The Emergence of Sofia - A New Self Anchoring

---

Allowing my eyes to stay closed for just another moment, I was waking up from a powerful meditation that had stirred so much in me. One of those that leaves you quietly reflecting, unsure of what exactly shifted, but knowing something did. It was guided by this woman I had recently met during my long stay in Ibiza. That morning, I was lying on the grass in a beautiful little hotel on the Black Sea in Bulgaria. I had just returned from the island to spend a week with my family.

The woman is a medium who works with the energy of Christ Consciousness. At this point, I had already had a few powerful visions and was curious to experience her activation session, which claimed to propel me into more clarity and connection with these energies. The session was good, but like many of these types of experiences, also quite unclear. You are given some pointers, as seeds planted, to wait until more clarity comes in and you can make sense of it. She pointed out that I needed to work on trust. She moved on to other things that felt interesting and closed the session by calling in the names of angels and finally mentioning the name Sofia. As she was closing the invocation, she asked if I was seeing something and to describe it. I told her I saw a beautiful white rose, and we closed the session.

Afterward, I went to the beach, found a spot, and pulled out my journal. I had to pour out everything. It felt so random and not random to hear that name. What did Sofia have to do with Christ Consciousness? I had never really heard anyone talk about her in that context. Who was she? I was flooded with so many questions.

Let’s start with the name and what Sofia has to do with me.

Growing up, I didn’t like my name. I didn’t know why, but I remember thinking about it a lot. I wondered if other kids didn’t like theirs, too. At some point, probably in my teens, I surrendered and embraced it.

Throughout the years, I asked my mother how they decided to name me Vanya. In Bulgarian tradition, children are often named after one of their grandparents to honor them. This was the case in my family too, but it wasn’t what my mom wanted. Her original desire was to name me Sofia. My grandma on my father’s side didn’t agree- she wanted me to be named after her: Ivanka. My mom didn’t like that, and after a period of serious negotiation, she caved and accepted the short version of my grandma's name: Vanya.

When she told me the story, I felt bad for the pressure she had to endure to name her firstborn. Back then, grandparents had way more power than they do now, and often, the new family would even move in with them for some time while raising the babies. That sounds wild to me today- a recipe for insanity. I appreciate families being close by and helping, but living in the same house is way too intense.

When my mom and I had that conversation, I remember I liked the name Sofia. I didn’t think much more of it until about a year ago, during a period of profound transformation that began shortly after the end of my last relationship.

I’ve been through a few big shifts in my time, but this one felt different- more intense, more crushing, and more disorienting than ever. Breakups can serve as huge catalysts for transformation, and this one most certainly was. Even though now it’s clear it wasn’t the right relationship- and I’d never be in such a dynamic again- it brought me incredible gifts. The process initiated me into emotional maturity, deeper self-contact, deeper spiritual connection, creativity, confidence, wisdom, compassion, and profound leaps in consciousness.

Today, I’m in the best shape of my life in every sense. I feel grounded, inspired, and connected to my core, my gifts, my pleasure, my service, my family, and the communities I’m a part of. It was a mini-death of sorts, where I bowed to and integrated all the past versions of me into this new identity of the woman I am today—someone I feel deeply proud of. It took (and still takes) incredible amounts of inner work, surrender, trust…and a village. I’ve been guided by the best teachers I could imagine and held by my closest girlfriends.

I’m writing this from a place of lightness, abundance, and aliveness- as someone entirely different from who I was a couple of years ago. The process isn’t fully complete, but most of it is. The new self is anchoring. And with that, the name started appearing.

I spent a month in Ibiza this summer. The place carries potent energy for me- very activating. During my time there, I started noticing a deeper intuitive connection to myself and a clear signal and exchange with the field. A kind of spiritual grounding where you trust that whatever is happening is good and necessary and that you’re moving in the right direction. Life started flowing with ease. That’s when I started thinking about the name more and more. Remembering my mom’s story. Wondering if that’s why I never liked my name.

Towards the end of my time there, a friend gifted me the session with this woman I mentioned in the beginning. I wasn’t seeking it out, but it was a gift, so I said yes. That session was the first time I felt clearly, undeniably, that this has to be my name.

I’ve come to believe that we arrive with the names our souls already carry- names that hold frequencies, meaning, and codes. They aren’t random. They live in our field, echoing across time. Sometimes, we receive them at birth; sometimes, they’re silenced by tradition, and sometimes, they come back to find us when we’re finally ready.

And for me, in this season of life, Sofia represented the new self that was emerging and anchoring in.

That morning on the beach, I created a ritual. I was already alone by the water, and I decided I was going to accept and claim the name that day. I grew up in Orthodox Christian culture, and even though I’m not religious, baptism was familiar to me, as we’re all baptized as kids. Traditionally, it’s a water ritual involving full submersion, symbolizing the death of the old self and rebirth into spiritual life. In my case, rebirth into a new, more integrated self. I centered myself, spoke my blessings, and finished with a declaration of readiness to reclaim the name.

