The last time, it was my grandmother calling the ambulance. This time it was me in a foreign country, on the phone with her ex-husband and the locksmith and the police, trying to explain that they NEED to knock the door down because my mother is dying she is almost dead it’s for real I promise but no one will believe me. No one will believe me but they do as I say because I’m hysterical. It takes forever and time has frozen but they do as I say and they screw the bolts out of the door and the ambulance comes and she is unconscious on the bed and the whole time all I can think is how will I ever live without my mother when she is the center of everything. And now it’s five months later and nothing has healed. No one is fine and I am so angry I want to scream until my voice is gone and I’m sad and I’m scared and I’m five years old wondering if it’s all my fault. Maybe I should have been better, less fussy, teased my brother less. Maybe if I am perfect my mom will want to live. So I become perfect and my entire life revolves around being the best at everything and suddenly I’m 26 and history repeats itself and people tell me “it had nothing to do with you” but how could it not have anything to do with me when I am the one always saving her life?
I had never shared that part of me before on social media. I’d kept it to myself because I was afraid of upsetting my mother and it was growing inside of me like a cancer. I didn’t know if what I had done would upset her, or if she would feel it was like a betrayal. All I knew was that putting it out there was a huge relief. Some people commented that I was jeopardizing her recovery, and that her personal story was not mine to share. Maybe they were right, but I didn’t care. I was angry. This was my story, my life, too. Since Andrea, I had shared every heartbreak, every loss, every moment of pain through Instagram. It was a critical part of my healing journey and I wasn’t about to stop now. It didn’t matter what my mother thought. I was done walking on eggshells around her.
My mom texted her response: I would have appreciated you asking me first before sharing that online. But it’s alright. I love you. We are going to get through this.
I didn’t know it yet, but we had just taken our first steps toward healing. My mom was doing this in her own way, and for the first time in my life . . . so was I.
let go
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* * *
CREATE
Dennis wanted a baby. He had wanted a baby since the wedding, but I was too busy—or too terrified to try. I kept waiting to feel whole enough, to be healed enough, for something as monumental as motherhood. The shaman in Costa Rica had said I’d never pass on my pain—or the pain passed down from my ancestors—to my child. My daughter, he had said specifically. That was my purpose in life; to transform that collective familial pain and let it go. I deeply believed that to be true. From the time I was a little girl I’d said I wouldn’t have a baby until I was “done.” Healed. Happy. I didn’t want to do what my mom had done—have children in the midst of so much struggle. It’s what most people do; we can’t help it. We can’t control what comes our way, and when we are faced with loss and adversity, we do what we have to do to survive. I knew that what had happened in our past had to be, or I wouldn’t be here. I tried to put myself in my mom’s shoes; pregnant at twenty years old, living through so much trauma and loss, being a single mom. She had moved mountains for us. I had so much compassion for my mom—I loved her more than anything, and for as long as I’d lived she was the most important person in my life. I knew she had done the best she could. But her way was not my path. I was still angry at Mom and needed to focus on myself. But somewhere deep inside me, a dream was forming. A dream that involved a baby, and all of us being a family.
Yet I was still wounded. Broken. I wanted to be a mother at some point, but I could feel there was still a piece missing inside of me. In the meantime, I focused on our business. We had created so much in such a short time, and Dennis and I now ran several companies together. I’d taught classes of more than a thousand people. Launched a huge online platform. Started two nonprofit organizations. Written a New York Times bestseller. What else could I do if I put my mind to it? I wondered. A yoga studio. That would become my next goal. There was little yoga in Aruba, and the community I’d built dispersed when I started traveling so much. I yearned for a home base, a place to set down roots, a place where I could work from home.
I drew up a business plan for a studio I called Island Yoga. Dennis and I started looking at local properties. Things were moving. We found a property and took a loan. The place was a ruin and we’d have to tear most of it down, but we had the keys in our hands. There was a big open space, with a beautiful wood-beamed ceiling, and I envisioned us one day lying on yoga mats looking up. Island Yoga was coming true.
