It was the dreaded time of year, the holidays.  I inwardly cringed at the incessant questions about where I would spend Christmas, would I be alone, did I have a special someone, why was I still single?  The truth was, I didn’t care about what I did for the holidays at that point in my life, but it was so socially stressful to field the endless questions and endure the looks of pity I inevitably received.  The pressure of not being married was real.  Questions from family friends would lead down that road of asking if I had any “good prospects”.  Thirty-six and unmarried – the pressure was on!

I waited until I had a career to get married and have kids, but so many of my friends fell prey to the “you’re old at thirty, you better hurry up and have kids while you can,” mentality only to find themselves at mid-life getting divorced and not knowing who they were anymore. Though I’ve never been through a divorce, I know what it’s like to have long term relationships end and the feeling of being somewhat lost upon being single again.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Kathryne Mejias, Founder of Born for More. Her personal journey through divorce and self-discovery inspired her to create Born for More which became her way to align her career with her passion for empowering women to redefine themselves and embrace their full potential. As a speaker and mental health advocate, Kathryne uses meditation, energy healing, and mindset resets to help women reconnect with their authentic selves. Through coaching, events, and speaking engagements, Kathryne helps women turn their challenges into opportunities for transformation. Her upcoming book, The Soulful Divorcée, is a fresh, empowering guide to navigating divorce, processing emotions, and reclaiming your power. It follows her first book, Soulful Beauty, which inspires women to embrace their inner confidence and strength.

Born for More is about helping women release the past patterns that once defined them and step into the lives they truly want. It’s more than just personal growth, it’s a community that focuses on redefining divorce and life’s transitions, shifting the narrative from victimhood to empowerment. Divorce, in particular, can feel like the end, but Kathryne sees it as the beginning of a new cycle, a chance to embrace who you are and create a life that aligns with your highest self. This is a space for women to heal, grow, and discover their potential, embodying who they were always meant to be.

Kathryne explained to me that divorce has been the most challenging experience of her life. She describes it as a journey that stripped her bare, forcing her to confront fears, doubts, and emotions she didn’t even know existed. At times, she felt like the ground beneath her was crumbling, leaving her with no choice but to dig deep and uncover and inner strength she had yet to meet.

Divorce is often painted as an ending, but for Kathryne, it became a beginning. It was the start of a life where she would no longer settle for less than she deserves or tolerate the things she once thought she had to endure. Divorce was the catalyst that allowed her to write a completely new book.

Even in the most painful moments, transformation is possible. You can rise, not as the person you were, but as the person you are destined to become.

The biggest struggle for people dealing with divorce is often stepping away from the life they knew and entering the unknown. It’s not just about ending a marriage; it’s about letting go of routines, plans, and a vision for the future you may have held for years. That transition can feel overwhelming, like you’re walking into uncharted territory without a map.

For single parents, the challenges are amplified. Juggling schedules, managing responsibilities, and co-parenting effectively can feel like a constant balancing act. It’s emotionally taxing to create a sense of stability for your children while you’re still finding your own footing.

But Kathryne believes that with these challenges come opportunities for growth. You discover an inner strength you didn’t know you had, learn to navigate life in a way that aligns with your truth, and create a new chapter that reflects the person you’re becoming. The journey is tough, but it’s also transformative. She believes that the hardest part about being single or unmarried is learning to navigate life on your own terms, without leaning on the societal norms or expectations that often come with being in a relationship. It can be challenging to face those moments of solitude, but they also hold the greatest rewards. Being single gives you the space to truly get to know yourself – your desires, passions, and what makes you happy without external influence. It’s a time for self-discovery and growth, where you can focus on building a life that reflects your authentic self. While there are times you might long for companionship, it’s also an opportunity to cultivate a deep connection with yourself and create a foundation of self-love that will only enhance future relationships.

Kathryne helps people navigate divorce by guiding them to shift their perspective from feeling like a victim to embracing it as a time of empowerment and transformation. Divorce is challenging, but it’s also an opportunity to release what no longer serves you and create a life that truly aligns with who you are.

Through her Soulful Sessions, she works one-on-one with individuals to rebuild their self-worth, heal from past patterns, and gain clarity about their next steps. These sessions are tailored to each person’s needs and include meditation, mindset resets, energy work, and actionable strategies. Her goal is to help clients feel confident, empowered, and beautiful from the inside out as they step into the next chapter of their lives.

