I’m on my way to West Palm Beach, FL for the week for my first Business Mastery with Tony Robbins. As my flight took off from Newark International Airport, I could feel the warmth of the morning sun on my skin and it filled my heart with gratitude and my eyes with tears. As we increased elevation, the glare of the sun on the river got my attention and I spotted my home overlooking the Hudson, across from the Manhattan skyline.
I’ve flown so many times throughout my life, but I still find it a wonder how an aircraft weighing thousands of pounds so smoothly lifts off into the air. I still find it a wonder to see all the incredible things man has built over the years, as I look out the window. I still find it a wonder that I have the luxury of making this journey knowing what my parents had to sacrifice to give me this opportunity. And indeed, it is still a wonder to be alive.
Almost two and a half years ago, I ventured off from the “steady” paycheck of Corporate America to start my own Transformational Coaching business. It hasn’t been an easy journey, although I put up a pretty good tough girl face to the world. I haven’t had much support on my journey… the professional one or the personal one. I am the first in my family to try my hand in business. I am the first in my family to be a single woman to buy a home. I am the first in my family to question the status quo. I am the first in my family to invest in personal growth and development. So I know first hand what it’s like to try to face the challenges of life on your own. You could say that’s why I chose to become a coach. I wanted to be the support system I wish I had for people as they find their way to their most authentic self and find true fulfillment in their lives.
The last few years have been a true test of my resilience and faith. While I’ve been trying to build a new business, I’ve also been trying to build a new life and new identity. In 2018, I moved across the country to find out what the world is about… instead what I found was myself. I never imagined New York could be such a spiritual place, yet it is!
The first months were great. The usual things one might imagine from New York… new people, places, food, arts, culture, museums, parks, nightlife. I met someone who changed my life and me, forever. He showed me sides of myself I never knew. He taught me to fall in love with things about myself that I was conditioned to believe were unacceptable. They were, in fact, the things that make me, me. The things that make me a human BEING. The intensity of emotions from what started as a simple friendship hit us both out of left field. It was the first time in my 31 years I felt truly connected to someone. It’s the only time in my 38 years that I truly felt connected to someone. Life and society got in the way of exploring what a future together could be and his exit from my life shattered me into a million pieces… a million pieces that I’ve been trying to put together since. From the highest of highs, I found myself in the depths of darkness. A waterfall of non-stop tears had me utterly confused. For months, crying was all I seemed to do. I don’t even know where all those tears were coming from. And so was the beginning of my spiritual awakening… apparently the second one. I couldn’t keep more than a yogurt and orange juice down in a day. I quickly dropped 20 pounds. I was devastated. Gut wrenched. The ego death… the dark night of the soul as they say. It was all so new. So lonely. So dark, indeed. I pulled back from everyone. I pulled back from the world. In the hustle and bustle of the city, I was that character moving in slow mo in the crowd of people who had things to do and places to be. But for me, time stood still. The life I had worked so hard to build started falling one by one like the house of cards. First him, then the friends, then the job I moved with. In the middle of all this, my parents leaned into their solution for all of life’s problems… it was time to marry me off. I tried to be open to it, but after months of anxiety, I found my voice and put my foot down to say “no.” It created a bigger rift with my family. I wish they realized how much I was still hurting, but to them I was being stubborn and out of control. I didn’t have the words to tell them the turmoil that I was experiencing inside me. They wouldn’t understand. This was my journey, not theirs.
I eventually found myself in a new job. It was a bigger title, a bigger pay, a bigger deal… BUT what was bigger was the void. On the outside, I had it made, but on the inside I was empty. What was the grind for? I didn’t have anyone to share it with. Where was I going? What was I chasing? Why was I living? And because nothing comes at once and I just like to dive right into the deep end, I started to get undiagnosed physical symptoms. Brain fog, dizziness, migraines, my tongue would stop working mid sentence, and then there was an intense pressure from inside, like something just wanted to burst out and release. For months I made rounds with the doctors and they said all my results were fine. But I didn’t feel fine! I felt everything BUT fine! Finally one day I had a thought cross my mind… maybe, just maybe… this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing. And in an instant, I deflated. The symptoms disappeared like nothing ever happened. Later I found out these are known as ascension symptoms. The frequency of my body was changing and changing quickly. I didn’t understand what it meant though. I thought maybe it’s not the right company. So I started looking for something else.