I wrote in my journal that everything, absolutely everything I’ve experienced, has brought me here. Each moment mattered. Every version of me gets to be honored and appreciated for what she could and couldn’t be. This is why Vanya stays. It’s not denied or deleted. This name holds the foundation on which Sofia can emerge and build upon. Without Vanya, Sofia isn’t possible; she’s really a continuation. Vanya is the root, and without the root, we don’t have a bloom. No flower, no rose! We can’t preserve and carry the life force energy if we extract the root. This is why you can never deny where you come from and who you’ve been. You can try, but that only saps your life force, and it weakens you.

Through constellation work, I’ve connected with the significance of Vanya. It’s what ties me to my paternal grandmother, whose name I carry. There’s a cord there- a karmic tie and a soul movement toward accepting and eventually releasing that cord while honoring her life and her place in the family system. I even wondered if I rejected my name because I ultimately rejected her. Healing comes with accepting what is and fully saying “yes” to it. In constellation work, we start to see everyone who came before us as the only possible and the perfect people for us to become who we are today. No matter what happened and how, the most important contribution they made, despite everything else, was choosing to be instruments for life to continue. For our life to begin.

Another interesting realization I had about Sofia was that every single time I introduce myself, people ask where I’m from. I say Bulgaria. And almost always, they exclaim- Sofia! Yes, that’s the capital. I’ve heard that name on repeat my whole life each time I meet someone new. It’s kind of always been in my field of perception.

After my experience at the Black Sea, I started diving deeper into the meaning of the name. I’ve always known that Sofia (Σοφία) and Cyrillic (София) means "wisdom" in Greek (Greece is our southern border, so we naturally know a lot about mythology and Greek philosophy). Because of my encounters with Christ, though, I started looking into Gnosticism. In the Christian mystical tradition, Sofia embodies divine wisdom- an emanation of God who descends into the material world and seeks to return to the divine. Her story mirrors our human journey back to wholeness.

In this tradition, Jesus imparts hidden wisdom (gnosis), guiding souls back to the truth of their being. Sofia, in this context, is the divine knowledge he reveals. Gnosticism sees her as a misunderstood or fallen divine being, much like humanity, seeking a return home. I find it all really fascinating. While I’m not attaching too much meaning to it, something is intriguing about knowing these pieces, especially since they’re rarely talked about in mainstream narratives.

The rose holds significance to me, too. I come from the land of roses, after all. Bulgaria is widely recognized as the largest producer of rose oil in the world, particularly from the Damask rose (Rosa damascena), which grows in the Valley of Roses. The rose has been part of our culture for more than 300 years, and there’s a rose festival that celebrates the harvest every year. 

In mystical and esoteric traditions, the white rose (the type I saw at the meditation) is associated with Sofia and represents the sacred feminine and the unfolding of higher consciousness. There’s also a red rose in Christian symbolism. While the white rose speaks to the elevated, spiritual aspect of the feminine- the wisdom, the stillness, the soul’s remembrance. The red rose carries a different kind of energy. It symbolizes embodied love, sacred passion, the heart, and devotion. It lives in the body and blood. It is linked to Mary Magdalene and the sacred heart, representing the divine feminine in her full, sensual, earthly expression. Together, the red and white roses mirror the inner marriage, the union of heaven and earth, spirit and matter…how beautiful.

I was invited to Burning Man with a group of friends at the end of August. It felt like the perfect and immediate opportunity to try the name on. There’s really no better place to experiment, to say it out loud, to hear others reflect it back. It started to feel more natural, even good. And then it began showing up around me in small ways. At a workout class back in Miami, the woman next to me was named Sofia, so her name stayed on the screen the entire time, like an affirmation, right there in front of my eyes.

Then, in my last session of 2024, my therapist reflected that I’m truly in a transitional place. The past has been analyzed, processed, packed, and peacefully put behind me. The new hasn’t fully taken shape yet, but the old is already gone, so I’m living in the in-between. That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling, and I know it’s part of the design. It’s not all up to me. This phase is necessary; it’s meant to be this way. A time to learn how to be here and surrender to the unknown. It’s not permanent, but it’s essential. I’m learning to create stability from within, to come back home to myself, to feel rooted no matter where I am.

This is the inner work of connecting to who I truly am. Anchoring into the unchangeable, steady qualities at my core- my essence. The resilient self that’s always been there. The innate part of me that never wavers. The “right place” or “home” has always been within. And this, I’m realizing, is what it means to be in true self-contact.

At the end of the session, my therapist said, “That’s where you’re headed, and I’m not even sure if that inner self is still called Vanya.” My eyes widened. I hadn’t told her anything about the new name or any part of the story I just shared. She went on to say she sees me getting to know this self more deeply than ever before- and that I’m already there, more and more, arriving home. I asked where she got that from, and she said she saw this transformed self, but she doesn’t associate her with the name Vanya. Then, of course, I told her everything, and it all made sense.

The old name also carries the old conditioning and ways. Honoring, healing, and releasing the past creates lightness and space for a new beginning. So, yes, this isn’t just a name change. It’s the beginning of a new path.

The name Vanya-Sofia represents my integration. It carries both identity and essence, like a merging of past and present. It’s the blossoming of a new chapter, a continuation fully rooted in everything that has come before me. A beautiful unfolding, such is life.

---

If The Unfolding resonates with you, I’d love for you to stick around (subscribe), comment, and even share with someone you think would love it, too ❤️

---