Twenty years ago, the energy gave me a major adjustment on my path.

I grew up in an environment where external validation mattered most. I learned to perform, to please, to push and force myself, and to never ask for help. I cloaked and traveled into many different worlds and dimensions.

By my teens and early twenties, my life was bifurcated, I lived above ground: in work achievement, relationships, and in an orientation toward aesthetic, and in a separate place. I had secret forms of escape to explore the dark.

The separation made the structure unsound. By my mid 20s, that structure was cracking. My private dark world was becoming unmanageable. I had begun to recognize it — I remember distinctly thinking, that if something didn’t change, I was going to die. But I didn’t know how to change. I had no guide and no map. I was trapped in this split between an underworld I was drawn to exploring and the ordinary world I understood as “normal life” and “good”.

Grace arrived in an unexpected form. I was arrested for selling drugs and the truth I had been hiding was brought out into the open.

I found a 12-step program and had my first conscious, spiritual experience with a group of people, and a map. I started to recognize God and that that was what I had been searching for. This was where my healing began.

It wasn’t a single initiation. There were many over many years and thresholds.

Today, I live my life on the mat. Experience is the teacher. I am a student, practicing. I read the energy and back what it shows me. I’m training to listen and feel for deeper truth, for the messages of how and where to move.

My primary teacher is Perri Chase. I want to express gratitude for the teachings and transmissions of Nevine Michaan, Jamie Rae, Amy Lee, John Cole, Nicole Daedone, Ra Uru Hu, and my trainer Kari Marinucci. There are others. I’m deeply grateful for all the lineages that have shaped my path.