying in my power is what I focus on now.

I've come to understand that the best gift I can give this world is all of me, fully expressed. And what that looks like may change from moment to moment but....I'm now clear that it's really all I can endeavor to give.

What does a fully expressed Dayka look like?, you may ask. 
Good question.

Right now it looks like traveling the world to recover bits of my soul in random cities, leaning into affirming & unexpected human connections, telling the truth & teaching others to tell theirs, working & living alongside people who honor their values, and--most importantly--making sure there is always a period after my "No".

Not a comma. 

To be honest, your "success" will always leave you feeling unfulfilled if you haven't done the work of grounding/quantifying/qualifying/defining it for yourself. Anything less than that means you're on the fast track to wasting your entire life trying to live up to someone else's definition--one that you don't even believe in.
One that turns you into a second rate version of yourself.
One makes you become someone your soul knows it's not meant to be.
And that kinda life ain't a life worth living. 

So if you haven't taken the time to define success for yourself....please do so.
Please.
Because every day without clarity is a day you can't get back.
And I know some people may fight me on this but.....your PERSONAL definition of success shouldn't be about something outside of you like your kids or your partner or your parents or even how other people receive the work that you put into the world.
Because these are things (or people) that will ALWAYS be beyond your control.
And personal success is about YOU & the things you CAN control. 
I don't think I understood that before.
That's why I was wrong. 

So if you know your personal definition of success & want to share it with me, hit "reply" to let me know what moves you. 
I love hearing from you guys.

THE PURPOSE OF WORK.

Two weeks ago my mother's best friend's husband unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack. This woman was like a sister to her, and I know her as an aunt...their kids are like cousins. My "uncle" was just a few months short of retirement from an esteemed career at Chevron and as expected, it's been a hard reality for the family to face.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about how close he was to retirement which in turn, has made me think a lot about work. About the purpose of it and, of course, what we're really doing with the finite, unknown about of time we have on this earth. Thank God he was happy with his.

I've shared this before, but I actually think a lot about death because for me it's a reminder that I don't have the luxury to bet against time that has not been guaranteed to me. I use that as a way to stay motivated, ESPECIALLY as it pertains to all of the work I still want to produce. There is SO much I want to do, and I'm constantly reminding myself:

You're not gonna be here forever, Dayka--do it now. Here's the thing: how you think about what "work" means--and more specifically, the value of YOUR work in the world--is one of the single most important factors to influence how you'll spend the majority of your days. 

We get so caught up with using work as a way to meet our goals, instead of embracing the idea that meaningful work actually IS the goal, that we miss some of the most important questions:

How are you making a contribution to the world with your work? What are you allowing to come through you?

If your work is just a way for you to buy nice things & pay for vacations, then you stay in a perpetual cycle of working to reach the next milestone. And it's never enough, because as soon as you grab the carrot that's right in front of you, you jump right back on the hamster wheel hungry for the next milestone.

So you're basically working to get your next "fix".Just like a drug addict.

No thought is actually given to the work itself, it's just "I need to make $X/month so I can go buy xxx." And your life ends up being subdivided by shit you probably won't remember when you're staring down your last days.

And here's the thing: if this is what you really want--what you're INTENTIONALLY choosing for yourself--then there's nothing wrong with this path. Work your job, buy your stuff, and rinse & repeat as much as possible until your body just can't do it anymore. If that truly makes you happy, then do you, boo.

But if it doesn't, then it's time to do something different.

The only thing about this journey to purposeful work is, there's no one right answer for everybody. What works for me might not work for you. The places I've found success could potentially be failures for you (and vice versa!). But when you recognize that the value is in the journey and not just in the destination, concepts like "failure" and "success" take on a completely different meaning.

They don't really mean anything, actually. 

