Dear Community, I wrote this piece several years ago and I always loved it, but for some reason, I never published it. It feels especially relevant now. We judge one another, we rank people, we take our own customs, beliefs, and ways of seeing the world and mistake them for universal truth. Then we create stories about those who live differently—and forget that they are stories. I feel that this is the way distance becomes hierarchy, hierarchy becomes contempt, and cont

Dear Community, In the last newsletter, I intended to publish some of the answers I received to "My Neighbor, The Spy", but there was a glitch in the editing software and I ended up publishing only the pictures that Stacey B. sent. So here are some of the answers I received from you: Stacey B. said: "My favorite sitting spot is on my pool deck after a swim, looking into my yard. That’s where my butterfly garden is and the bluebird houses. I also love watching the bees

Dear Community, It is a beautiful summer morning. There’s the familiar hum of the busy street in the background. In the trees nearby, a bunch of Northern Cardinals have a lot to say to each other (or to me? or the ethers?). I can hear the chickadees, too, and the Carolina Wrens. And here’s the melancholy cooing that might belong to the Mourning Dove, or to one of the three owls that populate the little forest behind our backyard. A squirrel just lost her footing and is no

Dear Community, Today's newsletter is an Aquarium Sleepover Trip Report Who and why I wanted to celebrate the end of our 30-Day Reset. What a great success that was, by the way! Will most likely do it again. 5 women said yes. One almost chickened out of the trip (in her own words). Because who has aquarium sleepovers other than 10 year-olds? And why would anyone even consider an aquarium sleepover? Because on paper, it sounds incredible. Wouldn't YOU want to share

Dear Community, This morning, during the 30-Day Reset, inspired by my friend Alia, we made a list of the things we love (bonus points were earned if the things on the list were free). I was so excited by the shares in our group and by the things that I, myself have uncovered, that I have decided to make today’s newsletter about this list! Would love to hear from you, your list of things that you love and dream of. Here’s my list: Listening to the first three minutes

Dear Community, My family was away this weekend, and for the first time in fifteen years, I had the house entirely to myself for two full days. I felt excited and curious about what might unfold, and a little scared, too. Sleeping alone in an empty house has never been easy for me. Saturday morning, after a walk and a very slow breakfast, I found myself in a place of confusion. (I am not even sure why I eat so quickly most of the time. I suspect it is a habit I developed when

Dear Community, Did you know that having your smart phone in the same room as yourself will lower your cognitive capacity? Adrian F. Ward et al. (2017), "Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity." This is the famous study that looks at how the MERE PRESENCE of one's cell phone on your desk, or in the room affects working memory and fluid intelligence (defined as one's ability to think, reason, solve new problems, and make

Dear Community, As I have been diving head first into what I call my soul's work, a few legit questions are coming up. What is the soul? Does everyone have a soul? Do souls talk to each other? What constitutes souls's work? How do you know it is your soul's work vs. inflation of the ego? What is inflation of the ego? These questions are not abstract for me, they're coming up because I'm in the middle of something, building what I can only call my soul's work- and I keep r

Dear Community, Tomorrow is the last day of the 21-Day Reset. What an amazing experience! I loved every moment of it and it seems like the participants, did, too. On June 2nd I am opening a slightly longer and bigger container of transformation, and that is a 30-Day Reset. If you are a woman and you feel stuck, confused, phone-dependent, unclear as to what your role in the world is, scared, please join us. The community is supportive and kind, the morning practices give rh

Dear Community, My interview with VoyageBaltimore (the obscurest of the most obscure online publications) was published. Nevertheless, I am proud, because they had an interest and I got to tell my story one more time. Here's the link: https://voyagebaltimore.com/interview/inspiring-conversations-with-corina-fratila-of-ideal-endocrinology And now that I got that out of the way, here's this week's newsletter! Looking back at 54 years of life, well spent or completely wast

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just named the pharmaceutical dependency crisis from the highest podium in American health. What he didn't say: the chemical imbalance theory has already been debunked. AUBREY MARCUS MAY 11 On May 4th, 2026, the Secretary of Health and Human Services walked to a podium at the Make America Healthy Again Institute and named a truth that has been buried under fifty years of marketing copy. Kennedy laid out the numbers without flinching. Sixteen percent of A

Dear Community, I was in a women’s circle this weekend, and at the beginning of the gathering one of the women drew the “Prostitute” archetype card from Caroline Myss’s Archetypes deck. She didn’t seem thrilled about it, but I felt an immediate resonance with the card. The timing was strange. The night before, I had been thinking about how I had never seen the Prostitute archetype represented in any oracle decks, and privately judging the creators' community for avoiding

Dear community, I just returned from a brief trip to the Hudson Valley in New York State, Woodstock, to be more precise. I went to meet with a group of women led by Dr. Catherine Svehla https://mythicmojo.com and we went on a "Psyche’s Quest". We had three days of discussing the story of Psyche and Eros- if you are not familiar with this Greek myth, I think it is a very good idea to look into it. Here’s the text from Project Gutenberg (as told by Apuleius, in George Carpen

Dear community, Here's the Cambridge Dictionary definition of a compliment: "A remark that expresses approval, admiration, or respect." Clean and simple, and yet — for most of my life, receiving one felt anything but clean. I grew up around people who gave compliments generously, almost artistically: "You look so good." "Your sweater is beautiful." And yet, something in my body would tighten every time. Because I could feel — even as a child — that underneath the words

Dear community, Here’s the Cambridge Dictionary definition of exorcism: 1. The process of forcing an evil spirit to leave a person or a place by using prayers or magic. 2. The act of removing the bad effects of a frightening or upsetting event. It’s kind of hard to wrap our minds steeped in the conditioning of the modern life around the concepts above. So I will try to explain what I personally mean by exorcism, because talking about evil spirits might not drive my point home

Dear community, I would like to report miracles that are happening. Last week’s newsletter was all about the “why”. Why do I even bother. Why do I take one day a week and who knows how many hours of rumination to publish a newsletter that not so many people read? My answer to that question is (and has been for a while now): community. I am actively searching and listening deeply to cues from the field as to how to either find a community where I can be fully myself or c

With love, (a tiny sprinkle of) rage, and reverence, Your disorganized, recovering people-pleaser and community-dreamer, Corina

Dear community. I have been having this nagging feeling that there are certain relationships in my life where I don’t show up as my most authentic self all the time. Specifically, the relationships that are the closest to me and even more specifically, the pattern shows up when I am tired. The best way I can describe this non-authentic self is “people pleasing”. People pleasing is a particular kind of prison that looks virtuous from the outside: I am defined as the kin

Dear community, It’s 11:43am and I’m still in bed- not because I’m tired, but because I am still questioning if I should send this newsletter out or keeping it in my draft folder. There’s a specific anxiety that shows up for me ever since I’ve committed to building something of my own. It whispers: Is this valuable? Am I actually helping anyone? And maybe even more uncomfortably: Is this just exhibitionism? I have no idea if this will help anyone else. But I do know for sure

With love, (a tiny sprinkle of) rage, and reverence, Corina