Can I Get To Know You?

Letters From The In-Between: Can I Get To Know You {{ subscriber.first_name }}?

​Vanessa Santos

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Ten letters since January. I wrote every single one myself.

No ghostwriter, no content team, no AI reviewing my grief, composing some story and calling it authentic. Just me at my desk at random hours of the day, telling the truth about what I’m seeing, in the world, in business, in myself, because I believe that saying the thing out loud is one of the most radical acts left.

That’s two months of showing up even through the discomfort. And somewhere in those two months, something happened I didn’t fully anticipate.

You became real to me.

Not “audience” real. Not “open rate” real. Actually real, the DMs at 11pm, the replies that start with “I’ve never told anyone this…”, “Your letter made me realize...” the women who found me three letters in and read or listened to all ten in one sitting like they were catching up on a life they recognized.

I see you. I genuinely do.

And it occurred to me that while you know pieces of me: the builder, the woman becoming the person her younger self needed, the one with strong opinions about power and who holds it, you don’t fully know me.

So before letter #11 arrives next week, I wanted to introduce myself.

One more thing before we go further. Because if you don’t know by now, I will state it for the record, I’m here to ruffle some feathers.

My goal with this newsletter is to lose subscribers.

Not the ones like you. But the bystanders. The ones who are here to watch but not willing to engage or move. The ones who need me to stay palatable, stay small, stay the version of ambition that doesn’t make them examine their own.

I am not building for them.

I am building with changemakers. Women who are done performing okayness. Women who have stopped measuring their worth by the approval of people who never really knew them anyway. Women who understand that loving yourself loudly, unapologetically, inconveniently, in a world that profits from your self-doubt is the most subversive thing you can do.

This is that place.

If that makes you want to pull your chair closer, welcome. You were always supposed to be here.

​
🍿 10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ME IN THIS SEASON OF LIFE

1. I wanted to hide but I kept going.

The most embarrassing thing happened to me and I’m sharing it with you. Full room. Complete silence. Downward dog. Then it happened. I queefed, loudly.

I kept my eyes closed, held my form, and summoned every ounce of dignity I have ever possessed in my entire life to simply... continue. Nobody said anything. I said nothing. I just silently hoped no one heard it.

I’m speaking of it now because my body absorbed an entire year of grief, transition, and becoming in 2025 and apparently needed to announce its release in the most humbling way possible. The universe is not subtle. I am learning to laugh at her jokes. I still wonder if anyone heard it...

2. I am a Reflector (Human Design) living in a world built for Generators and I find this both deeply inconvenient and wildly clarifying.

I take in the energy of every room I enter. (I reflect what's there before people realize it's there). I have spent most of my life thinking something was wrong with me for needing so much space and time to process. I would ignore my inner knowing convinced that those around me knew what was best. Turns out I’m not like everyone, and that’s ok. 1% of the population. Which explains everything and also means I have to be incredibly intentional about whose world I enter. I don’t recover from bad rooms quickly. So I choose them carefully now.

3. I have two French Bulldogs named Elvis and Teddy and they are the most important men in my life and I will not be taking questions.

Elvis is dramatic. Teddy is delusional. Together they are a full-time comedy that makes living alone feel like a party. They have no idea what I’m building. They don’t care. They want snacks, cuddles and belly rubs. Sometimes that is the most grounding thing in my life.

4. I meditate every morning and some mornings I sit there and think about absolutely nothing spiritual whatsoever.

Some mornings it’s profound. Some mornings I catch my spiraling thoughts. Some mornings I’m going through a to-do list in my head while pretending to be present. I show up anyway. I think that’s the whole practice. Not transcendence, just showing up for myself. To remind myself that this present moment is what matters. Everything else can wait. I’m applying this to everything now.

5. My word for 2025 was Pleasure and it nearly broke my brain.

I spent 20+ years optimizing for output, impact, and other people’s comfort. Choosing pleasure as a value, as an actual compass was the most quietly revolutionary thing I’d ever done. And it worked. It cracked me open in ways that strategy never could and redefined what safety means for me. So this year I went deeper.

My word for 2026 is Sovereignty.