If you see work as integral to your soul's growth, then the journey of creating a life becomes focused on the process of work itself--of working to uncover your path, acknowledging the dead ends & embracing the forks in the road, the fuck-ups AS WELL AS the achievements. If you see it as your obligation to the world--for occupying space on this planet--then you get that you have to continuously bring everything you are to your work. And that at its highest,

Your work is supposed to be a reflection of who you are. 

This doesn't mean that you're always going to LIKE what you're doing at every step along the way, but it does mean that your essential quest is about much more than just "making money".

Going to Disneyworld. Buying new countertops.The latest 70" flat screen tv.Or a new Tesla. Buying stuff.

These things may add value to your life, but they should never be the source of the value. 

Being mindful about what you put into the world isn't just about watching the words that come out of your mouth--it's also about what you're intentionally creating for the world in a way that only you can do. It's about beign open to the fact that what you THINK you're here to do may not in fact be what you end up doing..and instead fighting against that change, you allow yourself to embrace it. It's about getting really comfortable with the unknown.

The naked-in-bed kinda comfortable.

Because when you commit to growing your soul, there are no guarantees on this path(and there are no guarantees on ANY path, btw). You'll meet a lot of unknowns & seemingly scary places....places where there's not always a quick fix for what's ailing you.But if you're one of the people who can lay their heads down at night believing that what you do matters,

Then you've got something special. Something worth holding onto. Something worth fighting for.

Your beliefs about how you live & move in this world matter, and if you don't know exactly what you believe....this is where you must start. This is your work.

What you do in this world matters.Don't ever believe that it doesn't. 

**also, yesterday I released a very cool Black Book of Solo Travel for the woman who wants to know how to safely travel the world like the badass she is. And it's only $10. Click the link to head to my shop to check it out.**

THE REAL DEAL MONEY TALK.

I could be making more money.  I SHOULD be making more money.

The truth is that there are things that I KNOW that I know, and I have no doubt that my areas of expertise could be an immense help to so many people.

I am a thinker at heart and I'm always reframing experiences, words & ideas. I have ideas for hosting seminars and retreats and writing books and making jewelry and designing shirts and building authentic communities where people really EXPERIENCE one another.....but few of those ideas have actually gotten beyond the door of my office.

Because for as much as you SEE me do...there's triple the amount of things I don't do. And I have a lot of very "rational", "logical" reasons for this, of course. The standard lies we tend to tell ourselves when we get scared & decide that tapping out would be easier than doing the work.

The idea isn't ready yet. It's not a good time for this. I'm not ready. I'm waiting on ____ to help me with _____. I don't know how to do it. (<<--my all time favorite)

But these, my friends, are lies. And because I've been telling lies, my income isn't doing what it could be doing. It's not doing what it SHOULD be doing. And in case you were wondering, apparently there IS in fact a direct correlation between telling lies & making money. Just FYI.

Monday I had an early morning, major breakthrough about my work, my business and what's actually holding me back. I wasn't even consciously thinking about it but the revelation showed up anyway:

I'm afraid that making more money will require me to live a life that I don't want.

That more money will demand I become drastically more entangled & stressed in the everydayness of life, and that I might end up with so much responsibility that I feel like I'm suffocating. 

And suffocating is a big fear of mine.

In work and in my relationships, I'm afraid of feeling like there's not enough space for me to be me. Like I will be drowned.  

Because after growing up constantly feeling and being told that who I was, what I looked like & how I spoke was "too black/white", "too much" or "too grown", I've evolved into a woman who's very protective her essence. I may not have had a choice as a child, but I certainly have one now. And I exercise it. 

But stepping into the kind of success I imagine for myself means I'm going to have a lot more things going on. And I never knew, until this week, that somewhere deep down, the idea of  "a lot more things going on" makes me feel like I may not be able to be ME.

Now I understand why I've been both pulling close & pushing away the very things that I want most. This is a huge ah-ha in my world.

I know several people who make anywhere from multiple six to multiple seven figure incomes and when I look at their lives, I don't see anything that I want. I don't believe in being stressed out, over committed, sick, exhausted all the time or endlessly complaining.