I told Dennis one day over dinner that once we’d had the studio up and running for a year or so we could “sort of, kind of, maybe” start thinking about one day having a baby. Construction was scheduled to begin in the spring of 2016. With luck, the studio would open before my twenty-eighth birthday. Maybe the year after that, I said.
Some people thought I spent all day at the beach or on my yoga mat. That was far from the truth. I wasn’t just Yoga Girl from Instagram anymore; I was Yoga Girl, business owner, boss, CEO, chairman of the board. I was running four businesses in three countries, hosting retreats, teaching workshops, touring, managing social media, doing animal rescue work, all the while trying to stay present in my community. It was an enormous amount of work and there were moments when I felt dizzy just thinking about all of it. And it turns out, building the largest yoga studio in the Caribbean from the ground up wasn’t a walk in the park! Construction was extremely stressful, and we ran out of funds more times than I could count. A few months into planning for the studio I started feeling overwhelmed. My mind and my body were always busy. Everything was nonstop. I loved the go-getting side of me (because of it, I’d manifested more magic in one year than I could have ever imagined!), but I was longing for rest. I just didn’t know how to slow down.
The stress of dealing with business partners, construction setbacks, and long yoga tours was taking a toll on me. I decided I needed time for myself. For more than eight years, I’d wanted to attend an annual meditation retreat called Path of Love, but it had never been the right time. Every time I planned to go, something had gotten in the way—another trip, work, life. But the seed that had been planted long ago started sprouting.
I didn’t know much about Path of Love, except that it was billed as a deeply transformative healing retreat. I’d heard about it when I was eighteen and participating in my first ever retreat, the one that would come to forever change my life. It was eight years later, and I just knew it was time for me to go. The last time I had done a group like that it had spurred me to leave Sweden and start on a whole new path. It had changed my life in the most magical of ways. I felt ready to dive in once again. I e-mailed, asking if they had space left in the May group in Germany. They responded that yes, they would love to have me. At least I had a few months to prepare, and Envision Festival in between.
At the end of February I returned to Costa Rica for Envision, this time with Olivia. It was hard to believe another year had passed, two since I’d been there with Andrea. How does time work? I wondered. Is it linear? Is it all layered together and stretched out and mushed up into one weird experience?
It was the first time I’d felt like myself at the festival since Andrea died. The previous year everything was too raw, too sad. I tried to channel her but I couldn’t do it. This year I saw her everywhere. Her hair, her earrings, her smile. Her spirit was omnipresent. She was as alive in this community as she had ever been. Dancing. Bartering with vendors over twenty-dollar skirts. Sneaking up on people to tickle them. Losing her car keys again and again. Rolling out her yoga mat, wondering which side is up. Laughing. Always laughing. I saw her and I felt her.
After one day at the festival, I was bursting with gratitude. What better recipe than yoga and dirt and sweat and tears and hugs and so much love. Everywh
ere I went, people stopped to hug me. Complete strangers gave me gifts of fruit and crystals. A woman offered me a Thai massage. Normally I wouldn’t have accepted, but as I was saying no, it hit me: Why not say yes? Why not just let yourself receive? So I did.
It was dusk and I lay down on some blankets under a tree. I don’t know how long she worked on me but my whole body was buzzing. She finished at the crown of my head and when she left, I felt Andrea’s hands take over. It was so real. I felt her, heard her, smelled her. She was sitting behind me, her palms pressing on my crown and third eye. She was humming and I was crying. For the longest time we stayed like that. Olivia and Laura came over and held me and then it was the four of us, wrapped up in a ball of love and tears and the kind of friendship you can’t put into words. They felt her, too.
I had a major insight. It was safe to relax. It was okay to receive. Andrea made that happen. She sat with me to help me understand I needed to let love in. All I had to do was stop resisting. I shared the realization with my online community: The universe wants to hold you. Please let it.