This means I answer to the truth of who I am, not to who the room needs me to be. Pleasure taught me what I actually wanted. Sovereignty is me building a life organized around it. The progression makes sense if you know the full story.

6. I sold a company, shed identities, went through a divorce, got pneumonia along with other health challenges, opened my heart to love again, and moved to Arizona, all in the same season.

I’m telling you this because I want you to understand that when I talk about the in-between, I am not speaking metaphorically. I was in it. Fully. And what I found there, not despite the dissolution but because of it, is what I’m building now. I found grief, I found the wounded little girl who always sought approval. I found disappointment. I also found inner resolve, the power to trust in my lived experience. Every letter. Every offer. Every table I set. Every room I create. Every world I build. I do it with the wisdom of someone who let herself fall so she can set herself free.

7. I have strong opinions and I am working on delivering them without the energy of someone who has been right about things too many times and watched people learn the hard way anyway.

This is an ongoing practice. I’m a work in progress. I’m working on my delivery. But sometimes, I just know and you can call it what you want, but this is not me being a stubborn Taurus, this is me knowing that one of my gifts is my energetic radar. I’m also working on not taking things personally. The strong ones are also sensitive. I am incredibly sensitive but I no longer make excuses for people who cause emotional harm without taking accountability. Boundaries even if silent are required for your peace.

8. I believe that nothing bad happens when women make more money and I will say this until I physically cannot. 💰

This is not a talking point. It is a lived observation across 20+ years of watching what happens when women hold resources versus when they don’t. Fed children. Funded communities. Generational wealth where there was generational survival. Women care SO deeply about getting it right. Helping others. And sometimes even when things don’t go as planned, when things are out of our control, we still find a way to make it right but we do so at the expense of our well-being. This is why my anchor is, 'Build The Dream. Honor The Human'. I have organized my entire life’s work around this truth. The Table exists because of it. Everything I build exists because of it.

9. I have a real interior life and I’m protective of it, specifically because I’ve watched what happens when women hand it over to someone who calls themselves a guru.

The veils are lifting. They should be. The men who built empires selling women their own awakening while moving in the darkest rooms imaginable, we see them now. And what it’s taught me is this: your inner life belongs to you. Your practice is yours. The moment someone positions themselves as the gatekeeper to your own consciousness, walk away.

I meditate. I follow the moon. I sit with ancestral wisdom and I take it seriously. I also have a P&L and I take that seriously too. None of this makes me a guru. It makes me a woman who refuses to outsource her own knowing to anyone, including me.

Trust yourself first. Always.

10. I am not the same woman who started this newsletter and I am grateful for every version of me that led here.

The one who held everything together at the cost of herself. The one who kept fixing, saving, over-giving until her body said enough. The one who finally chose herself, not as abandonment of others, but as the most honest act of love she’d ever managed. She got me here. I don’t regret her. I’ve just graduated.

We are a collection of our experiences, our traumas, our triggers, our lessons, and our patterns.

We are not the problem. But we have the power to interrupt the patterns. And build our own worlds.

2025 was the rollercoaster that showed me parts of myself I would never have discovered any other way. Every single thing I chose, even the things that cost me, showed me something true about who I am and who I’m becoming.

I am in deep gratitude. For the people who shaped me. For the versions of me that shaped me. And for you, for being here, however you found me.

I’m building in real time. Saying the things people are afraid to say. Creating the rooms that should have always existed. My role in this life is no longer about abandoning myself. It’s about letting myself be more connected, to myself, to my calling, and to you.

I hope you stay. Because it’s about to get really good.

Now, tell me about you {{ subscriber.first_name }}.

I’ve been expressing for 10 letters. I actually want to know who’s in this world with me.

Tell me one thing. Anything at all, just one.

You can hit reply. Or if you’re more of a clicker: Who are you? Take 60 seconds and tell me.

Either way, I want to know you. I can’t wait to hear from you.

Letter #11 arrives next week.

Until then,

Vanessa

→ P.S. The women who take a seat at The Table aren't waiting to be ready. They're done waiting entirely. If that's you, pull up a chair. The Telegram group opens on Friday.

These letters are for women and allies who refuse to betray themselves on the way to success.

But if it is, welcome to the syndicate.