Do your beliefs live inside your body?

Are they in your mind?

Or are they in your soul?

I believe they line in all three.

“Sometimes you no longer recognize yourself. You want to overcome it, but it overcomes you. You want to set limits, but it compels you to keep going. You want to elude it, but it comes with you. You want to employ it, but you are its tool; you want to think about it, but your thoughts obey it. Finally the fear of the inescapable seizes you, for it comes after you slowly and invincibly.

There is no escape. So it is that you come to know what a real God is. Now you’ll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it’s all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way.

But the way is my own self, my own life founded upon myself. The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever present. But I’m ashamed of my God. I don’t want to be divine but reasonable. The divine appears to me as irrational craziness. I hate it as an absurd disturbance of my meaningful human activity. It seems an unbecoming sickness which has stolen into the the regular course of my life. Yes, I even find the divine superfluous.”

-Carl Gustav Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus

My compass was busted, spinning in chaotic circles. 

I was sick. Clogged up with the clay of the world. My body had become a receptacle for shame and fear. Discarded and abandoned.

My desires were no match for the grief stricken memories that played out in loops under my skin. They exercised their sabotaging powers with a veracity that I was powerless to protect myself from. 

I’ve lived a wild life. I spent much of my early 20s dancing and drinking my way through China and southeast asia. I went on to create a small fitness empire in my mid-20s. I’ve always wanted to help women feel worthy and loved. Funny how we give to others what we most crave isn’t it? All of that would end in fire and fury after a reality show aired. I was still caked in the clay of society at the age of 28. Painted with the exploitative money hungry brush of dramatized television, I was crucified on social media and youtube. 

I closed my gyms, left my home and fiancee of 8 years and spiraled into a deep and dark depression. I attracted not one, but two toxic and abusive relationships. I believed I was a terrible person who deserved to be abused. I believed I was not worthy of care or safety. As a child, I had been sexually abused for years at the hands of my primary teacher. The halls and closets of church were my personal hell. I was vulnerable, a loving and tender child enraged with a longing to be kept.

Where did the cruel fire of self-sabotaging beliefs live within me?

How would I ever express the ocean of grief that stood between me and everything my heart wanted?

How would I learn to trust when my childhood had been a minefield of trespass? 

My body, a vigil to violation. 

“The moon is dead. Your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. Thus the soul moved toward death. I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.”

― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus

Those who have experienced complex childhood trauma know the ache of longing for their own innocence. Many of us turn to substances in an attempt to connect with our souls. The cloud of trauma can feel like a thick poisonous metal. For many of us, myself included, our bodies become divorced from feeling. 

Through forgiveness, we become real. 

Forgiveness walks with self-protection. 

Two years ago I embarked on the spiritual path inward. I gave everything away. My life was becoming an epic of love and loss. Heartbroken, I couldn’t bear the thought of another external dream being ripped away from me. 

I desired to see, to hear, and to feel. 

I longed to know a love built on trust, safety, support, and protection. 

I wished to taste and realize the song of my soul. 

I yearned to live a life I didn’t have to be stoned to live. 

I longed to breathe easy and to wake up with excitement for each day.

My life at the time was so incredibly far away from this dream. I had no idea how I was going to get from hell to heaven. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to wait until I died to find it.

It’s a sobering moment to realize that intelligence and creativity alone aren’t enough to change one’s life. My good intentions were continually usurped by the sabotaging grief and anger of the abandoned child within. 

So, with tears running down my cheeks, snot on my whaling lips, and humility in my heart, I did something that changed the course of my life. 

…

I hadn’t prayed in a long long time. I was raised fearing the wrath of the Western narcissistic God. This controlling, jealous, and patriarchal God was not my God. A seasoned escapist, I received my education in the world as I traveled the globe seeking belonging. 

In my early twenties I saw the prayer of the Chinese elders every morning in the green parks at 6 AM. The faint sound of the erhu hung in the mist. As the sun ate the moisture, I watched their delicate dance with energy. I saw the serenity on their faces. Their weathered bodies flowed with a fluidity I hadn’t seen before.

In Luang Prabang, Laos, I watched as locals gathered at sunrise lining the cobble stone streets. Every morning, the monks walk through town in their saffron robes punctuated by hazy blue light. Their walk is a daily call to alms. I was amazed by the Laotions who lived so simply, yet offered what food they had every morning. I saw the peace in their prayer of giving. 

When I was 18, I took a greyhound bus to Atlanta GA. I learned about chance and opportunity as I knocked up and down that town selling security systems. Countless African American families took my hand in a prayer circle in their living rooms and driveways to ensure I was graced with safe passage.

