Annabella Roig
Annabella Roig heard of The 50 Women Project through a shared connection—our wonderful hairdresser. She was curious and felt it was the right time to get involved. She was also ready for new photos that would reflect this stage of her life—a stage of bold style, confidence, and feeling good in her own skin.
From our first conversation, I knew Annabella was embracing a vibrant new chapter. We spoke about what she was looking for in her session, and I could already tell this would be a meaningful shoot. Being in her presence was such a joy—she embodies the energy, power, and creativity that this project is all about. Once again, I’ve found myself enjoying not only the fun we have during the sessions, but also the meaningful conversations that follow. There’s something so special about being in the presence of women embracing this powerful time in their lives. Conversation flows easily, and I find myself wanting to keep talking long after the photos are taken.
Thankfully, Annabella lives not too far away, and she’s already returned to Sharon Springs for our Poetry Festival. I look forward to the next visit and more of those deep conversations. For now, I’m happy to share Annabella’s beautiful photos and her soulful reflections. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
What really matters to you?
It really matters to me to know that I am helping people come to the truth of themselves, able to see their own radiance and love. It really matters to me that I can support people to bring all their parts together in a way that brings them into alignment with their truth and show up in this truth in their lives.
For me, as a woman from a Latin culture, first generation, this has been an ongoing journey and challenge. My culture has told me to put others first. For me, my own learning has been to recognize myself first, then become curious, give myself grace, learn to express and recognize my needs, recognize my own thought and desires, and then learn to express this in a way that maintains connection with others.
It has taken me a very long time, most of my adult life, to be able to answer a simple question put forth by my therapist in 2016 at the age of 57. Within weeks of my mother’s passing from a long bout and complications from Parkinson’s, I gave myself the gift of therapy, for one year. Right out of the box, first session the therapist asked me a question that left me dumbstruck, with a long and painful pause. After I told her that I wanted to unravel whatever was under the surface in my relationship with my mother. I needed help with my grief and wanted support. And she then asked me, and What do YOU want? Left me dumbstruck. I had no idea. That was the goal, that was the kernel. What do I want? I had no clue.
It really matters to me to help people, mostly women, ask and then answer that question, What do YOU want? It matters to me to support and coach women to connect with themselves, have healthy relationships, with themselves, others and Life.
What brings you happiness?
There are several things that I know bring me joy and pleasure. They are simple, unique and mundane. The smell of good coffee, the beautiful carpet of color in the trees in the fall, the smell of rain, the color of steel gray skies with sun coming through, driving through the Berkshires with the open vistas and the rising of the full moon. Moving down the scale is visiting art. Favorite places are the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, the Clarke Institute in Williamstown. Other faves, window shopping in Main Streets in New England towns. A moment I recall, just recently, early Fall, coolish weather, I was walking down main street in Bronxville, NY, Pondfield Road, on a Sunday morning passing by a restaurant that was bustling with wait staff and client/ families waiting for their brunch, with Jazz wafting through the air, and I had a moment.. Just bliss.
Other things that make me happy – seeing the subtle turn on a client’s face the moment when when they become self-aware of a pattern that they had not noticed or seen before. And finally, and maybe first, any time and anywhere that I get to connect with my young adult nieces and nephews.
What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced?
Biggest challenges include a childhood that included navigating an alcoholic father that could not really mentor his girls and a workaholic mom that married too young and maybe was angry at the world for trapping her in a marriage she was not happy in. These were hard years that have colored my choices and impacted on all that I am.
Choosing careers in elementary education and then graduate school at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia were good years but I was in many instances, out of my depth, compared to my well-heeled and tutored colleagues and fellow students at the time. I was a subway rat, a kid from Brooklyn and going to grad school was a bit like traversing two worlds, imposter in both.
From these challenges, however, I received gifts of great empathy and insight, and along with the work ethic and vision gained through years working in my family’s grocery store, where I was afforded a great view of community, of family and of life.
What would you change if you could?
I really would not change a thing. Anything I would change would have me doing something else, being someone else. I cannot ask for more or less than who I ‘turned out to be.’
What single word do you identify with?
CURIOSITY
Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
—Rumi
