Welcome to The Way of the Diamond Warrior

Joy is a birthright. As is peace. It’s in our DNA, it’s our nature.

Being in a world that doesn’t feel safe very quickly strips these away. I lost both at a very young age and there were moments where I felt totally and utterly abandoned by the people around me. I was left to hold the emotion, the trauma and the drama, which had nowhere to go but within.

I lost trust in almost everything around me, including myself. I also felt like God had abandoned me. What had I done to deserve this? What did I do wrong?

As a result, I didn’t feel for a long time. Feeling the anger, the sadness, and the failed expectations hurt. So, I numbed them through drugs, alcohol, and then work. I filled my days so I didn’t have to feel the feelings. When the sadness became too much toward the end of my first marriage, I went on anti-depressants for a year. The sadness didn’t go away though. It was just masked. Waiting for me until I was in a better place.

This journey of healing has brought my trust back within myself, and with it a deep feeling of safety.

I now listen to and trust my inner voice, even for the simple things, because in trusting the smaller nudges, it’s opened me to trust the bigger ones. Including saying no to chemo on this journey of healing breast cancer.

Through all of this, I’ve healed my relationship with God. Not the God of my upbringing that was full of judgment, control and manipulation via the people who were representatives of that God, but of a greater consciousness. Call it Christ Consciousness, Spirit, or the Universe, it’s a consciousness that knows only love and is ever patient.

With this connection, there’s come a profound feeling that even through the challenges, I’m always guided and always have been. It’s easier when I don’t resist. There’ve been the times when my life lost its harmony, and I’ve either tried to control the people, places and things around me, or I’ve let go. I was a master of control, or so I thought. In reality, the more I tried to control, the less I really had.

Control was and is a trauma response.

A response to growing up not feeling safe. I was a great planner and then the Universe took all of those plans away and gave me space. Almost too much space via the swing of the pendulum, with the end of my second marriage and Wall Street career within a year of each other.

But this space has been a force for me to figure out what I really want. To step out of doing what I thought I was supposed to do. Giving up trying to control myself and my world has taught me to feel, deeply.

Feeling emotions as they come up, be it new or old, allows me the space for awareness and insight. It allows me to heal the energies I’ve carried, the ones that didn’t feel safe to feel, until they did. They’re almost always brought on by a catalyst. Some big, some small.

When the big ones hit, I used to fall into the mode of blame. It was easy to play the victim. I pointed a lot of fingers for a lot of years, when really, I was being asked to look within. There’s an Al-Anon saying that when I point a finger, three point back at me. Feeling a victim of circumstances left me / kept me out of harmony for a very long time.

This was part of the journey though. Pointing a finger allowed me to express long held emotions. Emotions that I was taught to not give a voice to. When the anger and sadness felt spent, it then felt safer to look within, to see the bigger picture, to see the beauty and perfection of our connected spiderweb. To see the lessons.

I used to get triggered by being triggered.

It put me on edge, on defense, because what was I supposed to do with the emotions? Now the swing of the pendulum is smaller, the catalysts subtler. When I was focused on the big ones, in the middle of the drama, I wasn’t able to see the smaller ones. I didn’t have the space, nor the capacity.

Feeling alone and not supported shut me off from the world. But it’s a double-edged sword. Being closed off gave me a perceived sense of safety. In reality, it perpetuated the feeling that the world wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t safe to share me.

Just because I grew up around dysfunction doesn’t mean I had to continue to live with the ghosts of it. Nor did I have to perpetuate it. When I said yes to something different, the world around me began to shift.

I no longer look for people to see me as I am beyond their own trauma.

I let go of those expectations that only kept me in the past. I finally see me, and God sees me. The Divine always has. She was just waiting for me to catch up.

Now I can hear a word, a sentence, see a sign or a billboard, or feel someone’s actions and step back. Observe. And ask, what’s here for me? What wants to be seen, and why? From feeling like life was doing things to me, to life is doing things for me. To see, feel and experience all of it.

I’ve learned that the world isn’t personal. 95% of what people do is based on their own story and emotions, and has nothing to do with me. It doesn’t mean what they do or say, or don’t do or say, doesn’t ever hurt or affect me. Physical and psychological trauma experienced at a young age can’t not affect a person.

Yet when I can see and experience things from the place of observation, there’s great peace in this.

I don’t have to get pulled into their swirl of drama. Instead, I can look at what’s here for me, and connect with the calm and peace within me, even when it feels like I’m in the middle of my own shit storm.

With internal peace and calm, the world around me has shifted.

When I look at the people I used to be surrounded by, vs. the people around me now, the evolution is quite remarkable. When I was in pain and suffering, those were the people around me. There was a sense of safety in this, being around people of like mind, and energy. Numbing via drugs and alcohol in my school years, then work and my career on Wall Street. The push to prove I was worthy and turning myself off in the process.

The transition to here has seen people on varying levels of their own healing journey. Some only willing to go so far. Wanting something external to fix them. Blaming. Fixated on the past.

All teachers for me to see what wanted to be seen within me.

Many of those people fell away, which created space for the people around me now. People vigilant about maintaining their inner peace and joy. Willing to look at and not bypass their challenges, because they know that as they heal, there’s more space within. Being present when something comes up as this is the path to create deeper harmony.

People who know it’s not just a mind game or of shifting mindset. It’s also not just about taking action. Energy healing is paramount on the journey. I’ve worked with all types of healers from around the world, some who’ve also been my greatest teachers.

All of this was my path to here. Healing what was, to be able to reconnect with the joy that’s always been within my heart. Joy that had been blocked. Joy that had been waiting to be seen, connected with, and re-integrated into my being. Was it lost or simply misplaced? I think the latter. The same with peace.

In the past I’ve looked for balance.

But whenever I finally felt it, something would come along and it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath me. A coin can only rest on its edge for so long. A teeter-totter rarely sits steady in the middle. Rather than balance, I choose harmony. Harmony implies coming back to center, there’s less striving and more receiving. In harmony there is peace and joy.

Connecting back with these has been my soul’s calling. This is the soul of my business. This is the path of healing I offer. This is The Way of the Diamond Warrior.