Kathryne has been through the entire divorce process herself, so she can deeply relate to the emotional highs and lows that come with it. Her experience allows her to connect with her clients on a personal level, offering both empathy and guidance to help them navigate their journey. Ultimately, she helps people not only move forward but to do so with confidence, self-love, and a renewed sense of beauty and purpose.

Healing after divorce involves several equally important steps that all center on building a solid relationship with yourself. First, never settle for anything less than you deserve. Divorce is an opportunity to redefine your standards and align your life with your true worth. It’s essential to stop putting yourself aside – prioritize your needs, dreams, and well-being.

Second, fill your own cup first. Focus on nurturing yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically. When you find happiness within yourself, you create a foundation that isn’t reliant on anyone else. Instead, relationships become an extension of your self-worth and happiness, not the source of it.

Finally, remember that healing is a journey. Give yourself grace, take the time to rediscover who you are, and trust that this process will lead you to a more aligned and fulfilling life. These steps together create a powerful framework for moving forward with confidence and authenticity.

Kathryne’s upcoming book, Soulful Divorcée, set to release in 2025, dives into her personal journey of reinvention and provides inspiration and tools for others facing similar challenges. She also creates empowering events like The Soulful Divorcée live event, offering community, expert guidance, and practical tools for growth.

If you would like to learn more about Kathryne Mejias and Born For More, please keep an eye out for her upcoming book, The Soulful Divorcée: A Journey to Self-Discovery, Freedom, and True Alignment, releasing in 2025, and her live event, The Soulful Divorcée, happening on March 29th, 2025, in Toronto.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

There it was, my shiny new Mustang that I had just purchased, much to everyone’s envy. I had recently graduated college and had happily begun my first office job in the heart of downtown Sacramento, California. I had driven the car to work, and parked in our company’s parking lot just as I did every day, except today I had a brand new car! I walked out, exhausted from the day’s work, and was shocked to see that someone had keyed the car all the way down the driver’s side. It was a passionate keying too, someone put a lot of bitterness into it.

This could have been a random occurrence, or it could have been executed by one of the catty women in my office. Sometimes people can just be vicious because they are jealous. At the time, we didn’t have social media, so I didn’t experience the types of bullying that social media can sometimes facilitate, but I definitely had some anger aimed at me from behind cubicle walls. These days, people tend to hide behind their keyboards.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Marina Nestel, Founder and CEO of The Little Black Book, one of South Africa’s leading PR and events companies. Her client list features high-profile brands and personalities, including H&M, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, One & Only Hotel, Richard Branson, Sol Kerzner, Chivas Regal, Cartier, and many others. The Little Black Book specializes in luxury brand activations, high-profile events, and cause-driven campaigns that continue to shape the PR industry in South Africa. Marina is known as the Queen of PR with a big heart.

I’ve learned that even people with the biggest of hearts can face the wrath of the green-eyed monster.

Marina worked her way up from a waitress, cocktail bartender, and hostess in five star hotels in London, to interning for the esteemed global PR company Purple PR. She then moved back to Cape Town, South Africa and worked for Dunhill at British American Tobacco. The high end circles she moved in allowed her to build her network and she decided to start her own company, The Little Black Book.

She began The Little Black Book in her home out of the back of the laundry room with no support, in fact being told frequently to “get a proper job”. She proved the naysayers wrong as the business exploded in less than a year, becoming an internationally renowned events and public relations agency. She not only reached success with a long list of career highlights, but she did so as a working mother of a newborn baby.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing though. After her marriage collapsed and a series of unfortunate events, Marina was separated from her child and subjected to many humiliating rules and regulations policing even phone calls with her son. Then the social media smear campaign began.

In a very well-coordinated series of attacks, Marina was deemed a prostitute, drug addict, and everything under the sun except an alcoholic. Marina admits very openly that she is a recovering alcoholic and works to bring awareness for people who struggle with addiction.

Thus began Marina’s parental alienation nightmare. Parental alienation is when one parent intentionally seeks to damage a child’s relationship with the other parent. This can be done in a number of ways including creating a negative narrative about the other parent, discouraging the child from spending time with that parent, making that time uncomfortable, and in more extreme cases, encouraging the child to stop contacting the other parent. The child is psychologically affected during this experience and often into their adult lives. Marina has no contact with her son now, but she still attempts to send him photos and videos and she calls him regularly, to no avail. She explains that she will never stop trying to connect with her only child.

