I was 22 when I saw a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression. At least, that's what I was diagnosed with. The psychiatrist suggested medications. I walked out of her office with several prescriptions she said would help me sleep, feel better, and have less anxiety. She said I should come back to see her in a few weeks. I decided not to. I knew my anxiety and depression wasn't the cause. It was a symptom. I didn't know how to get to the root of my feelings.
I wanted to heal, but I didn't know where to begin. I went to every spiritual and religious meet-up I could find. I studied yoga, nutrition, and holistic health. I wish I could tell you I figured it out quickly, but it took me a long time—nearly a decade. The most unfortunate part was that I thought because I didn't have anxiety and depression that, I was better, but that was the easy part.
My unresolved wounds manifested in another way: overworking, overgiving, and over-functioning. I was attracting romantic relationships with narcissistic personalities and emotional manipulators that I wanted to help, heal, or save to my detriment.
Ironically, my involvement in yoga, meditation, and the healing arts nurtured some of the parts of my personality that were getting me into trouble: my empathy. In my work, I focused exclusively on helping others heal. I listened and felt my client's problems like they were my own. I would pick up their symptoms. My empathy became so attuned that I could feel my client's distresses. As a young practitioner, it even made me sick.
In my work, I learned how to manage my empathy, and it served me well, but it continued to negatively impact my romantic relationships and how I chose wounded partners.
I believed that giving more would come back. It didn't. Overgiving, overdoing, and over-functioning caused me to burn out at work and in my relationships. It drained me physically, emotionally, and financially. It brought me some pretty cruel partners, whom I gave more excuses than they made for themselves.
During my apprenticeship under Dr. Light Miller, I learned how trauma impacted us physically, emotionally, and spiritually and how it could manifest disease. I had an ah-ha moment when I realized with my last toxic partner that I was playing out trauma from my past. I knew our relationships were mirrors, and we attract what needs to be healed within.
In 2011, I opened an ayurvedic center in Chicago called Hamsa Ayurveda & Yoga. We focused on creating customized retreats for men and women with work and relationship burnout, digestive issues, and autoimmune conditions. Working closely with hundreds of men and women, I observed the intersection of our beliefs, feelings, physical body, and the manifestation of the relationships in our lives. I identified a process that helped them recover and get the same predictable results so that they lost their attraction to toxic relationships, stopped over-functioning at work, and restored their physical health. My approach is holistic and interweaves traditional medicine with modern psychology that is approachable to our everyday lives.
Where I've Studied
Maharishi University of Management, The Florida Vedic College, Wise Earth Ayurveda, and The California College of Ayurveda. Other teachers include Don and Amba Stapleton, Lama Surya Das, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, Dr. Mark Halpurn, Dr. John Haeglin, and Sri Swamini Mayatitananda.