I saw God in the face of my dying Grandmother. A devout Mormon and temple lady. She died on her own terms, in her bed. In perfect peace. She was ready to go. I watched as she held the hand of everyone who came to visit her in those three days of grace before she went on to reunite with her Ernie again. She looked deep into the eyes of everyone she knew, she said, “I love you, I will always love you, and I will always be there for you.” It still makes me cry. She was between worlds during those three days. I know she is with me. And somehow with the countless others who pray to her for comfort. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know she is with me.

I have felt the buoyancy of grace on a bus plunging through the Himalayas near Okhaldhunga Nepal. We were packed in like sardines, certain death was 2 mm away. As our feet left the floor, I was suspended body to body in a free floating nebulus of humanity. The peace I felt in that moment, knowing that if we died, we died together was indescribable. That’s what it feels like to live life suspended on a razor’s edge. The humility that floods in when you realize your life is not your own is breathtaking. 

I have seen God in the alleyways and the temples of this world. 

I have found God in the gutters of Bangkok and the eyes of orphans in Cambodia.

And so when I prayed, I prayed to the amalgamation of all of these Gods. In time, I came to think of God as Mother Earth manifest in countless and infinite forms. I see her beyond human morality. She gives and takes in ways that our little human minds fail to understand.

I would love to share the miracles I have experienced in my life since I started praying to Mother Earth. I would love to share all the tools I have learned and practices that have brought transformation to my life. But that would likely become a novel. Simply put, I have received everything I’ve asked for. Though it rarely comes in the way I think it will, it comes no less. The most miraculous change of all has come through releasing the seemingly infinite barriers to love. In discovering trust and surrender, I have yielded to love like a river bends to absorb a mountain. 

This is not intended to be a novel.

So I will leave you with a simple prayer and practice to invite the powers of transformation to guide your life. 

Practice and Prayer

Go to nature. Sit down in a comfortable place, ideally, near water. Find safety in the fact that you are utterly alone and completely connected all at once. 

Close your eyes and visualize your root anchoring deep into the earth. Visualize the depths of the earth, notice the multi-faceted layers of time’s emblazoned memories. 

Notice the carcasses of countless creatures that lived before you, silently informing your roots.  

Thank them. Thank the earth for offering you everything you have and will ever have and ever know in this life. Remember, the earth is your mother. Take peace in this. Remember she is always here to listen, to hold you, and to offer her endless support. 

Allow this peace to reach all the cells in your body. Invite your cells to reprogram themselves with support and safety. Allow yourself to feel trust in the magnitude and sturdiness of the earth beneath, around, and above you. Remember how small you are compared to all that is. Take peace in this. 

When your heart swells with love, listen. If you have a question, ask it. Trust that your message is true. In time, as you practice acting on the messages you receive, your connection will grow stronger.

PS- Remember, trust is a very tricky thing for many of us. Trauma loops can easily sabotage all of us. Learn the difference in the way it feels when you make a trauma informed decision and when you make a courageous decision rooted in trust.

Cowards judge, criticize, and shame others from a hole in their heart. 

Trust is always present when you are acting courageously with your whole heart.

As always, I am here to witness women in their transformative journey. I have witnessed hundreds of women in this journey as they reclaim their bodies, hearts, and minds from the poisonous fearful lies of others. Msg me if you’re ready to release the clay and cry sovereignty. 

I’ve been witnessing women on film lately and I couldn’t be happier with the way the ineffable translates through an analog expression.

I am open to offering support to others who are going through transformation and seeking support on their journey. If you would like support in excavating your heart from the clay of society, send me a message.

10% of profits support our OG Mother Earth.

PPS- if you haven’t yet signed up for my Substack, I’d recommend doing so. It’s for the soul seekers who are walking the poetic pilgrimage of transformation.

From the time when I was a photojournalist in Nepal. These people taught me about grace and belonging.

Have you noticed, the way we treat women is the way we treat the earth?

The way we fear the chaos of her beauty. The way we exploit and take from her without reciprocity. The way we treat her as a receptacle for our waste, shame, and fear.

The way we treat the earth is as grotesque as the way we treat the Goddess.

The sacred becomes profane when trust is lost.

Many of us never developed a healthy sense of trust in our childhood. Without being patterned with trust, our lives were unconsciously dreamed and created by anxiety, fear, shame, and worry.

Trauma begets trauma. 

Unaddressed trauma can easily ruin and sabotage your life. The abandoned and abused parts within me sabotaged my life for a long time. It takes a tremendous amount of courage and accountability to move from the victim to the creator of your life. With trust in yourself and the invisible forces of this planet and your soul, your life can and will change.

Today, the moon is ripe in Aquarius. 

To get into sync with the unseen, reflect on these questions and say a prayer to the full moon tonight. 

How can you cultivate a relationship of trust and reciprocity with mother earth?

What can you do on a daily basis to honor your body?

Do you know what your soul’s calling is? 

Are you watering it daily?

Go to the earth with bare feet. Place your hands in the soil or grass. Say a prayer of gratitude, ask for support, and listen. 