As a PR entrepreneur, Marina understands that she is sitting on a life story which needs to be heard. She’s a survivor, she’s resilient and she is an inspiration to victims of parental alienation and cyber bullying around the world. She would like to make people aware about the various trials and tribulations she has been subjected to, including vexatious litigation. Vexatious litigation is meant to bother, embarrass, and/or cause legal expenses to the defendant.

Though the cyber bullying, harassment, and slander still goes on, Marina managed to leave South Africa where she had been tormented for so long. Marina has since swapped her work look of stilettos and couture dresses for a bikini. She swims in a warm ocean on a tropical island all day. She eats in gourmet restaurants and relaxing in a hammock is a regular occupation. Her “happily ever after” is with her fiancé and her career as a human rights public speaker for parental alienation and cyber bullying, as well as running her global PR and events business all from a blissful, peaceful paradise in Thailand. To her trolls and haters she has an attitude of “in the bin you go with the rest of the rubbish”, and she keeps moving forward.

As a wise friend once told me, the best revenge is living well. Marina Nestel embodies this phrase.

If you would like to learn more about Marina Nestel and The Little Black Book, please visit thelittleblackbook.co.za.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

Our family friend’s eyes narrowed as he peered over to see what I was reading in the back seat of the car. The look of shock when he realized was priceless. I was in the third grade, and the book was The Shining by Stephen King. My parents looked on proudly as they realized that their child loved reading. At a very young age, I had graduated from Harry the Dirty Dog and Rotten Ralph to full length novels, and horror was definitely my thing. It began in the third grade with the first novel I read, The Amityville Horror. I was that kid who would take great joy in huddling in a dark closet with my friends and telling them scary stories that I had concocted myself. I was the one who would leave everyone at the family gatherings with nightmares of my tales. I loved horror movies, scary books, all things ghostly, and haunted houses.

Being as enamored as I am still, to this day, with all things spooky, I was thrilled to find out about BloodManor, New York City’s premier haunted attraction. BloodManor is a first-class haunted house attraction with approximately 10,000 square feet of themed rooms, corridors, and a labyrinth of passageways. BloodManor is designed to be the most intense, creepy, and scream-inducing haunted house attraction in New York State.

The building at 359 Broadway in the Tribeca area of New York City, known as BloodManor, has quite a spooky history. Built in 1852, it was used by photographer Matthew Brady to photograph some of America’s most famous, and infamous, people. President Abraham Lincoln was among some of the famous people photographed in the building. During the Civil War, Brady was scorned for adopting a mobile studio to capture some of the world’s most graphic images of battle. The public criticized him for “making a buck” off of the daily tragedies that were ravaging the country. For all the criticism he received, he was documenting and capturing the souls of all of the men who were fighting for their country.

When Brady returned to his studio at 359 Broadway, he noticed something interesting in every photo that had been developed within the rooms of the third floor. In the photographs, the men’s faces appeared to be melting, strange apparitions floated above each soldier in the fields, and those men who were closer to the lens had black eyes.

In 1859, Brady closed his studio due to the “incessant screams of the photographed men”. It is said that if one travels the halls of the third floor throughout the night, you will hear the faint sounds of the camera taking a photograph followed by the screams of the men in the final moments of their lives.

After Brady, much was unknown about the tenants of the building up until 1943, when two brothers along with their brother-in-law and his brother purchased and operated a textile wholesale business at 359 Broadway. The business flourished and continued through the early 1970s, but in 1958 a huge fire at a nearby building ruined many lives in the area forever. One young firefighter named Wilson Palmer saved over a dozen women and children during that horrible night, but his own life could not be saved in the end. In the days following the fire, Wilson took to taking nightly walks around the neighborhood. After a few weeks of these evening strolls, Wilson complained of hearing horrible screams coming from the textile factory at 359 Broadway. He would swear there were young men dying in there, yet everything was dark and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Approximately twenty four days after the fire that he fought so heroically, Wilson hung himself from the rafters in the firehouse. In his hands he had clenched a five dollar bill, with Abraham Lincoln’s eyes blacked out and written in calligraphy found only in letters written with a feather dip pen in the early 19th century, were the words “NO PHOTOS”.

The third creepy story that is known about the building at 359 Broadway involves Brooklyn mob boss “Crazy” Joe Gallo. Gallo was killed at Umberto’s Clam Bar in 1972 by someone connected to the Colombo family. The driver of the car that night, a man by the name of Luparelli, ended up going to the FBI claiming that he was being followed by loud screams and woken by them in the night. It was discovered that Luparelli and his family were former tenants of the building at 359 Broadway.

