I had just ended a relationship with a man I liked.

There was nothing wrong with him.

He was kind. He was good. There were a lot of things about him that I could see myself wanting in a partner.

And he was sober.

At the time, I knew ending it was the right decision, even though I couldn’t fully explain why.

It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with being sober.

It was because I knew I didn’t want to be in a relationship defined by addiction or recovery.

I had already spent enough of my life there.

That same night, after 270 days without alcohol, I had a cocktail.

And I ended that piece with this:

The most important choice I made yesterday wasn’t whether to drink. It was whether to abandon myself.

And for perhaps the first time in a long time, I didn’t.

The lesson wasn’t about alcohol. The lesson was about trusting myself enough to walk away from someone who was good because I knew he wasn’t mine.

Sometimes self-love isn’t choosing what feels exciting. Sometimes it isn’t choosing what looks good on paper. Sometimes it’s honoring the quiet voice that says, this chapter is complete, and having the courage to turn the page.

I thought I was writing about a man.

Turns out, I was writing about an entire fucking chapter of my life.

I just didn’t know it yet.

Because while all of this was happening, I was six weeks into facilitating a 16-week program called Glow Up Recovery.

A program I had created from my own lived experience.

A program I now know I will never teach again.

And yesterday, I said that out loud.

Recovery has been a thread running through my life for a very, very long time.

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But for the last seven and a half years especially, I have gone deep into understanding my own relationship with substances.

I’ve been sober for long periods of time.

I’ve not been sober for periods of time.

I’ve questioned myself.

I’ve judged myself.

I’ve stopped.

I’ve started again.

I’ve counted days.

I’ve stopped counting days.

I literally wrote a fucking book with the subtitle From Medicated to Meditated.

And I think for a long time there was a part of me that believed that because I wrote that book, because I told that story, because I had healed so much of my relationship with substances, I had to do this a certain way.

I had to be perfect.

If I chose sobriety, I had to stay sober.

If I said I didn’t need something anymore, I couldn’t decide six months later that maybe I wanted it again.

Because what would that mean?

Did I go backward?

Was I not actually healed?

Did I somehow invalidate everything I had written?

Was I a fraud?

But the truth is, that was never my truth.

I never really connected with traditional recovery models.

And let me be very clear before somebody gets their panties in a bunch: I am speaking about me.

There are people whose lives have been saved by AA.

There are people who absolutely need complete abstinence.

There are people for whom identifying as sober or being part of a recovery community is incredibly supportive.

Beautiful.

That just wasn’t my path.

Because for me, I became much more interested in something else:

Why did I want to leave myself in the first place?

Why did I want the drink?

Why did I need the weed?

Why did I take the medication?

What was underneath all of it?

Because I didn’t believe the substance was the actual wound.

For me, the substance was the Band-Aid.

And eventually, I wanted to know what the fuck was underneath the Band-Aid.

So I started looking.

And looking.

And looking some more.

And what I found were wounds.

Family shit.

Relationship shit.

Trauma.

Undiagnosed medical issues.

Things I didn’t know how to feel, let alone explain.

Things I didn’t have the tools to process.

Parts of myself I had abandoned.

Parts of myself I didn’t know how to sit with yet.

And I started doing the work that would eventually become the work I now hold for other people.

I learned how to be in my body instead of constantly trying to escape it.

I learned how to work with my energy.

I learned how to regulate, move, feel, listen, question and release.

I learned how to sit with myself long enough to hear myself.

And as those things began to heal, my relationship with substances naturally started changing.

Not because somebody told me I wasn’t allowed to use them.

Because I didn’t need them in the same way anymore.

There’s a difference.

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Somewhere along this journey, I also stopped needing to make substances the villain in my story.

Because they’re not.

Cannabis, especially, has supported me during some incredibly pivotal times in my life.

There were times when I was medicated and cannabis supported me.

There have been times when it has helped me go inward.

Times when it has supported deep shadow work.

