There’s a photo of me as Little Ivi, standing on a dock in Croatia, my Nono (grandpa) holding me steady as I point toward something in the distance.
I don’t remember what I was pointing at then, but I bet it was the genius of nature.
Perhaps a seagull soaring, white feathers ablaze with crisp gold, buoyed by invisible currents above the glassy Adriatic.
It’s like I am saying: “Look, grandpa, this is magnificent!”
Without words, without thought, embodying pure knowing, he responds:
“There is no separation between you and It. You, too, are an expression of the genius of nature. You, too, are magnificent.”
***
Nono is watching me in the photo, fully present. He isn’t pointing. He is holding. His strength is behind me, not in front of me. His role isn’t to tell me where to go, but to hold space and infuse it with trust.
We are in a joyful harmony: one Soul steadying, the other Soul reaching. One providing roots, the other seeking horizons.
The past few months have asked me to lean back into the kind of support my Nono offered me that day and trust that I don’t always have to hold it all alone.
***
The fibroids had been growing for years. I was negotiating with them, until I couldn’t. Until the pain insisted on being addressed. Required my attention.
Guided by Dr. Mary, a walking masterclass on authenticity, with skill, poise, and humanity through the roof, I underwent uterine embolization.
Dr. Mary prepared me for the discomfort of the procedure that shrinks the tumors by cutting off their blood supply.
So, when the cramps started, and kept relentlessly going, there was no shock. No regret. Still, the pain was excruciating. Earthquake-level powerful. It demanded that I dive deep down inside the body.
The exhaustion, the vulnerability, the rawness of it all swallowed me whole.
***
Pain, I could breathe through. Suffering? That was something else. I needed to break up with it.
Folding in on myself, but choosing not to run on old negative stories, I saw how in the past, I regularly created the wounded distress.
How buzzing on caffeine, I resisted rest. Struggled to receive support and welcome breaks. How deeply ingrained my instinct was to placate, push through, prove, protect, and perform. How attached I was to worry, complaining, and discomfort.
The recovery wasn’t happening as quickly as I had planned, so the judgment kept getting louder:
What if I can’t keep up?
What if I lose momentum?
What if slowing down makes me dispensable?
I shooshed this thinking of inflamed productivity. Opened to learning. Tasted the medicine—literal and proverbial.
***
My Nono had a nickname for Little Ivi: Little Bee.
He called me that before I knew anything about myself. When I was an infant, before I could walk or talk.
I asked him once why. He said it was because I was always moving, fast and coordinated, curious, taking everything in. He said it was a mix of playfulness and industriousness, softness and strength.
It was also physical: he saw me as small and powerful, delicate and determined.
He told me that bees don’t just work hard. They bring sweetness. They create. They sustain life.
He saw in me a natural instinct to gather, build, and make things bloom.
He saw my worth before I ever questioned it. And he held it for me, even when I forgot.
***
Nono built himself up from nothing more than once. I may tell you those stories in detail some other time. For now here is a taste of their nectar. The passed on moments run through my blood and bones:
- When he was an altar boy and got drunk with the priest then lost his role.
- When he was sent to the navy by his mother for playing too much soccer.
- When he lost everything in the Navy because he was addicted to playing cards—money, uniform, shoes—then won it all back and swore off gambling forever.
- When he lost his firstborn son to a mysterious illness—or maybe to a failing medical system. He never found out which.
- When he insisted his daughters get a thorough education, in arts and science.
- When he got deathly pneumonia, a chain smoker, then recovered and stopped smoking cold turkey.
- When he built our family’s vacation house from scratch, following ridiculous administrative rules and regs.
- When—and why—he called my grandmother Dove.
- When he pulled my brother and his buddy back to safety before they could tumble off the ledge of an eighth-floor balcony in a flash of fearless joy.
- When he lost all of his retirement savings during the civil war. Overnight. And had to bunk in that same vacation house with my grandmother until the end of their days.
- When he loved on me with tenacity. Tender and deliberate. A steady investment in my becoming.
Teaching inherent worth, he reminded me with unspoken constancy:
“You are precious, rare, cherished, and delightful. Unconditionally, from day one. Just because.”
Exuding the care, he was humble, vulnerable, loving. Transactional love was nowhere on our radar.
***
We talked about everything:
The beauty of the New World mountains, the mechanics of cars, the most efficient way to dive into the sea headfirst, Navy-style (which he taught me how to do, with ease and levity). How to ask the right questions about how things are built, and why.
And feelings, mine in particular. The conversation about the depth of his emotions had a cap.
He especially didn’t like to talk about the war, and what he endured. But one thing I unmistakably noticed was his absence of hate, grievance, or resentment.
***
I’ve spent my life studying worth—long before I realized that’s what I was doing.
- I studied it as a child, watching grownups decide who was “worthy” of kindness, attention, approval, or the last piece of cake.
- I studied it as an immigrant, learning the unspoken rules of proving value in a new country, so you neither stand out nor slowly fade away.
- I studied it in my finance career, where jargon fluency in particular is its own form of currency, and often a way to inflate the obvious into the billable.
- I studied it in relationships, playing out romantic scripts about loyalty, heartache, and the “happily ever after.”
- I also studied it formally—through anthropology, leadership roles, Inner Bonding®, Energy Codes®, and numerically titled securities license exams.
***
Today, I research worth and value, teach it, and guide others to and through it.
And finally, recently, I had to feel it. Fully. Viscerally. No more hiding behind knowledge. Instead, I had to drop into Knowing.
The fibroids and falsehoods are being deconstructed, as I regenerate from the inside out.
Steadily, I reclaim Grandfatherly Love: the inherent worth we inherit.
I’ve spent my life navigating a world that measures worth transactionally. As I regenerate, I am choosing to remember, and to remind you, that your worth was never up for debate.