The January Performance Review
We’re being hunted right now
🌿 Uncharted Wellness is built on curiosity, travel, and the pursuit of feeling well wherever life takes you. If this story resonates, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps me keep exploring, writing, and creating the kind of honest reflections that bring us back to ourselves. Every subscription means the world but simply having you here, reading and reflecting, is already the greatest gift.
January is a hunt.
We are being chased by the people we are told we are supposed to become in 2026. You know the one… the person who wakes up at five, finally masters their gut, gets in the best shape of their life, and optimizes every second until there is no room left for a single messy thought.
Or, if you spend time in the “wellness corner” of the internet, you are being hunted by the opposite. The pressure to be softer, slower, calmer. To basically “self care” yourself into a puddle of essential oils and an expensive credit card bill from a magical green drink supplement that promises everything.
Either way, the message is the same in that you need to change something. Fix something. Improve something.
That you, as you sit here right now, are a project that needs finishing.
I understand why January carries so much weight and promise. A new year feels symbolic and clean slate energy is seductive. But January has always felt so heavy to me. I feel it in my bones that deep pressure and feeling that I am not enough, and that I’m not doing enough.
It feels like an uninvited performance review for my entire existence. It makes me want to curl up, hide from the world, and especially hide from social media and this why I’ve been a little MIA.
Because when I buy into that mentality, when I start looking at my life through the lens of optimization and self improvement, I lose the very thing that makes me good at what I do and what makes me “me”.
I lose the sense that I am enough.
It creates the idea that the present version of me, the Erica typing this, is somehow inadequate. And she is not, there is nothing wrong with her.
So I am opting out of that energy this year. I do not want a personal renovation project and I do not want or need to fix myself. I want to return to myself. The only question I want to be asking right now is this
What can I do more of that makes me feel like myself?
Because “success” or living life to the fullest for me, is not about becoming someone new.
It is about being fully and unapologetically at home with who I already am.
Found this gem of a photo from Porto.
The Word I Am Carrying Into This Year
As I sit with all of this, one word keeps surfacing for me.
Intention.
Not resolutions.
Not goals.
Not optimization disguised as “self care”.
Intention feels different in that it feels grounded instead of performative. Curious instead of corrective and supportive instead of punishing.
And when I listen closely, this is what intention looks like in my own life.
Travel Dreams
I am fully back on my quest to visit seventy five countries.
Those who have known me for years know how deeply important this is to me. When I was twenty five, I said I wanted to reach seventy five countries by the time I turned forty, and I know without question that I will.
Plenty of people told me it was impossible. That it was too expensive, extremely unrealistic and that my career and business decisions did not make sense, and honestly all this kinda makes me laugh now as they were so wrong. And yes, I will admit it in that I do enjoy proving people wrong ;)
Because this dream of mine did not distract me from my life. It built it.
Travel is my soul and it is how I breathe. Every time I arrive somewhere new, my nervous system settles. Everything I think I know gets challenged, softened, expanded and I evolve as a human being every place I go.
I do not travel to escape my life. I travel to feel more alive inside it. Most nights, I fall asleep thinking about places I have not been yet and this is absolute magic to me.
Uncharted Wellness is for people who do not fit neatly into wellness boxes.
It is for those navigating sensitive bodies, chronic conditions, travel, change, and curiosity, all at the same time. It is for people who want to feel better in their bodies and nervous systems without turning themselves into a project.
Here, I write about movement, health, travel, and being human in a way that is lived, not marketed. Some weeks you will get deep dives into the nervous system or chronic illness. Other weeks you will get reflections from the plane, quiet observations, or the things I am currently learning in real time.
If that resonates, you are very welcome here.
Supporting Community
Lately, I have felt a strong pull back toward community. It really hit me as I wrote my article on European Christmas Markets.
Especially I am tired of big corporations and I am tired of not knowing where my money goes. And while I know we cannot avoid them entirely, I want to be more intentional about where I spend when I have the choice.
I want to support local first and then ideally businesses that give back when available. A thought I have this month is trying to buy all my produce from local farmers markets instead of larger grocery stores.
Also, I used to buy all my books on Amazon until I found Bookshop.org, a platform that supports local bookstores with every purchase and now, I cannot imagine going back.
Teaching Around the World Again
After taking time off the past two years to focus on my health, I am ready to return to teaching in studios around the world.
This part of my life lights me up as I love meeting new people and teaching in unfamiliar places. Experiencing teaching through different cultures and environments is something that is actually hard for me to give words. What comes to mind is it’s magnetic, challenging in a good way, and so rewarding.
I am deeply grateful to the studios that have partnered with me and trusted me during the past two years when my health required patience and unfortunately rain checks.
That trust means more to me than I can fully explain.
One of the most rewarding parts of my work now is covering studios so owners can take time off. I spent years teaching forty to fifty hours a week in studios without breaks, and that pace is what led me to burn out in 2019. But I’m also grateful for this because it's what encouraged me to start my online teaching business and studio cover role. Being able to support studio owners so they can rest, travel, and step away, knowing their space is cared for, is an honor I never take for granted.
Sunrises and Sunsets
One of my simplest intentions this year is also one of my favorites.
