i grew up

primarily in wuhan, china, hong kong, singapore, vancouver, and prince george, BC. we moved every few years to a new culture + country, where i deepened my love for the diversity of humanity. 

i also began, early on, an in-depth study of the human psyche— attuning to the heart and the soul beneath the (sometimes wildly different) archetypal exteriors. 

no matter what city i was in, among how many foreign faces, i could always find 'my people' and our shared love for the (hu)man within. 

i began teaching

internationally at the tender age of 14, originally as a coach of british parliamentary debating. i mentored with the great ‘debate monk’ of asia, a (wonderfully) gruff ex-military man. 

this skyrocketed a gruesome and spectacular teaching career, as i toured + traveled the world for a decade.

the days were excruciatingly long, the matter requiring iron-clad intellect... 

yet i loved it all — the bright lights, the long nights — every moment of my life was a never-ending adventure.

then i met my guru,

a spiritual 'master', who, in retrospect, was also just an ordinary (hu)man. but i couldn’t see that, at the time. i idolized him. i worshipped him as the living image of God. 

then, classic story, one day he touches me during an ayahuasca ceremony. months later, he kisses me, and tells me that 'this is just a natural progression of our love for each other'. and i’m so confused, and shocked, but also young, and un-boundaried, and when he told me it was for God, i believed.

i’ll spare you the details, for now, and just tell you that it went down in the worst possible way. 

lots of heartbreak, lots of shattering. an inability to pick up my own broken pieces. i lived for years in major disorientation, afraid of what my story made me.

slowly came the healing of profound violations. 

but first: pain, pain, and more painbody.

this is when i began

to realize the profound implications of what it meant to cling to a 'story'.

how a broken-relating would keep playing out in loops and loops until resolution.

and i watched my heart shatter over and again, as i flung my brokenness on every man i came upon.  

until one day, i could stand it no longer. i was going to do the work to heal this fracture, if it took all of me, God help me. 

i began gathering the lost pieces of myself back together, and learning how to stitch myself whole.

not long after, i found myself in colorado, at a healing retreat, in the face of these two giant men.

one was 6'5", the other 6'2"

and they held me down (as per my request) as i fought them the fuck OFF of me.

over, and over, these gentle giants blocked my blows, as i thrashed in my never-before felt rage. 

these two huge men, panting like dogs, dripping in sweat— no match for my inexaustable kali-esque rage. 

earlier that week, upon my arrival, when i was asked to tune into a moment that made me angry, i literally said: 'i have no anger.'

'i never feel angry. i don't know what that's like. i think i meditated it all away.'

that's how disassociated i was from my body. 

and then came the journey of re-claiming my body 

so slowly. and over time. and with so much self-compassion, i began to bring that lost girl back home.

i committed to the deep work of re-claiming my life within a frame of sovereign responsibility.

because while we can't control or change what has happened to us — there is a choice point that is available in our bodies.

(there is only so long we can abandon ourselves again, and again, to find love). 

and as women on the path of feminine mastery, there comes a day when we no longer wish to relate from our painbody. 

and that's when the new possibility comes knocking. 

this is the crux of everything i teach

feminine mastery through conscious relating & radical self-responsibility. 

i illuminate key initiations to a sovereign woman's journey as they map to the primary chakras.

my upcoming journey, (hu)man, will explore the depths of mūlādhāra chakra, our foundational root system. 

this energy center — our primal and physical body — governs our ability to find trust, safety, containment, provision, protection, support, location, inner masculine, and nourishment.

embodied mūlādhāra practices serve us in finding secure attachment in relationships, receiving + containing wealth, and building a physical containment of home, health + wellbeing.

so... what happened to me?

i tindered around the world while running a million-dollar enterprise (*ahem* hyper-aroused high-functioning trauma response), half-aware and half-unconscious as i continued to question myself.

it didn't feel possible to leave everything i had ever known behind (the persona of a strong, self-made, successful, independent woman) and yet my heart still stayed open to what fate would have for me.

i flaunted my noncommittal ways in every lover's face + kept a troupe of men in every city to bolster my ego.

always flirting, never able to access that deeper intimacy. never quite believing that i was worthy of what true love might offer me.  

until one day

my flight was re-routed to philadelphia, pennsylvania.

and a stranger scooped me up at 6 am for a green juice at an organic cafe. 

then he took me to meet his mother. 

i sang her a song with my ukulele, on the 24th floor of an apartment building in rittenhouse square. 

then i mentioned, in passing, that my body was sore from flying, and he booked me the best masseuse in the city. 

he picked me up with two more green juices in hand, and offered to drive me one state over for my yoga workshop. i accepted his offer.

he packed me lunch—

a paleo lunch, this mysterious, generous, benevolent man. 

he took me home, and i gasped in awe, the first time i walked into his mancave. he lived in a giant, renovated warehouse, with sky high reach and floor to ceiling windows. it was filled with sunlight and stone buddhas and spaciousness.

he drove me to another state to my workshop, every day. he was there waiting when i came out of class. he fed me the most delicious, ancestral meals. he nourished every aspect of me.

till the day came for me to leave, and for us to never see each other again. 

after all, i was booked solid for the next three years, all top-of-the-line teacher trainings. philly was just an accident, not a place i’d ever land again.

but… 

'tell me when + where…

… and i’ll be there.’

he promised earnestly to me. 

‘yeah, right…’ i thought to myself, at first.

but he just kept proving me wrong.

whether in the deserts of arizona, the sandy beaches of tulum or the wifi-less jungles of costa rica…

i would call him, breathlessly, heart-fluttering on the phone...

and again, and again, he would come to court me.

it didn’t matter what the date was or where in the world i had flown. 

he always came with his eyes set on me. 

he booked us oceanfront rooms at magnificent resorts. treated me to dinners of lobster and peking duck and the world’s finest cuisine. took me on adventure after adventure, until my cold heart melted... and slowly started to let him in. 

after all, i'll never forget how his gorgeous green eyes LIT UP every time he saw me. 

and his eyes still light up

when he looks at me. the way they did, when i wild-birthed our baby in mālāsana (a deep squat) in our bedroom. his hands, i still feel them, firm on my hips, his deep voice overflowing with love for me.

he is the rock that held me, through all my growing pains, in his masterful leadership of our family. 

as i grew, from a lost and broken young girl, into the devoted wife and loving mother i am today.   

i write this poolside from the luxury resort paradise we now call home, full-time. my beautiful daughter splashing with her friends, our two yorkies, taj + alohi, curled up at my feet.