Right after my new found epiphany, we went into Covid lockdowns. I was fed up with everyone and everything. The noise, the hate, the fear. I cut off the news and social media. I rather enjoyed the isolation. In all honesty, I was kind of hanging out there anyway since Fall of 2018. I started to deep dive into spirituality. I spent hours talking the few people I still spoke to off the ledge from going crazy in quarantine. I attended online Vedanta lectures and started to study Astrology. I got involved in an effort to feed the front line and do my part as a member of the community. I started learning the importance of the breath and meditation. Slowly the ground below me was stopping the shaking… only for enough time for me to start hearing my own voice and intuition until the aftershocks came in.
This is where I really wish I had a guide to tell me what was happening with me, but I made do with the information I found online. I frantically searched the web for answers. What was happening to me? I’ve never said this publicly from fear of sounding crazy, but I did have energetic support while I was in isolation. Although we weren’t really in communication anymore since 2018, he was always there with me in spirit as a guide and cheerleader in my journey to healing. Initially it was annoying. It was like he would follow me like a shadow. Every time I would try to move on, something would remind me of him. A song, a scent, a picture, a place, a tattoo. Then I realized there was a lesson in each trigger and I began to welcome his presence. It was strange. I just KNEW when things would happen in his life. Illness, kids getting married, parents passing, kids having kids. I would wake up feeling like we were talking from dusk to dawn. It was not a normal connection. Some might say he is my Twin Flame. Whatever he is, he helped me through my toughest years and he doesn’t even know it. As I learned the lessons he reflected to me, the loudness of his presence slowly died down, but it took almost 5 years.
The reason I said this was my second spiritual awakening is because years ago, in 2011 specifically, I had another epiphany. I didn’t realize I was on a spiritual journey then. It was that my life is about more than me. Thirteen years and following green lights and taking detours at multiple red lights later… what that might means is starting to come full circle. The deeper I got into my healing, the closer I got to the core of the onion, the harder the tests got. The spiritual journey is not all sunshine and rainbows like it may seem… though the sunshine and rainbows do show up eventually, just not fast enough. In the last two and a half years, as I tried to establish myself as a coach, my healing and lessons have probably been the most challenging. I was thrashing around in the middle of the storm and trying to stay afloat. It wouldn’t be right to bring that energy to clients. So to the world I have been sitting in stillness. “You’re wasting away your life,” I was told. But the spiritual and energetic battle was in full swing. This was a different type of battle altogether. It’s a battle with the deamons you can’t see but feel deep in the subconscious. I started to understand why I was removed from the corporate world before I was ready. I couldn’t do this work and fight the battles of the materialistic world at the same time. I also couldn’t go live in a cave. So God gave me a beautiful sanctuary in the midst of it all the chaos for me to heal.
I cried out to the heavens that I couldn’t take it anymore. One after another. Illnesses, betrayals, unexpected costs. They just kept piling up. It seemed like no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get up. Then I received a message. “The more challenges, the harder the battles, the bigger the work to be done.” I thought I had a plan, but God has something bigger, so I needed to be patient. I was in training. I needed to have the faith that God has taken me on this path, so God will take care of me and show me the way.
Since the summer of 2023, I started to feel a momentum in the shifts. It’s felt like a pressure to get ready for something big was high. Many people going through their spiritual journeys have been feeling this urgency. People and situations started to come in and out of my life faster. I learn lessons and transmute energy faster. My identity and understanding of the world is shifting faster. Every few weeks, I feel like I’m taking leaps to a new level in the game.
“It is time. You have learned your lessons. You have the tools to handle what will come your way.”
But I still wonder which way?!? Every time I change, the direction and messaging of my business has also changed. My understanding of what I am here to do changes. But I know better now.
Have patience and faith.
Things align energetically before they manifest physically.
One step in front of the other.
Have a direction in mind, but focus on the now.
Continue to heal. Continue to grow.
In any situation, ask who I am BEING and how can I best serve here?
Be open to opportunities and guidance.
Listen to your intuition and say “yes” when the opportunity arises. You’ll be shown the way.
We are all a work in progress. Our Kintsugi is not complete until we take our last breath. We are all on a journey and what a journey it has been! I can feel in my bones that today is the beginning of a beautiful, new chapter. I don’t know what’s to come. There’s a good chance that I might completely redirect after this week. But what I do know is that as I heal, shift, and flow with the current, the people who are coming across my path are flowing in the same direction. I could not have imagined having this opportunity to be in the presence of so many inspiring leaders following their dreams and mission in life. When you start living in the world of possibilities, anything is possible. You open your world to a world you might have never imagined on your own.
Bon voyage my friends! May our paths cross as we follow the light!
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