Tania Maduro

Lil Intro'

The concept of love to me is vast, and it goes far beyond just love between family members and love between lovers. You can have and express love through intimacy with yourself, your friends, other humans, and the earth. All through being compassionate within and sharing that outward. After learning about the relational culture and how we need human connections to grow to be healthy functioning adults, I think it just validated the innate feeling of being so loving and compassionate, and so open-minded. People may think I’m odd - but I think I’m so much more connected to myself and the universe we find ourselves in - that they just don’t understand beyond what they can’t recognize. And this drives my passion for sharing information, sharing love, and being as transparent as I can be.

Connecticut may be home but traveling is one of my favorite things to do and no matter where I am you can always find me creating memories, and creating an atmosphere to build friendships amongst others like hosting BBQs in Aruba where I invite everyone I had met and see new friendships bloom. Or put my hammock up between two random trees in the forest while I’m reading a book, listening to a river flow.

The world is so heavy, and yet - we must find and have joy. It makes me happy to dance alone or with friends in the living room - I turn on the music, turn on my color-changing led lights, and just move to the tune. A song that always makes me smile is "Send me on my way Rusted Root". I find joy in having fun. Whether I am inviting friends over for a fire and a movie outside, a game night, or we pretend we can sing and sing out hearts with our at-home karaoke machine, I create joy and share joy.

Who is she?

Being raised most of my life by a single mother has shaped me. Despite living in a one-income household in Connecticut (CT), and earning a low income there, my mother always found a way to provide my sister and me with the sports, music, and educational opportunities that we desired. Her mantra is "I'll figure it out,” and she always did. I grew up in a union family - to provide for my sister and me after her divorce, my mother switched from working at a casino to being a union carpenter and building casinos, and my grandfather and uncle were union laborers. Which taught me the importance of hard work. Watching my mom struggle to provide a good life for my sister and me, has been one of my biggest inspirations for my hustle lifestyle. She didn’t work hard, so I would have to have the same hard life as her. She worked hard so that I could have the life she wished she could have. Chasing my dreams, exploring, having fun, and being authentically me. Work hard, play hard baby.

Throughout my life, I have been hustling. From high school and working at 14 full time - to keeping that same hustle through most of my adult life. I learned how to work hard, how to save money, how to live frugally to enjoy the things I want, how to budget, and how to negotiate all from my mom. One of the saving lessons I remembered is when she took an empty 5-gallon bottle of water and had all 3 of us throwing our spare change in it until we saved enough to go to Disney World - and we camped since it was so much more affordable than staying in a hotel (budget lesson unlocked).

Born in Fall River, but raised predominantly in Groton, CT, where everyone knows everyone. I am a small-town girl who loves the beach since growing up on the coast. It took a while for me to realize that my childhood was traumatic. All my friends had similar stories, and it wasn’t until, my adult years, one of my best friends called me after her therapy session and said “Tania do you know we had traumatic childhoods. We don’t feel like we did because we know so many who have struggled, but there are so many others who didn’t, who actually had peaceful no harmful traumatic events happen to them.” {TRIGGER WARNING SEXUAL ABUSE and DV} From being molested at a very young age, to being around domestic violence, to us needing to run away, and more - I have had things happen to me that really could have led me to be a very different person. I credit the love of my mother for being one of the main things that have helped me to get through it all with such a good head on my shoulders.

While I graduated magnumcum laude from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI with a Bachelor's in Events Management I worked in Sales and Catering until it was time to go traveling. I realized then that the corporate world didn't suit my need for time freedom. I took the money and financial tips I learned from my mom, busted my ass bartending, had roommates to save money, created a budget for myself, and didn’t buy half the other things my friends were - because I knew traveling was more important to me. My friends were buying new used cars, I was buying a car off the street for $5k, my friends were buying expensive makeup and designer brands, and I was buying everything from TJMaxx. Everyone asks how I do it and it’s just that everyone has their vices,

and mine is traveling.

Why is she?

Lucy La Riot Photography

Always been the “oddball” of my friend's group. When I was younger my dreams were super powerful. My friends would even call me to ask “Hey I was thinking of doing xyz. Have you had any dreams lately?” After a lot of times of ignoring my intuition through different scenarios, I am now getting back and working on growing my spiritual side. So sad that being more natural was viewed as such a weird thing not too long ago, from using coconut oil to making my shampoo - I was always the “hippie.” Spirituality and natural remedies - are a part of me.

I always knew our healthcare system was trash, and our food system was even worse. After being politicized by a few Documentaries my anger grew against our food and healthcare system and I protested money in politics for the first time in 2016. There was a change in my life. I was on a new path, or perhaps the same one, just further along, which gave me a deeper understanding and vocabulary of how pretty much every aspect of our lives is political and increased my awareness of social and humanitarian issues facing us and our planet. Well for me compassion is so huge and making sure everyone is helped in the world is of the utmost importance.