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I’m not entirely sure how it happens.

“It” silently tiptoes into your life, injects its jagged barbs into your essence, and seeps you of energy, health, wellness, money, happiness, fun, time, and the ability to deal with life’s even most basic curveballs.

“It” has slithered into the cracks of your soul, taken a hold of your life—eating the same Pastrami on wheat every day at the cafeteria, a what-the-hell am I even doing mentality, and falling face down in bed every night, exhausted from just living. “It” has taken over the body, mind, and soul, concealing the divine essence within.

“It” is unresolved trauma.

And so, the dark night of the soul commences.

The universe has an interesting way of putting people in our path when awakening begins and we begin to align with the truth of our soul, but how many of us really understand how to speak and hear soul language? It’s not as if we receive “Deciphering the soul for Dummies,” outlining our life’s experiences, relationships, places, things, emotions, and what to do and when. We’re given the amazing tools of intuition and gut instinct, coupled with our ability to act as a “scout” to locate and receive the signs and synchronicities.

Delving into meditation was my first attempt to locate my inner landscape and calm down my busy mind. Meditation allowed me to finally discern spiritual guidance and tap into the vastness of the universe and all it had to offer. With a regular meditation practice, I became increasingly calm, more present, and found my way back into my body. With time, I began to see images and pictures, given to me as clues and messages. My gifts began to unlock as I continued down this new path of healing.

 “The soul suffers when the body is diseased or traumatized, while the body suffers when the soul is ailing.” ~ Aristotle

Shortly thereafter, I challenged myself to yoga and became hooked within a week. As many fellow yogis can attest, yoga facilitates another path to tap into the higher self, to connect with the divine, and nurture the body, mind, and soul. I discovered I felt an immense amount of peace, self-love, willingness to be of service, as well as grounded, yet euphoric.

While I made vast improvements in balance, strength, and flexibility, yoga also allowed me to be present and extend my capability to receive. At the same time, yoga added an additional benefit in a profound way. My thinking stretched to lengths I never imagined, like the gadget that pulls the salt water taffy at the State Fair. When I was a kid, I was mesmerized watching the scene—the ease and seemingly effortless motion of the taffy being pulled and stretched.

With this analogy in mind, once stretched to a new length with increased capacity, it’s impossible to revert back to old thinking, unless we wish to remain stagnant.

Hot yoga was a force to allow me to let go of limiting beliefs, rid my body of old trauma and emotions, and, in fact, spiritually surrender to the potential that there was a new version of me up around the corner—if I was willing to tread toward a growth mindset. With any new change in habit, it takes time to grow and solidify with lasting effects.

Yoga teaches us to let go of what no longer serves us.

And yet, another healing opportunity found its way to me—one in which I could eradicate and heal negative patterns, core drivers, generational trauma, and my nervous system with neural rewiring. Quantum Neuro Reset Therapy immensely aided me to heal my jacked-up nervous system and rid my brain-body of the toxic wasteland of trauma and negative experiences, which could not remain attached to me if I wanted to thrive.

The body maintains a map of all the adverse experiences in our brain and body—quite adept at hiding traumas and lodging them deep in the unconscious brain. The beauty is the resets unwind the trauma, freeing it from the nervous system, without the requirement of remembering a particular memory.

For the next few years, I was on a mission to heal, as I knew something was “off” in me and my system. I had difficulties growing up: sensory issues, relationship challenges with particular people; I was uncoordinated, spacey, awkward, and smart but gullible.

In February 2016, I crawled into the attic space, putzing, and found my old arm cast in one of my childhood boxes. Approaching my fourth birthday, my friend Julie was swinging me around and I went flying—bam, smack to the ground, landing on my right arm. I vividly recall the memory as I cradled my right arm with my left, bawling all the way down the block back home.