Times when I have smoked a joint, gone for a walk and suddenly been able to see something I couldn’t see before.

And then, inevitably, there comes a moment when I hear:

Okay. That’s enough.

You got what you needed.

Now integrate it.

And for me, integration usually happens sober.

That’s something I understand about myself now.

There is the experience.

There is what the experience shows me.

And then there is the part where I actually have to fucking live it.

Name it.

Heal it.

Integrate it.

Embody it.

And that’s what Glow Up Recovery was for me:

Embodiment.

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Glow Up Recovery kicked off on May 4th.

May the Fourth be with you. Obviously.

And here’s where this whole thing gets interesting.

Shortly before the program began, after months without cannabis, I was guided to smoke weed again.

I remember standing outside a dispensary in NYC and calling a girlfriend I’ve known since my days working as a spiritual advisor to a cannabis brand.

I shared with her this pull to consume, and she simply said to me:

“Lauren, you know yourself better than anyone I know. Trust yourself. You are not who you were before, and you have released the pattern.”

To be honest, I was flooded with emotion because I knew that was true.

I was nervous.

But I trusted myself.

I got off the phone, walked into the store and chose Blue Dream, a strain that had always provided a sense of balance for me.

I wouldn’t leave my body, nor would I get stuck inside of it.

And I didn’t make it mean anything.

I didn’t sit there thinking, Oh my God, I’m about to facilitate a recovery program and I’m purchasing weed. What does this say about me?

I didn’t decide I was doing something wrong.

I didn’t question whether I was qualified to hold the space.

I listened to myself.

And I’m so glad I did.

Over the 16 weeks of the program I stayed true to myself.

I traveled to New York.

I went out with my friends.

I celebrated my birthday.

I smoked a joint.

I drank a martini.

I came home.

I created.

I built new offers.

I had some of the clearest breakthroughs I’ve had around my business and the work I’m here to do.

I did some incredibly deep shadow work around my family.

Around friendships.

Around relationships.

Around the things I had spent years accepting that I simply don’t fucking accept anymore.

And all the while, I was holding this recovery container.

And something became very, very clear to me.

None of it defined me.

The weed didn’t define me.

The cocktail didn’t define me.

Not drinking didn’t define me.

Not smoking didn’t define me.

Sobriety didn’t make me good.

Consuming something didn’t make me bad.

It simply was.

And THAT, for me, was freedom.

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Because I believe my recovery was never supposed to end with me spending the rest of my life calling myself recovered.

I think I was supposed to eventually stop organizing my entire fucking identity around the thing I had recovered from.

Maybe the goal wasn’t to become really, really good at being sober.

Maybe the goal was to become really, really good at being me.

To trust myself.

Period.

To trust myself with cannabis.

To trust myself with alcohol.

To trust myself with food.

To trust myself with money.

To trust myself in relationships.

To trust myself with all of the things I once believed needed rules around them in order for me to feel safe.

Because I don’t need everything I interact with to be inherently good or bad.

I need to know myself well enough to recognize what something is doing in relationship with me.

Is this supporting me?

Am I choosing it consciously?

Am I using this to experience my life, or am I using it to leave my life?

Do I want more?

Or have I had enough?

I can feel safe in the presence of something without needing to consume it, control it, fear it, worship it or make it responsible for me.

I can recognize when I’m choosing something and when I’m on autopilot.

I can recognize when something is supporting me and when it isn’t anymore.

I can know when to pick something up.

And, more importantly, I can know when to put it down.

Without shame.

Without making myself wrong.

Without creating another identity around it.

That, to me, is self-trust.

And maybe that was what I had actually been recovering all along.

My relationship with myself.

Yesterday was the final call of Glow Up Recovery.

Sixteen weeks.

Sixteen weeks of holding space.

Sixteen weeks of watching women look underneath the behaviors and into themselves.

Sixteen weeks of teaching something I had spent years living.

And before we ended, I told them something I already knew in my bones:

I will never teach this program again.

