Diving Without an Audience

Headfirst into Slow Times.

As I write this, I’m sitting on a bright orange sofa in a distinctly 1970’s sunken living room. My partner is putting our two-year-old to bed. I look out the window of our new house, a furnished rental near a village we’d only ever been to on vacation, onto an entirely new view. I don’t see any other houses, just the canopies of trees that open up to where you can sometimes see the sea. I’ve re-read and re-written these words too many times, impossibly embarrassed by their earnestness. Yet here they are. Not perfect, but done.

Since I started my company Gil Rodriguez in 2018, I’ve had a complex relationship with being visible online. Gil began really small, and I was deeply grateful for the visibility and growth we were able to achieve thanks to pre-algorithmic Instagram. As the business grew, I felt a responsibility to represent it, and to protect its reputation. But to be honest, I didn’t feel like being “the face” of anything. I was burnt out, and running the business was brutally unglamorous behind the scenes. That, combined with my natural tendency towards introversion and anxiety — and behold, the dreaded social media paralysis I’m sure many founders know well.

It wasn’t just the internet that felt less safe. I was living in Los Angeles. If Instagram is the movie, LA is the theme park. The self-imposed pressure to be visible, but not known, wasn’t conscious. Only when I physically removed myself from the city and its social circles did it become obvious. I don’t see any other houses. Armed with this newfound space and my new-girl-in-town anonymity, I shed my paralyzing self-consciousness (ok, WIP) and found myself writing a lot. All that said, I am at once terrified and exhilarated to be here on Substack.

This space — Slow Times — is where I’ll share weekly findings and explorations: from essays to practical resources, to recipes and inspiration, on topics like business, motherhood, aging, friendship, and style. You might find the occasional product recommendation, but this isn’t a shopping newsletter. In many ways it’s about slowing down enough to find clarity and connection — untangling ourselves from compulsive consumption as a way of filling voids, keeping up, or self-soothing.

The lovely Erica Chidi, who writes the incredible newsletter Soft Boundaries , posted this recently as I was poking around Substack, trying to muster the courage to just begin, and when I saw it, I took it as a good omen for Slow Times .

For context: I’m 35 years old, an immigrant (thrice over), a Latin-American woman, a mother, a creative professional and a business owner. My three sisters and I were raised by a single mother who I now recognize to be “on the spectrum.” I started working in fashion at 15 and spent a decade at American Apparel, a company that defined that decade for better or worse (yes, that’s me in the Netflix doc, and no, they didn’t have a release for that). I’ve built a business I’m proud of without investors or a trust fund. I’ve struggled with anxiety, PTSD, and postpartum depression, and have (mostly) managed to approach them with curiosity and compassion. I’m also a deeply curious person, who tries to meet life with not just self-awareness but self-accountability, knowing I’ll sometimes fail. These experiences and identities inform what I’ll share here.

I recently moved (three times in six months), and if you have ever moved, you know that I am now dead. That, along with the state of the world, a toddler who hates change, and my own anxious tendencies, and some days I feel as though I’ve been quietly lobotomized. My answer, for now — is diving.

I’ve been scared of diving my whole life — something about throwing myself headfirst feels counter to my survival. But with a pool outside for the first time, and in the name of neuroplasticity, I’ve been practicing. I even started filming myself, correcting, trying again. It’s clumsy, humbling, and surprisingly liberating to be a beginner at anything as an adult. Practicing diving headfirst has come to feel like a symbol of everything this year has asked of me, and a reminder of the tools, courage, and humility I’m finding in the process.

My hope is that Slow Times can feel like that for you too: permission to step off the hamster wheel and try something different — something that might open a door you might not have known you were looking for.

And perhaps most importantly, I’d love for this to be a conversation. If something here resonates — or stirs a memory, question, suggestion, or challenge — I’d love to hear from you.

Welcome to Slow Times. I’m really glad you’re here.

x Eliana