In current times, the events of 2020 and the sadness, loneliness, isolation, and loss that was caused has seemingly incited more activity throughout the halls of BloodManor. Many local residents have come to the BloodManor staff with strange stories from the past couple of months. Some claim they see flashing lights from the third floor of the building – flashing lights similar to that of an old camera. Others claim they hear gunshots coming from within the building, and there are also stories of seeing shadows of men with tall top hats passing through the windows illuminated by the street lamps outside. All of this activity serves to heighten the excitement of BloodManor’s 21st anniversary Halloween season. Beginning in September, BloodManor opened its doors to the public and promises the scariest season they have ever had.

This year, BloodManor boasts the addition of three new rooms and brand new costumes. The Manor is open every weekend and some weekdays beginning in September and running through November. I know my inner horror-aholic would love to go!

For more information about BloodManor, please visit www.bloodmanor.com.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.

Something grey and covered in whiskers was peeking out of the water.  A large grey body surfaced as the large nostrils of the creature sucked in air.

“What is that?” My friend shrieked, looking down into the canal.  I was flabbergasted; this friend of mine had lived in Florida for most of his life and yet he had never seen a manatee!

“Do they bite?” He was fascinated by this large creature and I proceeded to teach him about manatees.

It dawned on me that some people who live right on the outskirts of wild areas and wildlife never get to see it, or experience it.  These people, once they learn about the wildlife surrounding them, care more about preserving it.  It’s just a natural result of being exposed to nature and learning about it.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing a man who knows a lot about this phenomenon.  Fabian Mdluli is a wildlife photographer and filmmaker. He recently completed Lauren Arthur and David Eastaugh’s specialized, immersive wildlife filmmaking course that was launched in August 2024. The course covers not only wildlife filmmaking, but also gives students a complete immersion into the African wild. There is a module on animal behavior, ecology, phenomenology and ethics of wildlife filmmaking presented by Lauren. The course introduces the students to the field of impact producing with a guest speaker and helps guide the students in their efforts to combine storytelling with social and behavioral science to drive positive change. Their expert tracker takes students into the bush on foot and teaches them the basic tracks and signs and how to read the environment around them for more immersive filmmaking. David teaches the students to understand how to use the equipment, build specialized wildlife filming rigs, filming techniques and also how to work with human talent. There is also an extensive module on post-production, including how to shoot for the edit and how to manage one’s media.

Fabian met Lauren Arthur and David Eastaugh through Wildshots. They recognized his passion for wildlife and recommended him as a candidate for the Too Wild filming course, which he was thrilled to join.

Fabian, a twenty-three year old man from Acornhoek in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, thrived in the intensive four week course given in the Timbavati Game Reserve with Too Wild and is now well on his way to achieving his dream of becoming a wildlife filmmaker. He describes the filmmaking course as transformative, explaining that he learned practical skills like camera work, editing, and storytelling. It boosted his confidence and allowed him to connect with other aspiring filmmakers.

Fabian has been a part of WildShots Outreach since 2022 and has a background in stills, but with his new skills, he now plans to create a documentary focusing on wildlife conservation to raise awareness. He explained that even though he grew up in a small village in Acornhoek, surrounded by beautiful nature and game reserves, he never had a chance to experience the wildlife firsthand. This is not uncommon, as my interview with David Eastaugh revealed. David previously explained to me that the communities living on the other side of the fence of the game reserves are very separate and removed from what is going on inside. Many of the people haven’t even seen an elephant. David believes this needs to change and is a crucial link moving forward in South Africa. Enter Too Wild’s wildlife film school in the Timbavati Game Reserve with its community-driven focus to fully sponsor a local candidate from one of the communities on the periphery of the reserve to complete the course and become qualified as a wildlife filmmaker. The initiative is supported by the Timbavati Foundation, WildShots and RuggedWear and it is crucial to build the next generation of wildlife filmmakers, like Fabian.

Fabian shares these beliefs and is in fact a perfect example of the initiative’s success. He hopes for increased conservation efforts and community involvement to help protect wildlife. He, like David and Lauren, believes education and awareness can lead to better protection for habitats and species. He knows firsthand how many people in South Africa lack access to wildlife parks and believes it is important to provide opportunities for local communities to experience nature. He knows that when people connect with wildlife and understand it, as well as ecosystems, they are more likely to care about protecting it. We all have a role to play in preserving our planet, and conservation education is key.

If you would like to learn more about Fabian Mdluli and Too Wild, please visit toowild.co. You can also find Fabian on Instagram @fabianmdluli.

This article was originally published on OpsLens.com.