I want to witness as many sunrises and sunsets as possible and to just be present. To not have to feel like I have to document everything in my life.
Nature is a free, daily gift we rush past far too often. Sunrises and sunsets are quiet reminders that something steady and beautiful is always unfolding, whether we are paying attention or not.
For two years I did not have a phone and it was challenging at times, but I was calmer and more present. Now, I am trying to figure out a healthy balance. Maybe it is taking only a few photos of something, and hoping for the best, and then letting myself actually live in the moment. I mean you can probably tell from other articles that photography is not my strong suit so am I really missing anything?
Because you miss the world when you only experience it through a screen.
Writing From the Soul and Not the Algorithm
This Substack exists because I genuinely love helping people and because journalism was my first degree ;).
The past 10 years I have done a lot of freelancing for larger publications and now that I have my own I kinda forget that I do not need permission to do whatever I want here. That realization has been humbling and confusing as I find my footing on this platform.
I catch myself planning content calendars, researching keywords, and analyzing ask the public for topics, and then I remember that I do not want to write for the algorithm and that I want to actually write from my soul.
I know that this is not the fastest path to growth/visibility in 2026 BUT it is the most honest one.
And this is where I am going to be blunt.
I am frustrated by what Substack is becoming. I am frustrated by influencers importing massive followings and by large publications doing the same. I am so especially sick of all the articles “How I made $40K in 6 months” and this kinda bullshit. It dilutes the experience and makes it harder for smaller, independent writers to be seen.
If the Substack gods are listening, I wish everyone had to start at zero with no imported email lists. Essentially no shortcuts. To let people find your work, read it, and choose to stay. There are so many thoughtful, intimate, beautifully written small publications here that deserve far more attention than they get, and I will try to do a better job this year of sharing these publications.
I also cannot possibility write in a niche to further my “growth” on this platform. I love travel AND health and wellness and some days I will write about neuroplasticity or the one yoga pose I do daily. While other days I will write about Paris or Christmas markets or my current obsession with spirit animals (hello bee 🐝). That is how my mind works and I don’t want to change a thing about it!
Word of mouth is how I have slowly grown my online business, and I would love for this space to grow the same way and it feels so freeing to say this.
Who I Am
As I’ve been in an introspective bubble these past few weeks I have been fully diving with fully intention back into Human Design. With all my surgeries and health sagas I’ve found myself a little loss the past few months, and I think human design is a really great tool to help you reconnect and almost rediscover yourself.
I am a Projector with Splenic Authority and a five one profile and yes I know this sounds crazy and it can be complex. In a nutshell - I am not built to grind or hustle endlessly, I am designed to see patterns, guide others when invited, and make decisions based on a quiet, instinctive knowing in my body. I go deep before I share, and when I do, it is because I have lived it, studied it, and tested it. Protecting my energy and trusting my intuition is not optional for me it is true alignment.
Recently, I went down a rabbit home and I was going to put this behind a paywall BUT I think we all could benefit and use this right now. First, I journaled the below questions:
Where in my life do I already feel most like myself?
What consistently drains me?
What am I doing out of habit rather than alignment?
Where do I feel most alive, curious, and present?
Then I uploaded my answers, along with my Human Design chart (you can get a free one here, Jenna Zoe also has great resources), into ChatGPT and asked it one question.
Based on this, what is my biggest gift and purpose to the world?
The response completely stopped me in my tracks.
“To work with people all over the world to help them feel better in their bodies and nervous systems so they can live fully, travel, and not be limited by pain or chronic illness.”
DAMMMMMNNN.
Sometimes clarity apparently arrives from AI, and this was really helpful to me right now as it’s simplified my life and what I was put on this earth to do.
So No, January Is Not About Fixing Me
It is about returning home.
Letting intention show up through travel that expands me, and growth that trusts becoming more myself is enough.
If January feels heavy for you, let this be your permission slip in that you do not need to reinvent yourself to have a meaningful or “great” year. You are allowed to stay exactly where you are and this is absolutely beautiful.
The Weekly Wandering (yes I’m bringing it back!)
Anchored: This has been my nighttime read lately. It’s a great book on finding little moments in the day to calm your nervous system and I’m also a big fan of Polyvagal theory.
Gua Sha: I’ve been doing Gua Sha on my face for years as it just makes me feel grounded, and I look so much more awake after doing it! This is a YouTube video I’ve been loving, it’s so peaceful with no talking, and you just follow along.
Cymbiotika Irish Sea Moss: I’ll be honest, I’m still unsure about the benefits of Irish Sea Moss, but I love the taste. It’s become my little afternoon sweet treat.
Function Health: This has honestly saved my life. They discovered my iron was extremely low, something no one had thought to test. I’ve been getting iron IVs and I feel so much better. I can’t recommend it enough!
Going: I love this site. I just booked a $250 roundtrip flight to El Salvador in February and currently counting down the days till surf and sunshine.
Little Things: Look closely, and you’ll see the cutest dog peeking out of a window. He makes me inexplicably happy.
Breakfast Obsession: I’ve been on a huge apple and date kick with cinnamon lately. So simple and so good.
Omg we should chat about human design! I’ve also fallen down the rabbit hole. Great post!