RHONNA DEL RIO

What is my biggest why?

My why is simple and deeply personal: I needed to find myself.

If you are a mother, or someone moving through a season of transition, a change in role, trauma, or a major life shift, you may recognize parts of yourself in my story. In 2010, when my daughter began preschool, I suddenly found myself standing at a crossroads, unsure of how to step back into the world after years as a full-time stay-at-home mom. I was proud of that chapter, but I also felt the quiet question forming: Who am I now?

 

Around that time, a yoga studio opened within walking distance of my home. I decided to create a new routine while my daughter was in school, something small that I could look forward to as I tried to find my footing again. What began as a once-a-week class quickly became three times a week. Yoga became my anchor.

 

Six months later, in February 2011, the studio announced its first Yoga Challenge: 20 classes in 28 days. By then, I had fallen in love with the practice. My teacher encouraged me to sign up, gently suggesting that I might be surprised by what I would discover along the way. I decided to journal the experience. For months prior, I had been saving stained, square coffee filters, imagining they might become pages for my writing. But the writing never really came. Instead, my pencil moved freely across the filters, forming lines and doodles. It felt as though they had always been meant for drawing, not words. I followed the subtle cues in the coffee-stained patterns, and slowly, almost instinctively, angelic and symbolic images began to emerge, wings appearing again and again. The colors came naturally, often chosen right after yoga class, as if guided by something deeper than thought.

 

What I assumed would be a one-time share with my yoga teacher became a daily exchange. With each piece, I felt like I was uncovering a part of my heart I hadn’t known was there.

My formal training is in architecture, a world rooted in precision, calculation, and constant evaluation. Every line is measured, reviewed, and judged by colleagues, clients, and the city itself. Much of my creative work lived on a computer, connecting coordinates and lines until they formed a building. It was thoughtful, disciplined, and cerebral. Art was the opposite. It came from the heart. There was no pause for judgment, no fear of getting it wrong, no time to stand in my own way. I was simply free to express. And in that freedom, I began to find myself again, the part of me I thought I had lost while fully and lovingly becoming a mother to my daughter.

In truth, motherhood hadn’t taken anything away from me. It had quietly led me back to my truest self.

 

As I released self-judgment and expectations, I felt healed in ways I didn’t know I needed. And because art opened that door for me, toward healing, self-acceptance, and self-love, it became my mission to share both my story and the work that was born from it.

 

Perhaps your why is also about finding yourself again.

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If so, know that you are not alone. May my pieces awaken something within you, something both new and gently familiar, offering comfort at first sight.