Burning It All To The Ground...
I haven't been in a classroom in four years.
After spending over two decades in schools, the last time I worked with kids in a school was June, 2022.
That shifted this summer in the most bizarre way possible.
Here's the story.
Within seven days in early June, I onboarded two new partners for my company, launched the Yinsa Foundation non-profit, and transitioned from an LLC to a Corporation.
The Yinsa Foundation partners Dominican Teachers from NYC with children in orphanages in the Dominican Republic. We provide summer enrichment programs that include Social-Emotional Learning, Art, Dance, Storytelling, and play therapy for the littlest learners. We hire teachers from the Dominican diaspora, bring them to DR, and co-create and execute a 4-week curriculum that culminates in an identity expo at the end of the summer. That expo was this past Tuesday, and it was better than anything I could have anticipated. I was a proud mama.
We did this in Seven. Days.
Four weeks later, we had already secured housing and flights for six teachers. Two bailed. One was replaced. In order to honor the commitment I made to a local orphanage, I stepped into a full time volunteer teaching gig for this brand new non-profit...While being the CEO of Yinsa, Inc. and onboarding two new partners. I had two overseas retreats to run and two non-sterilized dogs who needed fixing.
How did all this go?
Not overwhelmingly well, but there were a few wins.
First, the relationship and program we built at FONICRIS in La Romana was life-changing for everyone involved. From the teachers we brought from NYC to the kids at the orphanage, the feedback from staff, children, and educators was overwhelmingly positive. They are looking forward to working with Foundation once a month, all year.
The impact on my company, however, was not. Taking me out of the CEO seat and putting me in a teaching role for six hours a day, 5 days a week, hit Yinsa, Inc. hard. One partner transitioned into her role seamlessly, but the other struggled. After five weeks of Yinsa resources dedicated to her onboarding, she left the company.
It was the right move for all parties involved, but the fallout could potentially end Yinsa as we have known it for the last eight years.
I don't say that lightly.
What I'm realizing as I write this: The same problems and patterns that show up over and over in my personal life show up in my professional life as well. Everything I've birthed, in human and in creative form, faces the same problems.
How I do one thing is how I do everything.
I see the world as I am, not as it is.
I trust that people will honor commitments.
I trust that people will be honest and transparent and move with integrity.
I trust that people will give their all to everything they do.
I trust we will make mistakes, but we will own them and find a remedy.
I trust that we mean what we say and say what we mean.
I trust that when we create harm, we do whatever we can to fix it.
For me, all of this is not just non-negotiable. It's expected.
That's my biggest problem.
Expectations are illusions. They are based on the idea that we have control over how anything or anyone else behaves. We do not.
Yinsa wasn't born to make people rich or build anyone's portfolio. No one was thinking about seed rounds or capital infusions in 2018. I didn't build a company for aquisition. I built it to have a creative outlet for my own healing.
This company was born from a woman who worked her entire life to get out of survival mode and never felt like she could. It wasn't because she wasn't talented or skilled or educated, but because she'd lived a lifetime of trauma and never believed that slowing down long enough to heal was possible.
I built Yinsa because the type of healing experiences I needed didn't exist, so I created them. The Yinsa container combines healing with learning and vulnerability and movement in magical ways. It makes people feel safe.
Maybe I don't need that version of Yinsa anymore, and now I have to create something else.
What does that mean for you? Growth.
Yinsa's focus for 2027 is less about healing and more about magic . Our retreats are centered on expansion. Flourishing. Thriving. Softness and serenity over pain and grief and suffering.
We are focused on what we are building in our lives, not what we are leaving behind.
I learned that sending all my attention toward healing often gave me more things to heal. Focusing on growth gives me more opportunities to grow.
I'm choosing to move forward rather than remaining stuck in the past. I invite you to join me.
Our Fall book club is reading Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab. We start August 24th in the LiveYinsa Collective. The cost is $11, 100% of which goes to support the Yinsa Foundation. We are currently planning the Foundation's summer fellowship for 2027, and our goal is to expand to 2 more orphanages in Dominican Republic each summer for the next 3 years. You get boundaries, kids get playtime.
Click below to join the book club...
Thanks for reading another diatribe on change. Being a Scorpio is exhausting. If there's a typo, forgive me. Perfectionism is a trauma response.
With Gratitude,
Daniele
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