We recently had the chance to connect with Irma La Dulce and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Irma, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: When have you felt most loved—and did you believe you deserved it?
Earlier this year I set myself a challenge that scared the hell out of me—meditate for an hour every morning. But my mind wasn’t safe. Years of cyclical depression had worn grooves in my brain like a record that skips on the same damaged track. The PTSD kept playing its greatest hits—childhood trauma on loop, intrusive thoughts that came uninvited and wouldn’t leave, constant what-ifs spinning out into catastrophe. My bipolar brain swung between wanting to shrivel up, disappear and wanting to devour the world. Sitting alone with that mess felt like being locked in a padded room with someone who wanted to hurt me, except that someone was me. But I sat anyway, stubborn as old gum stuck on concrete.
Instead of running from the noise, I let every voice in my psyche scream itself hoarse while I listened with patience. Started having these conversations with myself—in the shower, washing dishes, wherever—whispering “I see you, I’m listening now, I love you” like a mother to her fevered child. I was desperate to reach those scared, subconscious parts of myself, to tell her she was safe now, that I had her back.
Months passed. And then one morning, sitting on my cold basement floor with blindfolds on, something cracked open. This surge of vibrating electricity shot up my spine like reverse lightning, like the universe remembering my name. My brain bloomed into colors that don’t have words—magenta mixing with the particular pink you find inside seashells, yellow dripping like afternoon light through cheap curtains.
Then this presence—call it God, call it whatever keeps the stars from falling—spoke to me without words, the way we have always somehow known things. It said: “I’ve loved you unconditionally since before you had skin to hold you together. Never judged you. Never left. Never will.”
I wept the kind of tears that clean you out from the inside, snot and salt and years of trying to earn something that was already mine. In that moment I understood that loneliness is just amnesia, forgetting we’re made of the same electricity that makes hearts beat and makes flowers turn toward light. Deserving had nothing to do with it. I was home. Had always been home. Just needed to remember that sometimes soul sits on basement floors in her underwear, weeping stars, finally free. Whether or not I deserved it, wasn’t even a question.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hey, I’m Irma La Dulce, and I make ASMR videos on YouTube. Started out thinking I was just helping insomniacs, but turns out I’m doing something else—tucking grown adults into bed through their phone screens, whispering “you’re safe” to strangers at 2am who’ve forgotten what that feels like. I know that particular type of sleeplessness that comes from living with your nervous system on high alert, when your own bedroom feels like enemy territory.
I don’t have a brand because I’m not a product. I’m just a woman who’s learned to love herself despite the evidence, despite the months I’ve gone missing from the internet like some digital runaway, paralyzed by anxiety so heavy I couldn’t hide it in my voice. Creative blocks that felt like a small death. But I keep coming back, uploading videos with hands that sometimes shake, because this is what I have to give.
The comments destroy me in the best way—people welcoming me back like they left the porch light on all those months, like I’m family who finally showed up, like they kept my place warm at the table. They don’t know that I read every single one while crying into my coffee, grateful as hell to be the voice that helps them feel less alone in the dark. My heart’s so full it could burst like overripe fruit. This is enough. More than enough. It’s everything.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Our bonds with others can never be broken. It’s impossible. That’s the truth nobody wants to hear. You can burn every bridge, change your number, move across the country, but those people still live in your fascia. They are you. Separation is just a story we tell ourselves when looking in the mirror gets too hard.
Everyone we meet is just us wearing different faces. We can only see others as far as we’ve traveled into our own dark corners. That ex you hate? That’s the part of yourself you exiled. The friend who betrayed you? She’s living in your psyche rent free, holding all the shame you won’t claim.
When I stopped judging others and started asking why their flaws made my chest tight, everything shifted. Turns out every finger I pointed led back to my own heart like a roadmap home. The stories I told about them were just my own autobiography in disguise.
Forgiveness isn’t some saintly act of grace. It’s just finally admitting that the person you’ve been fighting was always yourself, shadow boxing in an empty ring. When you forgive them, you’re really just letting yourself back in from the cold. We’re all just love wearing different costumes, pretending we forgot our oneness.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
My sweet girl, you are already everything you’re looking for. You are love itself, wearing a body like a thrift store dress that fits better than anything expensive ever could. Don’t believe everything you think—thoughts lie more than lovers do. If it hurts, it’s not your truth, it’s just fear dressed up as wisdom.
There’s no answer to the questions that keep you up at night. My love, there’s nothing to figure out. This is it. Right here, right now, with your messy hair and uncertain heart. You are always in a state of grace, even when you’re falling apart on bathroom floors. There’s no one you have to become. You’re infinite, baby—infinite like the sky, like your grandmother’s patience, like the forgiveness you’ll learn to give yourself.
Spend your life learning to love without conditions, without deserving, without apology. Love everyone like they are you. That’s the only job you have. It won’t be a wasted life. It will be the only life worth living.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
No version of me is the real me. Not the me my mother knows, my brother knows, my family knows. No close friend or lover has ever met me, and I haven’t really met them either. We’re all beautiful mysteries to each other, and that’s the magic of it.
I am whatever people need to see in me. If you love me, great—I’m just reflecting the part of you that knows how to love. If you hate me, that’s perfect too—I’m showing you something in yourself that’s waiting to be embraced.
I’ll never know how anyone truly sees me. It’s impossible and it’s freedom. If I met every person in the world, there’d be 9 billion versions of me, each one true, each one a small miracle of perception. We’re all just walking around as each other’s mirrors, each other’s teachers, each other’s chance to practice love. That’s as real as it gets, and isn’t it beautiful?
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I wrestled with this question for most of my life. Spent years wondering if I was living my purpose or just got good at something by accident, like learning to sleep through loud trains when you live underneath an MTA overpass.
Here’s the thing—I don’t believe in a “life purpose” anymore, the way it’s been popularized. It’s just another story we tell ourselves, another way to feel inadequate, like we’re late for an appointment nobody actually scheduled. The past? That’s just fiction written by a person I used to be. The future? Nothing ever really happens there. It’s a mirage, infinite doors that never open because by the time you reach them, they’re just another “now.”
I used to suffer, thinking I was missing my calling, like God left a voicemail I couldn’t retrieve. But when I stopped living in the past’s regrets and the future’s promises, something shifted. Right now—this exact moment—is my life’s purpose. The entire universe conspired for 14 billion years just so I could be here, right now, mopping the floors, filming videos, having this conversation. That’s not mundane. That’s miraculous.
Every moment I’m present—really here, not performing or planning—that’s what I was born to do. Whether I’m creating content or washing dishes, if I’m awake to it, I’m living my life’s purpose. The cosmos didn’t unfold all this way for me to miss it by looking somewhere else. This moment, right now, is the only calling that matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/irma_la_dulce
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irma_la_dulce_asmr/
- Twitter: https://x.com/irmaladulceasmr?s=21
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@IrmaLaDulceASMR
Image Credits
Irma La Dulce
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