What Are You Going to Do with What You Know Now?
By: Annette Aviles
October 1, 2026 — 1:34 PM (This timeline & date is totally for me and what numerology has taught me IYKYK)
I thought I was going to a Zoom meeting to get answers. A date. A time. Something concrete I could secure and put into place. I asked for assistance. I asked for answers. And somehow, I got something else.
I GOT ME!
This morning, I sat with a friend I absolutely adore. One of those people who creates a space where I don't have to perform. I don't have to organize my thoughts into something pretty. I don't have to filter myself. I can just speak. The truth is that I have a small handful of people in my life who hold that kind of space. My sister is one of them. A remarkable human being and someone I love dearly and who also was part of this blog. There is something about being in the presence of people who don't need you to be anything other than yourself. This morning, I spoke with a clarity that felt different. No performance. No polishing. No trying to make the truth more digestible. Just truth!
At some point, I realized that when I hit a truth, when I really see something, there is a physical sensation that happens behind my eyes. Almost like a window opens. Today, that window opened up wide. I had been thinking about how I used to love a particular area. I drove through it again today, and it was still the same place, but somehow, it looked different. And I realized:
Maybe the place didn't change. Maybe I did.
That thought followed me into breakfast. We went to a little place called Toast. Of course we did. How appropriate. Because this has been a morning about being transformed without becoming someone else. And that realization made me think about the many versions of myself I've allowed to exist along the way.
I've explored Hermeticism. I've explored energy work. I've been fascinated by quantum mechanics and the questions it opens up about reality, observation, consciousness, possibility, and what we think we know. I've worked as a realtor and broker. I've planned, hosted, and volunteered at events. I've learned systems. I've navigated rules. I've played roles. I've built things. I've organized things. I've studied things. I've searched for answers in spiritual practices, intellectual frameworks, professional identities, relationships, experiences, and sometimes simply in the next thing that might illuminate something I couldn't yet see. For a long time, I might have thought some of those versions of me were separate. They aren't.
They all made me.
Every role taught me something. Every system gave me another lens; experience added another color to the palette. Even the things that didn't last belonged to the creation. So maybe this moment isn't about throwing away everything that came before. Maybe it's about finally seeing how all of it belongs. I've been circling this for a while. And then another thought came:
What am I going to do with what I know now?
That question landed differently. I was not asking, When will I be ready? or When will the circumstances be right? When will I get the date and time?
But: (WHAT!)
What am I going to do with what I know now?
It reminded me of a story a client shared with me, during our one-on-one session work. They had asked for something very specifically. They wanted it. They had been working toward it. And when the opportunity finally appeared, they heard what they understood to be the voice of God say: Not now. So, they waited. There was no elaborate explanation. Just not now. And something about that story stayed with me. Because maybe waiting isn't always about being denied. Maybe sometimes waiting is an invitation to listen. But there is another possibility I've circling around:
Maybe the question isn't about waiting at all. Maybe it is about choosing. That distinction matters. Because waiting can sometimes leave us looking outside ourselves for permission. Choosing brings us back inside. And then I thought about Isabella from Encanto. She is the archetype I recognize in myself: the girl who is seen as beautiful, composed, polished, pastel, perfect. The one who has it all together. And then she gets angry. And instead of producing another perfect flower, she creates a cactus. At first, the cactus seems like the wrong creation. Too prickly and unexpected. But then she looks at it. And something shifts. She realizes:
It's a creation.
And if she can make that... What else can she make? That is where I recognize myself I haven't become someone different. I'm still me. I'm just expressing myself differently. The same person. The same essence. Just wearing the same costume in different colors. Except now the pastels have become vivacious colors—neon pink, yellow, green...And black. Black makes me laugh. Because why not? Why shouldn't black be part of the palette? Why do I have to judge the creation simply because it isn't what I expected to create?
Maybe the cactus isn't a mistake, it could be evidence of possibility. And then something inside me said: Thank you for seeing me. And I started to cry and I wasn't even sad. Because I recognized something. And for one brief moment, it felt like another part of me could finally rest. Like she could say: You see me now. I can leave. And then I breathed out. And a booger came out of my nose. A perfectly ordinary, completely human booger. And I started laughing.
😂
There I was, sitting in the middle of what felt like a profound emotional and spiritual realization, crying one minute and laughing thirty seconds later because my own body had decided to punctuate the moment with a snot bubble. And honestly? It was perfect. Because maybe this is what integration actually looks like. Not floating away from being human. Being completely, hilariously human. Crying. Laughing. Breathing. Sniffling. Feeling something lift. And then suddenly worrying that if you laugh too hard while sitting in the car waiting for the Little to get out of school, you might pee yourself.
Talk about being human.
And now I keep coming back to the words that have been circling me:
Discovery. Discernment. Denial.
And today:
Remembrance. Recalling. Reckoning.
And perhaps now:
Response.
Because I know something now. So what am I going to do with it? I don't know yet. And maybe I don't have to know yet. Maybe the knowing itself is the beginning. Maybe the answer isn't another sign, another date, another time, another thing to secure. Maybe the answer is to stop waiting for permission to become the person I already am. To recognize that the spiritual work mattered. The intellectual exploration mattered. The Hermeticism mattered. The energy work mattered. The questions about quantum mechanics mattered. The real estate mattered. The brokerage mattered. The events mattered. The rules mattered. The roles mattered. The searching mattered. Not because any one of them contained the answer. But because all of them brought me here. They gave me language, experience, discernment, things to question, things to keep, things to release. They gave me colors. And now I get to decide what I make with them.
Maybe I don't have to become somebody new. Maybe I just have to give myself permission to create differently. To let the cactus grow, let the colors change, let the black make me laugh.
To allow the beautiful parts and the messy parts to exist in the same body. To trust that the woman I am doesn't require me to reject the women I've already been. And to remember that the place can look different even when it hasn't changed at all. Because sometimes... we are the ones who have changed.
And perhaps that's what this Zoom meeting was really about. I thought I was showing up to get an answer. Instead, I showed up to see myself. And now, at 6:30 PM on October 8, 2026, I'm showing up again. Not necessarily because I have everything figured out. But because I know something I didn't know before. And I intend to find out: What else can I create? And maybe, after everything I've explored, everything I've practiced, everything I've learned, everything I've been, the most important thing I can finally do is simply choose. There is still time to join the next Zoom. Send me a DM for the details. After all this, I chose.
Your move.
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