Yet I see a lot of this in them.And it's a major turnoff for me.

I somehow started equating more projects & more financial abundance with what they have: Stress. And it's made me recoil.

And I get that this may sound a bit odd to you but I think it's important to tell the truth about how we feel, no matter how it may sound to others. So I am.

My truth is that I'm afraid of being trapped with too much responsibility in a life I fundamentally don't want. Because I actually love how I live now....I just want MORE. 

So I've been unpacking this idea all week, and I've come up with a ton of ideas & thoughts and my work. Things I'll tell you more about in another post.

But here's what I know for now:

That it's time to really get to work. To do what I could&should be doing.

The reality is that I love money. Not for what it can buy, but for who it helps me to become & how it helps me show up in the world. So I'm not serving myself--or anyone else--by avoiding a life of greater abundance. That's Bible. 

It actually is NOT easier to avoid doing the work.

If there's a chance I'm gonna be "suffocated" by doing the work or "suffocated" by not getting the work out/being able to live the kind of life I want then....I'd rather take the chance and create art. And to move forward trusting that the road will be paved along the way.

So I am.

And if any of this resonates with you, please leave a comment or drop me an email. I'd love to hear from you.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MY WORK & HOW IT’S CHANGING.

I’ve been hiding something I need to be honest about.
For the past 10 months I haven’t really been telling the full, unadulterated truth.
Partly because I thought I needed to ease myself into it.
Partly because I was waiting for more answers.
Mostly because it’s another turning point in my life…and turning points can feel scary. It’s just so much easier to keep going forward when you think you know exactly what the road ahead holds.

But of course, that's some straight up bullshit 'cause we NEVER really know about the journey ahead with absolute certainty.
And now I've come to the point where the thought of staying still right where I am is more uncomfortable than the thought of just saying what needs to be said.

So here's my truth:

I love interior design.
I believe the real impact of design is much deeper than beautiful drapery & rich pillows & imported rugs & handmade tiles...but I love those aspects of it too.
I love how it feels to create spaces that make people say, "This is exactly what I wanted, I just didn't know how to tell you."
I love that I've made a space for myself out of thin air. I didn't fill someone's job description and what I'm doing--who I am + HOW I'm doing it--didn't exist until I was born. I'm pretty damn proud of that.
Hear me again: MY BUSINESS LITERALLY DIDN'T EXIST UNTIL I CREATED IT.
I love that I've been able to make a name for myself as a designer--that people have found value in the service I provide and that I've created work I can take pride in. I've designed amazing things with great companies and been exposed to some opportunities that I never, ever imagined myself having.

I like design a lot. I'll even say that I love design. But I'm not obsessed with it. 

I don't think about the blind spots to my design approach while I'm driving around.
I don't obsessively read every design book by every famous designer that's ever been published because I don't even own most of them. Matter of fact, I couldn't really care less.
My design magazines come in the mail and pile up for months because I don't immediately devour them to make style notebooks like I used to in the early days.
I no longer aim to fill my calendar with every single design event in Atlanta.
I don't care to stay in the know on all of the design blogger news and professional industry "scuttlebutt".
Something indeed, has shifted.
I like design. I even love design. But I'm just not there anymore. I've grown.
 

I know without a doubt that my greatest work is the work that is yet ahead of me--the work that's been waiting ever so patiently to be created. It revolves around Personal Empowerment, Personal Responsibility, Honesty, Authenticity and specifically, the Empowerment of Women (it's some serious work--it needs to be capitalized).

I think about it all of the time. 
I read about it all of the time.
I talk about it all of the time. (if you've ever had more than a 30 minute conversation with me, you can vouch for this!)
I write about it.
I post on social media about it.
I unpack it endlessly with my closest friends. 
We could be talking about a combination of your medical history, a 1964 Mustang, the weather in Istanbul & the benefits of Kale as a super green and I promise you--somehow, someway, I will bring that conversation back to Personal Empowerment. It's just how my mind makes sense of the world.
 
