I grew up in the Midwest with a quiet, persistent knowing that the life mapped out for me was not the one meant for me. At 23, I moved to California.
I landed in Palo Alto during the tech boom, that electric time when it felt like anything was possible and everyone was building something meant to change the world. I built something too: a career at Microsoft in Seattle, a marriage, and a life that looked like I’d arrived.
I was also a woman who pushed her body to its edges. Long-distance bike rides, running, rock climbing, and mountain summits in snowstorms on terrain that asked for everything I had. By every visible measure, I was deeply connected to my body.
But I wasn’t.
I was performing, pushing, and controlling my body. There’s a difference, and I didn’t know that yet.
Underneath all that capability, my body was keeping a different score. Digestive issues. Disordered eating. Menstrual issues. Excessive exercise. I kept myself busy with achievements and performance, and unwound with two glasses of wine every night.
In my marriage, something quieter happened that I didn’t see until years later. I slowly disappeared. I made myself smaller in the hope of finally being seen, and I set aside that wild, instinctive woman I had been, believing that if I adapted enough, I would finally be met.
Ready for a slower pace of life
My husband and I left everything behind and moved to Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico, where we lived for six years. I built a successful clothing business, immersed myself in yoga and Ayurveda, assisted teacher trainings in Kauai, and explored all things esoteric.
From the outside, it looked like I had found what I was searching for. But if I’m honest, I was still trying to do everything “right.” I was still performing, just with all things spiritual.
The old patterns were still there. I was still rigid and controlling around food and exercise; it just had a different label. I genuinely loved what I was learning and experiencing, but looking back, I can see how all those teachers, practices, and experiences kept me busy and gave me new ways to avoid a quieter truth about my own life that I wasn’t yet ready to face.
Then, in 2019
I was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
I was stunned. By then, I was doing everything I believed I was supposed to be doing to be healthy: yoga daily, clean vegetarian Ayurvedic meals and lifestyle, daily spiritual rituals. I was doing it all “right.” Yet my body was telling a very different story.
After surgery, I made a decision that changed everything: I was going to understand what my body had been trying to tell me all these years.
That decision took me further inside than I had ever gone. I worked with an intuitive spiritual coach who wouldn’t let me look away from the things I had spent a lifetime avoiding. I journeyed with plant medicine in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Baja, and made sacred pilgrimages to Egypt, India, and Portugal. I trained as a somatic coach and Transformational Breath® facilitator, wanting to understand more deeply what was moving through my own body.
And then something happened that I didn’t expect. After eight months of Transformational Breath training, I came home from my final training newly certified, ready to start building my new business. Instead, I saw my marriage with new eyes.
The clarity was startling. Things I had explained away, tolerated, or tried to work around suddenly became impossible to ignore.