My mom had been texting me almost every day. I miss you, she said. How are you? Do you need something? I rarely responded because I didn’t know how. During my practice that week, I started playing around with variations of King Pigeon. The pose is demanding and I’d struggled with it my whole life, but it was suddenly available to me. I hadn’t been practicing it, or fighting for it, or struggling to deepen my practice. It just happened. Maybe my heart was finally open enough for the pose to find me. After I’d finished Savasana I rolled up my mat, reached for my phone and texted my mother back. I miss you, too.
It had been a big two weeks in Costa Rica, with lots of opening, cleansing, and healing. I still felt Andrea so closely, but it was a different kind of feeling. It wasn’t as painful anymore. I missed her, but I had finally stopped waiting for her to come back. I didn’t have to call her cell phone, hoping she would answer. She was already there. She was everywhere.
I flew home to Aruba on the second anniversary of Andrea’s death. I could have changed my flight and stayed in Costa Rica for another day, but I didn’t. Instead, I was back home in Aruba, sitting on a rock in my garden, watching the dogs play and wondering if it was going to rain. I always felt closer to her when it rained.
• • •
I had come to terms with the fact that I was broken. Not in a sad or bad way, but in an it-is-what-it-is kind of way. Life happened and I adjusted accordingly. We’re all a little bit shattered. Pain and heartache come our way and with time we develop patterns that we think will protect us. But that only keeps us in fear.
There are traits in me that aren’t necessarily a part of who I am, but fallouts from what I’ve seen in this lifetime. For instance: I will probably always have a huge fear of abandonment. It stems from my parents’ separation when I was two, my stepfather’s death when I was four, my mother’s suicide attempts, and every divorce, trauma, and death I’ve experienced since. As a result, I have to be mindful of what’s real and what’s fear.
I’m scared of being left out. I’m controlling—I want things to happen my way, and I often assume things are going to go wrong if I’m not in charge.
I micromanage everything. I expect people to fail me, or disappoint me, or leave me, so they often do. It has been instilled in me since I was a little girl that if I don’t do it, none of us will survive.
I don’t trust easily, and I don’t give second chances.
I’m messy. I’m emotional. I love hard and hurt over little things. I take everything personally. I want to fix everyone, even if they’re not broken.
I want the world to be whole because that means I am whole.
So much of how I feel and act is connected to the past. Part of my journey is figuring out what is truly a part of me, what brings my light out into the world, and what is baggage masquerading as personality. What is action, and what is reaction? Am I moving with love or with fear?
I have learned now that the only way to make peace with who you are is to make peace with your past. Explore all of it. It brought you here and it made you who you are; but is this you at your fullest potential? Do you see love in everything? Is this your purpose? Ask questions. Peel off the layers. Notice the signs.
The more I reflect on experiences, emotions, and thoughts and how they relate to my past, the more in touch I feel. I understand, more and more, that absolutely nothing is random. Everything is perfectly orchestrated to bring us what we need to elevate our being. To live out our purpose. My purpose here has to do with healing, with moving others through trauma and grief, with inspiring acceptance and kindness and fearlessness. It has little to do with photo shoots and business meetings—but that is my way of getting there. It comes with the job.
For so long I wondered, What is the point of all this? I am finally starting to get it. I feel butterflies flutter in my stomach when I think of the true potential of what lies ahead. I am going to change the world. I know I am. I’ve spent my life so far working through pain and trauma to get here. To understand that I am in the business of teaching and promoting love.
