How do I keep this short...

I went to Ecuador in 2019 to study kaula tantra yoga and shamanism. I was supposed to come back after six weeks to start making babies with my  *second* husband, but I ended up staying for 6 months. We got a divorce and I started life over, pursuing my childhood dream of being a performance artist. Enough said? I hope not.

Of course, there is so much more to this story, but it comes out in the show. When I hit the cosmic reset button, necessitated by not wanting to introduce new life to repeat my own cycles of dysfunctional and unresolved trauma. I didn't know what was to come, I just knew I couldn't go back - to the US, to my old life in corporate tech or as a midwestern housewife.

After 6 weeks of 15+ hours of yoga a day, purifying sweatlodges and medicine ceremonies, singing and dancing as medicine to access the unlimited power within, I had finally deconditioned who my society trained me to be to remember who I really am - an artist. And my purpose - to the raise the vibration of love (ironic considering the amount of self-loathing I process daily). But I was a soft kernel. If I went back to the US now, I would fall back to my patterns and "safe zones" of social acceptabililty, which I knew would likely lead me to drink myself to death again.

This was my karmic crossroads, the decision I was always meant to make. So I took the leap, ostraccizing myself from all friend and family connections in the US, and refused to return until I felt it was time.

All I knew

This is not me. This is not it, but what next? Who am I? Where do I go from here? Where is my inner child, how did she get o lost, and how do I not get lost again?

Back to the stage

When I made my decision to stay, the head of my yoga school, herself an actress and director from Berllin, said something like, in her thick German accent, "You will stay here as an artist-in-residence and you will make your story into a solo show. Work with a writter, we have many here, and another director in town will be your mentor so you can perform it on the stage." I spent 3 more weeks in yogic/shamanic training, told my story to a poet, and so it began.

The story

At this moment, on the edge of the Andes in March 2019, I couldn't remember who I was, neither in my show or in real life. I had juts woken up to, "This is not me, this is not it, but what next? Who am I? Where do I go from here? Where is my inner child, how did she get so lost and how do I not get lost again."

Caption: Included Song Excerpt- Where do I go from the musical Hair

Attempting to recall the last time I had seen or felt my inner child, I was flooded with joyful memories of the stage and flowers, Broadway musicals had been my jam living in upstate NY, before the voices of my parents and society, their fears and desires took over my head. I wanted to stand up for myself then, but I didn't. As an only child, I wanted my parents approval above all else.

The path of practicality ended up a more dangerous one. Retracing my steps, I went to Brown and studied Russian, which was somehow more prestigious and practical, possibly to become a spy. But I fell in love with a Russian while abroad, who broke my security clearance and my soul. He left me with nothing but my first divorce, PTSD and alcoholism by age 21 during a recession.

Article to be continued...