Off to the hospital and arriving home to sport a hardened Plaster of Paris white cast (1974), held in place with a cute, childish fabric sling. I picked up my cast from the box. The day my cast was removed, the doctor and nurse used an electric knife to split it open, and I cried out in pain, as they tried to gingerly stretch my arm back out. It was no easy feat after my arm had settled into a fixed position for six weeks.

I went to yoga that night per usual, arrived home, and fell fast asleep, but found myself on hands and knees sobbing in bed at 4 a.m., sweating with my heart pounding.

Going into the attic, finding my cast, unearthed a trauma deeply embedded in my unconscious.

A horrible nightmare woke me—and it came in pictures flashing as separate scenes. Through the scenes, I recollected that I had been sexually abused when I was young. Falling back to sleep was useless, as my brain was attempting to dissect and process this massive iceberg of a repressed memory.

The next morning, I wandered aimlessly about my house like a zombie until the tears began pouring from me. Like a scene in a movie, I slumped to the floor, screaming and sobbing hysterically—the emotions were overwhelming. I was shaking, rocking back and forth, having a full-blown trauma response. After 44 years, the schism became the pivotal moment and catalyst for healing my past and shaping my future.

Armed (no pun intended) with yoga, QNRT, journaling, breathwork, self-care, meditation, bodywork, rinse and repeat for five years, I worked to heal, grow, and shed layers to level up.

Further childhood snapshots continued to become uprooted, additional threads weaving the story from the recovered memories. Through due diligence and mindfulness, I let go of the shame, guilt, horror, and the utter sadness and grief inside me. I discovered more grace within myself than I thought possible, as well as reciprocating grace toward others.

I reignited my TGIF (talents, gifts, intuition, and freedom), tapping into my natural talents and gifts and channeling them even more as an adult. I created my lifelong dream come true of writing and publishing a children’s book. Healing allowed me to show up in the world, to be present, and to share my gifts with those I came into contact with.

When I started to heal, my ability to intuit situations and experience precognitive events came to fruition; my gifts lost in childhood were coming back around. Through these experiences over time, I began to trust myself implicitly and came to realize I didn’t need to seek out everyone else’s opinion or approval. My finely attuned intuition, coupled with self-love and knowing I deserved the best, resulted in an incredible amount of freedom and latitude.

The most profound revelation I’ve come to witness within myself is the alchemy of mind-body-spirit. During Medieval times, alchemists proposed turning metal into gold to discover the universal elixir. What this really means is turning lead (ego) into gold (soul). Deep, contemplative, spiritual activation occurs when immersed in the type of healing I underwent.

Healing allowed me to tap into my divine connection to God, the Universe. It goes without saying that spirit often comes down into me and lights the way for me to know my next steps. Healing allows the body to be filled with more light, less dense dark energy (trauma and negative emotions) being dispersed.

I went to the dark side with only a small nightlight illuminating the way, until I was no longer a prisoner to my past. Integrating the light and dark to become balanced and whole is part of the process. Alchemy uses love as the ultimate weapon to transform fear, guilt, sadness, and rage into something magical.

My reservoir of strength had to come from my willingness to go into the depths of my psyche, to understand my behavior, or lack thereof, and the courage to fight through no matter the cost. It’s like taking a sword and cutting through thorny bushes until you come through the other side into the open field with the blue sky overhead.

I can honestly attest that nobody truly knew the madness I traveled to arrive at my final destination.

When I healed myself, I witnessed my life unfolding in a way with the potential toward something different. I had to go against the grain and listen deeply to my intuition.

Showing up in the world as our best, authentic self is what we are here to do, whether we’re doing this on a small, local scale, or large, global mission.

For a certain number of people, life is about moving through the daily madness of rising each day on autopilot existence.

Unless we’re willing to demand more from ourselves through becoming conscious, we settle for less than where our potential is—for having more and being more.

Through my spiritual journey and healing my trauma, I unlocked all the parts of myself and found my true calling in life toward living in complete freedom.

Through the profound realization, I became my own heroine to rescue me and found my wings to fly.

~