HOW DECIDING I WAS ENOUGH CHANGED MY LIFE
There’s no college degree for what I do, no piece of paper that states how qualified I am. This is because I’m a Seeress. I can see the aura, the colors, and the shapes around people, living things, and some inanimate objects. Over the past three plus decades I’ve learned to translate what I see in people’s auras into the English language to help people uncover possible obstacles or hidden talents and gifts in their life so they can live in balance, authenticity, and joy. This offering is called a Medicine Reading, a modality I invented after fifteen years on a powerful spiritual journey.
The funny thing is, so much of my spiritual journey originated from a place of low self-worth and seeking validation with new training or teachings, when all I needed to realize was that the tools I needed were within me.
I was born with a powerful craving to be close to the divine on all levels. When members of my family would be in pain, I’d pray over them and make small talismans with special rocks (crystals) I found in nearby rivers for them to keep nearby for healing. I remember talking to my friends at age twelve, fully loaded with freckles, a funny haircut, and multi-colored elastic bands on my braces, about the colors around people and what they meant. And I vividly remember that moment of preteen horror when they looked at me like I was crazy and laughed. That was the moment I realized that not everyone saw this cloud of shapes and colors around people, what I would later learn was called the aura.
Around that age, my family fell apart and I found myself with no rules and no boundaries. I thought that self destruction was rebellion. I emerged at age seventeen, living in the most dangerous neighborhood in Hartford, CT, working two bartending jobs, and putting myself through community college for fine arts. I was a survivor, a hustler, a warrior, with very little self-worth and very little trust. I can’t even begin to explain to you how many traps I fell into as a young woman because of this in terms of relationships, jobs, and living arrangements. I said yes when really I should’ve been running in the opposite direction.
A moment of clarity born from tragedy made me realize that I could either let the pain of my past become my future and destroy me or I could get my shit together, step out of victim consciousness, and take responsibility for the circumstances I found myself in and own the person that I was. At that moment, I also realized that my purpose for being in this world was to share and spread love.
My first step on that path was acknowledging that I love animals, so naturally, I don’t want to eat them. Vegetarianism, check. Always curious about yoga, I found nirvana in my first shoulder stand. I moved to enchanting NYC where I was introduced to incredibly inspiring yoga teachers and ayurveda courses, buddhist talks, and Zen Meditation. I began teaching yoga, and as you would expect, nobody took a nineteen year old yoga teacher seriously. I thought that if I studied more and learned more, then I would essentially be enough to offer a message I already understood, a message of love.
I traveled back and forth to Thailand over the course of five years studying Reiki, sound healing, crystal healing, and psychic surgery. At that time, I was able to really clean up a lot of self destructiveness from my past and understand that if I wanted the universe to take me seriously as a healer, I had to take myself seriously. I quit all supplemental income jobs that were crushing my spirit and draining my energy. I happily lived off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and, in turn, the universe gave me a pretty amazing following for yoga and healing.
At age twenty-four, a legitimate shaman from Peru came to my freshly opened Williamsburg Yoga Studio and Healing Center. After an Ayahuasca ceremony, he told me I was a healer and that I should apprentice with him. I thought surely if I became a Shaman I would be enough to spread this message of love.
I spent eight years traveling back and forth from the Peruvian Amazon in my journey to become an initiated Shaman. I know that may sound romantic, but it was also very destructive to my self-worth. Being an apprentice, and a female apprentice at that, basically meant being a bottom of barrel intern, with my teacher overlooking me year after year, initiating male apprentices who didn’t have half the love, skills, or stamina that I did. Eventually I met the Shaman’s teacher who taught me the one thing I had been missing all along: CONFIDENCE.
He taught me this message in the most graceful of ways in the moments that my ego was the quietest. After a short three years, it was he who gave me my initiation as a Shaman. Even after all that training and over half my life spent in dedication to spirit, and in dedication to being a steward of healing, I still didn’t feel like I was enough to share this simple message of love.
