Cultivating Inner Peace
I had a chaotic childhood, full of unpredictability and inappropriate exposure to adult themes. We moved around a lot—I went to thirteen different schools before graduating high school—and there were always people coming and going from our lives. I lived with my mother almost exclusively until I was about twelve, and then with my father until I left home at seventeen. This early pattern of instability made chaos feel normal and stability both attractive and elusive. I learned to be self-reliant, trying hard to create a sense of safety and inner peace within myself. With no clear path to follow, I attempted to carve my own—first through emotional numbness, then drugs, blame, and resentment, and eventually, a deep sense of safety and peace within myself.
As much as I craved stability and peace, I had no idea what they actually felt like. I could imagine what they might look like—but how could I create an inner state I had never experienced? How could I manifest peace from imagination alone?
This is one reason drugs appealed to me—and why they worked, for a time. They allowed me to create a predictable inner state and believe in the illusion of peace. The drug-induced apathy felt like calm, and I could reliably recreate that sensation again and again—until it stopped working.
When the illusion faded, my external unmanageability—destitute at thirty years old—forced me to examine my inner world and how I was running it. I needed to see where I was at war within myself and the world around me if I was ever going to make true peace. I could continue to blame society’s cruelty and my parents’ inadequacies for my own choices and chaos, or I could soar toward the limitless freedom that comes from taking responsibility for my happiness. If I wanted to be free from my own shortcomings, I had to be willing to suffer through the withdrawal of letting go of the spiritual crutches they provided.
I was blessed with the willingness to pioneer my own path—supported and guided by a few courageous souls who loved me as I was and gave me hope to lean on until I found my own.
Each time I felt a moment of peace, I held onto it for dear life—savoring every sensation, emotion, and spiritual quality so I could return to the memory in vivid detail. I learned to recreate those moments of peace in my body as much as in my mind and heart, expanding my capacity for serenity and building the spiritual muscle of inner stillness. My embodiment practices made this new reality come alive, offering opportunities to use these new spiritual muscles and embed this way of being into the consciousness of my tissues.
My lived experience transformed as my perspective changed—my mind and body evolving together. My emotions steadied, the crushing depression lifted, and love and joy became more easily accessible.
This is how I live today. Gratitude comes easily, as do love and joy. Even when the world feels as though it’s coming apart at the seams and I’m tempted to once again reject humankind as a predatory species with no redeeming qualities—LOVE shines through. The grandfather tree swaying gently outside my window, a stranger’s smile, the incredible courage I see in you each day as you expand into your wholeness—LOVE shines through. And I feel it more than I know it, because I am embodied.
My life is what I offer as my work. I know that miraculous transformation is possible because I have lived it—and I’ve seen it in you. Expanding into my wholeness by becoming embodied, I recognize that my “I AM-ness” is all of me, experienced through the harmonization of body, mind, and spirit. In that harmony, I am not separate parts to be linked or integrated. I am whole. I am one—within myself and with All That Is.
