what is this place?

about Nina Alvarez

it seems there is always a reason not to say what you think, not to share your life, not to share your ideas and resources, because who really cares? no one will read them. my life has been marked with a lot of disappointments, feeling my exhaustive and all-encompassing efforts barely make even a small mark in the world. because of this in recent years i've shied away more and more from even trying.

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but this is where i am now, and have been for about half a year: if i die (because no one is promised tomorrow) i want there to be a record of me somewhere. an archive of who i really am and what i really care about. it doesn't and can't matter if it's attended and read and applauded when i'm alive. it can't matter if it's good enough or not. i can't keep waiting for people to recognize and see me and care what i have to say. i just have to say it. if for nothing else, then to say I was here and this is who i really was.

about Nina Alvarez

what is literally any of this?

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I guess I could introduce myself as an editor and writer and publisher. or a Pisces, ennegram 4, INFP. or a half-Puerto Rican, half-white girl in Upstate New York. Or a professional literary person with a master's degree in English and 20 years in my field.

all i know is i spent the last 10 years trying to find a word for how I really see myself. empath-healer-mystic-writer-wayfinder? maybe. these are all parts of it. but not the whole. and it's been hard for me to represent myself online, especially through my business, as anything other than someone who is just simply good at helping writers make books.

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mostly, i am a spiritual person. i live in the world of the intuitive and subtle, and i look forward to the days when our type of seeing and understanding has a more dedicated vocabulary. i think, like many, i was sent here to help transmute pain and suffering. my particular mode seems to be oriented to removing painful clusters of bad feeling and blockages, and helping people grow their creative potential. but i'm still learning what that really means in all its multi-dimensional nuance.

i created a monthly newsletter called Follow Your Bliss in 2010, i've taught classes on intuitive writing and book marketing off-and-on since 2011. i tried to open a spiritual coaching center for writers in 2015 (and failed), tried to teach a day-long retreat for spiritual writers in 2017 (still not quite right), and in 2018 and 2019 I focused on publishing spiritual books that other people wrote because i was so discouraged with my own efforts as a healer, wayfinder, and writer.

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these things used to bother me, keep me up at night, embarrass me. i honestly felt let down by the universe, by my guides, by God, by life, for a lot of 2016-2019. but over the past year i've experienced a lot of healing and clarity. i talk a lot about this time in the site journal. i think that time just wasn't in fullness yet. it was only recently that i considered there might be others out there like me, who have been on this spiritual path for a long time and wondering why life has still been so hard and so much hasn't worked out despite our best efforts.

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i think we were preparing for this moment. 

i think we were gaining strength and knowledge.

i think we are here to lead.