Telling the truth. Owning your own shit. Self care. Making empowering decisions. Personal responsibility. THESE are the things I want to spend my life working on.

I want to speak to groups, conferences & students about to remind them that Personal Power is a Personal Job. Coach women on uncovering & staying in alignment with their deepest values. Write books on how & the why. Host retreats for women creating authentic connections & empowered lives. Author articles. And boldly explore the corners of this world both on my own & with groups of courageous women. Annnnnndddddd....you know what??
I want to design some beautiful spaces here & there, too.
A few super cool projects every year for wonderful, bad ass clients with great budgets who love me, love my approach and TRUST me to do my thing.

Wait--did you expect me to say I was quitting design?? 
 

No--that's not exactly where I was going with this.
It's more about being radically honest with myself AND with you. And to serve as your personal reminder that life WILL change...and when it does it's so much easier to go where it is taking you than to fight against it. Nine times out of ten it will lead you to the place you most want to be anyhow, you just don't know it in this moment. So just relax & go with the flow. Trust me on this.

Yes, I still want to take on some design projects, but I'm looking for the RIGHT people and the RIGHT projects.
Cool projects, good budgets, funny, fun, quirky, interesting people...the kind of folks that carry their own pixie dust and know it.

And since I'm being so honest, let me just keep it 1000: 

It takes courage to turn business away when a glance at your bank statement reminds you that the easy way out is to betray yourself & just take the money anyway. It's one thing to talk about taking a stand for yourself & ONLY doing work you really love with people you really want to work with but....actually doing it?? This is a completely different ballgame, my friends. It's scary and empowering. Crazy and commendable. The kinda work that will put a bit of hair on your chest. There's no husband, partner, or sugar daddy over here to share the load--just me by myself (and God!) doing the very best I can to make it happen. Every.single.day. Me & my ballsy self.

Getting clear about your values, about who you are and then living in a way that conveys personal integrity is at the very core of sharing this publicly. Showing up for MYSELF. Making sure that who I ACTUALLY AM and who I SAY I AM are the exact same woman. This is some boss work, my friends, and while it may not be for everybody.....

IT IS FOR ME.

THIS IS MY JOURNEY.

So here's what I'm looking for:

If you're in need of design services--residential design, commercial design or brand -- you've got a few dollars to spend and *you're super cool, I'd love to hear from you. It could be a small project, a big project, a production project--but it must be interesting. Let's do something bold and have fun! You should be ready & willing to hire a designer and most importantly, you should want to work with ME, specifically. If you fit the bill, just reply to this email and let's see how we can create magic together.

If you are a woman who could use a little bit of my Personal Empowerment pixie dust--who's ready to evolve to the next level but isn't quite sure how to do it, who knows you've got some blind spots & you're ready face them head on, I'd LOVE to hear from you. I'd love to work with you and help you learn how to empower YOURSELF in a way that feels right for you. No more stories about him. About her. About what happened. About why it sucked. About why the business isn't working. About why you can't do whatever it is that you know you're supposed to be doing right now. Just you--right where you are, right here & right now--and me together, working together to move you forward into who you KNOW you're destined to be. If I'm talking to you, please drop me a line (reply to this email). I would LOVE to work with you. L.O.V.E. And if you're not sure that I'm talking to you, here's how to know: if you're reading this and getting a tingle then yeah, I'm talking to you. When you know that you know, you KNOW.

In the meantime, thank you for your support. For reading my words & sharing them with your friends, for hiring me to design your most intimate spaces & for always, aways ALWAYS cheering me on. It means more than I could ever adequately express.
 
Trust me when I say this is only the beginning.

**And FYI, you cannot vouch for your own cool factor--someone must have actually TOLD YOU that you were cool. Folk need to be vetted!! ;-) **

Xo,
d.