My Spiritual Journey: Suset Laboy

Every month, I will introduce you to someone I’ve met along my spiritual path who has inspired me. Meet Suset Laboy. Suset is an Empowerment Coach and the founder of A Little Awareness. Ivy League educated with a Ph.D. in the social sciences, Suset works with ambitious women whose enthusiasm has led them to success but also burnout. She helps them quit the hustle mindset and bring ease and alignment into their life using life coaching tools, mindset work, breathwork, and movement.

Tell us about your life's journey and what brought you to this place.

That’s such a beautiful and big question. My life journey is a commitment to stripping away all that keeps me, myself, my community, the collective from living in peace, ease, joy, and freedom. 

And while I have done that through many avenues through the years, today as a life coach, or an EmpowerMentor (a term I prefer), it translates into a commitment to helping others quit the hustle, escape the cult of busy we have been told is a virtue. 

What brought me to this place was having been initiated early on to the idea that to work, and particularly work extra hard, is a virtue; to rest is a vice. So I spent my life jumping through hoops to demonstrate my value. I graduated with the highest honors in school always; belonged to 6-9 extracurriculars always; went to an Ivy League where I held 2 (3 at once) jobs while pursuing a full curriculum. I went to graduate school and earned a Ph.D. while starting my own business. I was relentless and exhausted.

And then, in 2017, I was diagnosed with a paraganglioma, an incredibly rare tumor, two months before my wedding and right as Hurricane Maria was destroying the island of Puerto Rico where I grew up. I had to switch gears from wedding planning to tend to my diagnosis and to help my community in Puerto Rico. Luckily, my paraganglioma turned out to be benign but inoperable and stands as a constant reminder to chill the eff down. Slowly, Puerto Rico has gotten back into its feet because of the incredible resilience of its people. 

As this was happening, I had started pursuing an education to turn into a Life Coach and was looking for a name and a focus. I happened to be going on a panel to work on the diaspora efforts to help the island, and I asked my niece, who lived on the island, to tell me what message I wanted to deliver. She said, “I just need people to have a little awareness. That’s all we need.”

And that’s when it hit me—that truly is all people need –- presence and a little awareness, bit by bit, individual by individual, we transform our relationship to the hustle, which essentially happens any time we lie to self, to the SELF that has also been lied to about their value. That’s how A Little Awareness was born. That’s my journey. 

What lessons have you learned along the way?

So many along the way, but a main one related to my life’s journey is the fact that every single person on this earth is worthy simply because we exist. Think about it, the chance of us being born is 1 in 400 trillion. We have worth because we are not because we do. And the moment you begin to recognize that about yourself, you begin to recognize it about every single person around you. And hopefully, you start taking actions that move yourself and the collective closer to that space. 

Where does your happiness come from?

Would it be cliched to say that my happiness comes from my children, my husband, my family, my community? When I think about what that means to me, my happiness comes from pure love….and that is sparked by others, but it’s also sparked by myself. Am I happy all the time? Of course not, but love is always present, and with that, the capacity for happiness. 

What gets you excited about life?

When I first started talking about ending burnout and killing the hustle, people would look at me like they did not get what I meant; that what I aspired to was a wild unattainable dream, but in recent years, especially because of the pandemic, which has been terrible and I do not swim in spiritual bypassing about it, I have seen more and more people open to the idea that what we do does not define us or our worth; work can and should be an enjoyable part of the human existence, but it doesn’t define us. I am so excited about that shift that I am seeing and the direction in which this will take us. 

Can you share a breakthrough with us?

I am not a pineapple. Let me explain; we go through life beholden to the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, what others say about us and what we believe others are saying about us. It is super important here for me to share that I firmly believe that circumstances and experiences can be, in fact, bad and terrible. Oppression exists and has existed since the beginning of time. That said, beyond that reality are the stories we tell and believe about ourselves. A way to free ourselves from these stories is to realize that you are not a pineapple. Are you a pineapple? Try to wrap that around your head. It doesn’t matter how hard I try; I can’t believe I am a pineapple because I know I have deep knowledge that I am not one. Whenever I encounter a story that causes me suffering, I lovingly look at it through that lens until I come to the realization that who I am deep inside is “not a pineapple.” 

What is your superpower?

Other than the fact that I take many things seriously, but I am not one of those things, is that I am particularly good at helping others achieve self-mastery. However, each person may define it. Also, I’ve been told I’m hilarious. 

How do you stay connected to your higher self and the universe?

Presence, kindness towards myself and others, cultivating a little more awareness every single day. In practical terms, I practice looking inwards and outwards as if I were an observer, and from that standpoint, I can connect with my higher self and the universe. Once the ego is released, you get very present to the fact that your higher self, that of others, the universe are so closely linked (if not the same) you are always connected to them.  

Is there anything you'd like to share with us?

I have a retreat coming up in October. It’s called It’s Just Ease: A Little Mallorcan Retreat. You can learn more about it here.