I shared my thoughts on Instagram: I feel like I am on the cusp of something big; as a teacher, as a student of life, as a human being. This is the path. I’m uncovering my true dharma and it’s making the earth rumble beneath my feet. I’ve made a decision: next month I’m going away. For a while. From everything. Into myself. Back to basics. Will share more soon. All is well.
love
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* * *
HEAL
I spent some time in Sweden before heading to Germany to attend Path of Love. I stayed with my mother and Maia, who was now living there again. It had been a year since my mom’s suicide attempt and my relationship with her had slowly returned to some sort of normalcy (whatever normal was). We had settled into a new rhythm—we spoke on the phone, texted a little, and she checked in with me all the time. She was being a lot more attentive to me than normal, always asking if she could support me in any way. It was new and I felt slightly uncomfortable with the whole thing. Did I need support? I wondered. I just needed her to be stable. I needed her to live. On the surface everything looked almost the way it did before her suicide attempt, but deep down I was terrified all the time. I couldn’t relax with her. I wanted her to be happy, to want to live, to feel loved—but I didn’t trust her anymore. A part of me was wondering if I ever really had. On some level I knew we needed to take a real break. I needed space. I needed to figure out who I was without her, but at the same time the thought of not speaking to her scared me, too. She was the center of my life. Come to think of it, second to Dennis, she was the most important person in my life. Would I be okay without her, even for a while? Would she? I didn’t know, but I knew I had to find out. All four of her kids did similar things but in different ways. Since the suicide attempt we’d all distanced ourselves somehow. I was reading a lot about codependency and realized that throughout our lives together, we had leaned on each other in ways that weren’t always healthy. Suddenly, after almost thirty years of being a mom, my mother had found herself alone. Returning to Sweden, I sensed something different in her that I couldn’t pinpoint, something good, but I still didn’t trust her. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust her again.
In Stockholm we walked the dogs and had long talks. She didn’t like the idea of my going to Path of Love. She had been there many years earlier and knew what it was all about. Why was I going? she asked. I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t really know why I was going. The retreat involved early-life work—going back into childhood, into pain, exploring wounds while using therapy and meditation as a way to heal. I knew it would be intense. Most people who went were experiencing something super challenging in their lives—trauma, divorce, disease, death. At that moment, everything in my life seemed okay. I felt stable. Maybe that was why I was going, I said. Not out of panic, or wanting to fix something that was broken, but to take the next step to be
coming a better person.
I spent a beautiful week in Sweden and Mom drove me to the airport for my flight to Germany. We hugged when she dropped me off. “Do you have any idea what you’re in for?” she asked. “No,” I said, getting out of the car. “But I need this.”
When I was booking my stay at the Osho center for the Path of Love retreat, I was obsessive about the lodging. There were so many options, but most were shared rooms or communal living spaces. I wanted my own room. The idea of sharing with a stranger made me uncomfortable. I needed my own space to be. I was told that nothing was available. I begged them to try to accommodate me. At last, one of the facilitators who owned a top-floor apartment at the center where the retreat was being held, offered to rent it to me for cheap.
I landed in Cologne and made my way downtown. A nice woman at the reception desk checked me in and handed me a set of keys. I was early for the retreat and only a few people were around. I lugged my suitcase up five flights and unlocked the door to the apartment where I would be staying. I could hardly believe my luck. It was a penthouse with a huge bedroom and bathroom, and I had my own kitchen. I bounced up and down with excitement.
The rules of the retreat were strict. We were not allowed to communicate with anyone on the outside during our stay and all electronic devices were prohibited. Time between sessions were to be spent in strict silence. I liked to think of myself as a fairly smartphone-balanced person; I used my phone a lot but mostly for work. I wasn’t one to have it in my hand at all times. But now, putting it away for a week, I felt like I was about to have my hand chopped off.
Everyone gathered in the main hall for an orientation meeting on the first evening. I was the last person to walk in and the others turned to look at me. I found an empty chair and sat down. The group included forty participants, forty support staff, ten facilitators, and Rafia and Turiya, the founders of the program. I was drawn to Rafia. He was in his sixties, handsome, and very serene looking. “You are in for the ride of your lives,” he promised, smiling as he addressed the group. “We are deeply honored to have you here.” He looked at me and smiled warmly.
To Love and Let Go Page 21