Not because it didn’t work.

It did.

Not because I regret creating it.

Quite the opposite.

I think it did exactly what it came here to do.

Including for me.

Because somewhere during those 16 weeks, I realized I don’t want to work in addiction recovery anymore.

Like, at all.

I don’t want addiction to organize my romantic relationships.

I don’t want my business centered around recovery.

I don’t want to spend my days inside the chaos that addiction can create.

I don’t want to keep returning to this particular room simply because I know the room really fucking well.

I am done.

And saying that makes me emotional.

Because this isn’t some niche I picked because a business coach told me there was money in it.

This was my fucking life.

I worked as a chef in recovery homes.

I loved people who struggled with addiction.

I lost people to addiction.

I supported clients through it.

I examined my own relationship with substances from every fucking angle.

I got sober.

I stopped being sober.

I healed.

I questioned.

I went back in.

I came back out.

I wrote about it.

I taught about it.

I lived it.

And now?

I’m complete.

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And there’s grief in completion.

I don’t think we talk about that enough.

We talk about letting go of the things that are bad for us.

The toxic relationship.

The shitty job.

The habit that’s destroying our life.

But what about letting go of something that was actually incredibly important?

What about letting go of the thing that taught you?

The thing that shaped you?

The thing that helped you become who you are?

What about realizing that something can have been sacred and still be over?

I turned 43 this summer.

And addiction and recovery were part of so much of my journey through my first 42 years.

I am not taking them with me as an assignment into my 43rd.

I can take the wisdom.

I can take the compassion.

I can take everything I learned about myself and other people.

I can honor every person who was part of that chapter.

But I don’t have to keep the job.

I can keep the wisdom without keeping the job.

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And I have no fucking idea what that means for what comes next.

I don’t know exactly who is going to start walking through the doors of my work.

I don’t know what saying no to this makes room for.

I don’t know exactly what my work looks like when I’m no longer available for the thing I have been so fucking good at holding.

And strangely?

I’m okay with that.

Because I would rather sit in the empty space long enough to find out what’s supposed to fill it than keep filling it with something I already know is complete.

There’s one more part of this story.

For days, I had been waiting for my period.

Cramping.

Feeling like it was coming.

Questioning if I was the Virgin Mary.

My cycle stretched almost a week longer than it normally does.

Yesterday, I held the final Glow Up Recovery call.

I said goodbye to the container.

I said out loud that I wasn’t teaching it again.

And late last night, I started spotting.

This morning, I woke up with my period fully here.

Do I think my uterus was sitting around waiting for me to close my recovery program?

I mean…

It’s me so probably.

It felt like a true shedding.

My body releasing physically at the same moment I was consciously letting go of something I had carried for years.

I felt a sense of completion.

And my body inviting me into integration.

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Two months ago, I thought I was writing about ending a relationship with a man.

I wrote:

Sometimes self-love isn’t choosing what feels exciting. Sometimes it isn’t choosing what looks good on paper. Sometimes it’s honoring the quiet voice that says, this chapter is complete, and having the courage to turn the page.

Turns out, I wasn’t writing about him.

Or at least, I wasn’t only writing about him.

I was writing about this.

I just didn’t know it yet.

Sometimes the chapter doesn’t end because something went wrong.

Sometimes nothing went wrong.

Sometimes you got exactly what you were supposed to get.

Sometimes you learned the lesson.

Sometimes you became the person you needed to become.

Sometimes the thing that once helped save your life doesn’t need to become your entire life.

Sometimes you can love a chapter deeply…

and still turn the fucking page.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I don’t know what’s on the next one yet.

But for the first time, I don’t need to.

This chapter is complete.

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Instead, on day 271, I made two decisions.

I ended a relationship before it had the chance to become something deeper.

And later that night, I had a cocktail.

At first glance, those two things might seem connected. They happened on the same day, after all. But the truth is that neither decision was made from heartbreak, rebellion, or self-destruction.