Don’t forget, the groove is in the heart. 

Personal note:

As the super-moon rises, I, along with the collective, am examining my relationship with trust. 

When I was eight I started receiving conflicting messages regarding the sacred and profane nature of my body and sexuality from my primary teacher. Additionally, I never understood why the making of me was considered profane and so I was discarded at 5 days old. Yet, the making of others was considered a sacred act. 

I have spent my life trying to find my identity beyond the shadow of shame. I was created by the daily shameful and discarded tears of my mother. She was told that by giving me away she could atone for her sin. I was sacrificed and trafficked as a baby by the LDS church. They followed the traditional model of religion, shame leads to profit. 

My art is a heretical love note to all that was shamed in my line of women. I have long asked the question; where am I sacred and where am I profane?  In a recent breakthrough, I have been learning to stay present during intimacy with my partner. This might not seem like a big deal to some, but for me, it has been my Mount Everest.

Through this deepening of trust and intimacy, I’ve discovered that everything becomes profane when trust is broken. The trust that inhabits my body disappears with memories that register when my body is touched. It’s nothing my partner did, and yet my past, a past that occurred when I was just a child, has robbed me of experiencing true intimacy for my entire life, until now. 

This new discovery (at the age of 36) has ignited a desire to extend the sovereign sessions experience to couples. I have shared this experience with a few couples prior to this date. Those experiences have been deeply transformative. It is an artistic conversation that notices your relationship with each other and with trust.

All experiences open with a ritual calling in the invisible forces. You will each set your intentions as we discuss and define the boundaries of the experience. For the experience to be transformative and the photos to have that je ne sais quoi, everyone must feel safe and embodied. I am extremely sensitive to noticing when others are dissociating. There are many ways to move the energy when one finds themself caught in freeze as their soul leaves their body. I have numerous ways of supporting you as we call you back in.

If you and your partner are wanting to deepen into the layers of intimacy that come from being witnessed in your primal and authentic selves as you freely express your feelings for one another, send me a message. The feelings might very well extend beyond love. There could be unexpressed anger, grief, or shame that needs to come out. We create an experience honoring what has been, as we water the seeds of a healthy, playful and passionate love affair with one another. 

Additionally, I am as passionate as ever about facilitating this experience for women. 

Your life is waiting for you. My life was waiting for me. I know that decolonizing my body from the shame of religion, predators, and oppressive systems of governance has been life changing. It is my sincere hope that those who walk through this experience can deepen into their soul’s gifts to create the dream of their hearts.

My purpose in writing this is to acknowledge challenges we each face, while illuminating soul strengthening practices.

Life looks quite different for me than it has ever looked.

Like many of you, I was raised in ways that taught me to develop extremely unhealthy coping patterns. I went much of my life completely unaware of the complex trauma bubbling and festering under the surface, informing my behavior.

I’ve wrestled with powerful demons in this life. For the last 7 years I lived under the beliefs that I deserved to be abused, I thought I was a terrible person, I was sad and alone, even in my relationships. I believed that it was not safe to form attachments with others.

I believed this because it was what the world had shown me. Subsequently, I was lost to the cruelty of others for a long time.

After spending 6 years in back to back abusive relationships. I knew that if I wanted to break the cycle, I was going to have to break up with the abuser inside my own mind. Beyond that, I had to look back and acknowledge the myriad ways that I engaged in abusive behaviors, both toward myself and others. This is far easier said than done as anyone who was abused as a child knows, those channels are deep. Intense coping patterns develop that seem nearly impossible to break. 

I’ve done a variety of hard things in my life, but nothing has taken as much courage and resolve as wrestling with the cruel voices that took up residence inside my own mind. 

I will not go into the details of my personal trauma. I will say, for much of my life I tricked myself into thinking I was not affected by the abandonment, sexual, physical and verbal abuse I experienced as a child. Was I wrong. Anyone else who was sexually abused a child and has faced it knows, those tangles run deep. It is incredibly difficult to discover how twisted your sense of self-worth, safety, and stability become because of something like that. There are countless ways that I was affected and impacted by that experience that I am still untangling. 

For those of you who have known me for a while, you’ve been able to see some of the struggles I’ve gone through. I wish more people had the capacity to reach out and offer heart to hearts when people are in need. In my experience 99% of people will judge and criticize others, while 1% of people have the capacity to pull you in close and have a heart to heart. 

It makes me cry to think about how far gone I was into the tunnel of isolation, depression, anxiety, and abuse for 7 years.

I am writing this to you because I wish someone would have clued me into terms like complex PTSD and reactive attachment disorder when I needed it. I wish someone could have illuminated all the ways abandonment and childhood sexual, verbal, and physical abuse can affect you. 

I am who I am now thanks to a very small handful of people. I can count the people on one hand who were truly there for me in my times of need. I owe my life to them.