At this time I had just become a mom, and I have to say giving birth made me feel like I could do just about anything. I thought of my daughter, I thought of all the healing techniques I learned throughout the years, and how the most important thing I learned was confidence. I thought if I only teach her one thing in this lifetime, let it be confidence. But I also knew that when it comes to spiritual guidance, we can never really teach anyone anything. We can only lead by example, and if I wanted to teach my daughter to believe in herself, I was going to have to start believing in myself. Acknowledging this was probably the most difficult rite of passage I would ever endure, the Initiation into Self Worth.
This made me review my work in the world and realize that while I deeply love and respect all these different traditions that I’ve learned from, they aren’t mine. Sticking to any one tradition didn’t feel true for me because it also involved me neglecting the truth of who I am, just a simple steward of love, who acquired some wisdom throughout the years just by being a young woman on her own in the world.
So I sat down in reverence, ceremony, and asked the universe for guidance. “I know you want me here and I know that’s because I’m meant to help the world in some way. How do you want me to do that?” In that same moment I got a very clear, very precise message that I was meant to do something called “Medicine Readings.” Medicine Readings are a one on one, group, and retreat experience and I also received the exact formula for Medicine Readings. Part of that formula was that Medicine Readings were meant to incorporate my ability to see auras with the key components I’d learned from all the different traditions I studied.
Keep in mind that up till that point I hadn’t told anyone since I was twelve, except the closest people to me, that what I was really doing when they came for what I was then calling something like “shamanic reiki healing with spiritual counseling,” was reading their auric field. My inner twelve year old with the colorful braces, freckles, and funny haircut was case in point, terrified.
But I said yes anyway. I said yes because Medicine Readings felt like something I could offer from a place of pure authenticity, from a place of love and, therefore, from a place of confidence. I don’t need to “know” anything to offer them. I don’t need to have any initiation, degree, or amount of years on this planet. I just need to keep reminding myself that I’m perfect as I am. I just need to show up, be myself, and hope that by doing so helps my beautiful daughter and all the people I meet realize that they are also perfect as they are.
I had to make peace with my past. I had to forgive myself for undervaluing and hurting myself. I had to have pure gratitude for where I came from instead of being ashamed of it. I said yes. “Ok, Universe, thank you, I’ll facilitate Medicine Readings.”
And as soon as I said yes, do you know what happened?
My schedule started filling up with one on one Medicine Readings, and I started getting all this amazing press! First the New York Times, then Marie Claire, then Vogue, and on and on. People started asking me “Who does your PR?” and I just smiled to myself thinking “How crazy would I sound if I said, ‘the Universe does, actually?’”
Today, as I write this, I’m currently astonished by the blessings that are pouring into my life from saying yes to being who I am. I am getting ready to facilitate a ceremony in Iceland with the Earth’s Aura and perhaps get a glimpse of the beautiful Northern Lights. I am working with clients who are deeply rooted in the love they are and watching them grow in extraordinary ways. My heart overflows with gratitude for every bit of encouragement I get on my path.
The other day my friend asked me if I was afraid of my success. I had to think about it before I could answer with, “Yes, the moment I think any of this success has anything to do with me, my ego becomes terrified, but the moment I remember why I’m doing this, the lives I’m meant to touch through the example I set, I’m fearless.”
It took confidence for me to understand that the work I do in the world has very little to do with me, and everything to do with what I can share. I’m grateful for what has been and what is to come.
26-28 FEBRUARY 2024 | 10-11:30AM ET
There are so many voices out there telling you where you should go, what you should do, even what you should say.
It can be hard to attune to your own inner voice. But when you are able to cleanse the external noise, you dispel insecurity, loneliness, and an ancient wellspring of inspiration that has always been within you.
In this three day self healing project, we will develop skills to tune out distractions and have the courage to trust ourselves through activating discourses, cleansing ceremonies, and enlightening enchantments.