Two years ago, I dissolved the woman that found herself caked in the clay of the world. Thanks to the help of a handful of people, I left my last abusive relationship. If not for them, I would have never made it out.

That’s when I started praying. I prayed to no God in particular, but I acknowledged far greater and mysterious powers at work in this world. I learned to speak and listen to the water and nature. I learned to hear the voice inside of my heart and trust in its guidance. 

I now have faith in my heart that the energy of nature is alive in all of us. If you listen to your heart, you too will find your way. It takes a great deal of humility to acknowledge your smallness compared to the grandness of nature and this mystery we all find ourselves co-existing in.

The happiest people I have met throughout this world are connected to nature. I saw it in the hillside villages of the Himalayas. I saw it in Southern Oaxaca at the permaculture farm that I lived and volunteered on. I saw it in the Cambodian, Laotian, and Chinese countryside.

There is a very real world that we all live in. We are nature. We are real. This earth is real. This magic mirror is something spectacular, no doubt, but holy damn does it create distortion and fractured lies inside of us all.

It seems to me that so many people are struggling right now. I notice people looking sick and feeling deeply disconnected from their hearts and souls everywhere I look. I notice people wrestling with serious demons and feelings of isolation. It seems that just about everyone is living with baseline anxiety and depression. 

As I return to the world, I realize I’m not the only one who has experienced extreme abuse. I see that it has become the norm to slander others, judge, criticize, and make assumptions based on 2D words and representation of others. It’s like we’ve forgotten that each person is a complex 3D multi-layered individual. 

I hope each of us can acknowledge the role we’ve played in the cycle of abuse. I hope by doing so we can create a kinder and gentler world that allows each human to thrive and come into the gifts of their soul. I hope we each can become real as we practice humility, empathy, and forgiveness. 

We are all far more sensitive to the energy of our environment, our community, and our loved ones than most of us realize. For anyone who spends any amount of time in their heart, it means you’re alive if you’re overtaken over by the grief of our World at times.

To me, daily practices that strengthen the soul offer the best medicine to face the difficulties of life. Fortunately there are many ways to strengthen the soul, here are a few of my favorites.

Life is getting harder and harder as we’re all feeling the crunch of billionaires hoarding wealth and comparing rockets while the rest of us work harder, yet feel like we can barely provide for our families. Many of us feel like there’s no time for the activities listed above. The health of your soul is your vitality and life force. Having a strong connection with your soul and mother earth can help you face the darkest days knowing that you are supported and cared for. 

I share this with the hope that each of us can learn to see each other through the eye of the heart. Almost everyone I know is struggling in one way or another. I don’t know how to get from here to a place where there is more equity, kindness, empathy in our society in the blink of an eye. I do know that as people strengthen their souls, day by day, they create a world that they and others actually want to live in.

If you would like to connect with me, here’s how:

Movement - It’s true. It’s been 7 years since I closed the gyms and I still love jumping around and expressing playful movement as much as ever. Your physical health is just about the most important thing in this world. I’m curating intimate training groups in my garden in the millcreek/murray area. Message me if you’d like a special invite to join The Rebellious Hearts Club.

Music and Art Lessons- Guided by both discipline and improv. Music and art lessons take place in my home and art studio. 

Photoshoot- if you’re ready to show up and be seen.

Forgiveness Support- I believe everyone who shows up in our lives offering us a chance to embody forgiveness helps us become real. Weak hearts never had to truly forgive others. The strongest and most courageous people I know embody forgiveness. You can forgive others while cultivating and practicing self-protection. If you would like help in forgiving yourself or others I would love to offer you support. Forgiveness is the fast track to inner peace.

Wander Wonder- Is a program offered and sponsored by Mentally Healthy Fit. If you’re not yet acquainted with this non-profit I highly recommend checking them out. They offer mental health awareness in a variety of creative ways. I get to guide the wander wonder program which offers a short walk through nature followed by an art activity. We meet at a variety of locations in the Salt Lake City area and it’s free. The young at heart of all ages are invited. Check out their website for more details. I’d love to see you there. 

(Side Note for Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors) For women who were sexually abused under the age of 18, there is a local organization that proves that angels exist. Check out saprea.org to apply to attend a free retreat. I attended the retreat just over a month ago and can not tell you how much my life has changed because of what I learned and experienced there. In addition, the connections I made with the other women have been so healing. I’m so grateful to call each one of those incredibly kind and courageous women friends.

Finally, here are a few photos of life lately. How different this life looks than my world did when it was ruled by the beliefs of a child who was stuck on abandoned, abused, unsafe, sad & alone setting. Real change is possible. I’m living proof that people can change when they change their core beliefs. I did not do this alone. We all need each other. After a lifetime of searching for belonging all around the world, I’ve come to realize, I’m right where I belong.