Both were made from self-awareness.

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A few weeks ago, I met a man. A genuinely good man.

He was kind. Thoughtful. Emotionally available. He opened doors. He paid for meals. He listened. He respected my work and my path. There were so many things about him that felt easy.

But there was one thing that kept tugging at me.

He was sober.

Not “I don’t really drink anymore” sober.

Recovery sober.

Meetings. Sponsors. A daily commitment to sobriety.

And before anyone jumps to conclusions, let me be clear: this isn’t a judgment of sobriety. I have immense respect for anyone who chooses recovery. I know how much courage it takes.

The deeper truth is that sobriety and addiction have already played a significant role in my life story.

I lost my first love and best friend to addiction.

I lost my childhood best friend to addiction.

I’ve spent years examining my own relationship with alcohol, cannabis, healing, nervous system regulation, and the stories we tell ourselves about substances.

For the last decade, much of my work has been about healing my relationship with duality. Moving beyond the black-and-white thinking of “good” and “bad,” “healthy” and “unhealthy,” “addict” and “non-addict.”

So when I found myself dating someone in recovery, I initially thought it wouldn’t matter.

But as the weeks passed, I realized something important about myself.

I don’t want recovery to be a central theme in the next chapter of my life.

Not because there is anything wrong with recovery.

Not because I think less of people who choose that path.

But because I’ve already spent years learning those lessons.

When you’ve lost people you love to addiction, it lands differently.

When you’ve sat beside grief and watched substances take people away, it lands differently.

And while I know that not every sober person relapses, I also know that addiction is a reality I have witnessed firsthand.

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I found myself imagining futures that hadn’t happened.

Wondering what I would do if things changed.

Wondering if I would become the caretaker.

The fixer.

The person trying to hold everything together.

Not because he was asking me to.

Because those are roles I’ve played before.

The realization wasn’t about him.

It was about me.

It was about recognizing that I no longer want relationships that activate those patterns within me.

I no longer want to build my life around what might go wrong.

I want to build my life around what feels aligned.

So I called him.

I told him the truth.

That he was a wonderful man.

That I respected him deeply.

That perhaps at another point in our lives, we would have been a beautiful match.

But not now.

He understood.

There was no argument. No convincing. No pressure.

Just acceptance.

And somehow that made it both easier and harder.

Later that evening, I went out with friends and watched the Knicks game.

I started the evening with a delicious mint and vinegar based mocktail and hydrated with water.

But as the second half og the game began I felt a pull to order myself a Negroni.

A decision that carried far less significance than ending the relationship.

Because the most important choice I made yesterday wasn’t whether to drink.

It was whether to abandon myself.

And for perhaps the first time in a long time, I didn’t.

The lesson wasn’t about alcohol.

The lesson was about trusting myself enough to walk away from someone who was good because I knew he wasn’t mine.

Sometimes self-love isn’t choosing what feels exciting.

Sometimes it isn’t choosing what looks good on paper.

Sometimes it’s honoring the quiet voice that says:

“This chapter is complete.”

And having the courage to turn the page.

Someone looked at me and casually said, “Oh yeah, Lauren’s definitely a witch.”

Everyone seemed to agree.

And the truth is… she wasn’t wrong.

I am a witch.

At least, if we define witch in its original sense: a wise woman. A healer. A keeper of knowledge. A woman connected to the rhythms of nature, intuition, energy, and spirit.

That part has never felt difficult for me.

I know I’m wise.

I know I’m a healer.

I know I’m medicine.

I’ve known it for a very long time.

Yet when I hear the word witch, something in me still tightens.

And that surprised me.

Because the resistance isn’t coming from this lifetime.

It’s coming from somewhere much older.

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For years, I’ve received glimpses of other lifetimes through meditation, Reiki, dreams and spontaneous memories.

One of the most beautiful visions I ever received was of a lifetime in which my great-grandmother—the woman I was named after in this life—was my mother.

She was the village healer.

People came to her for remedies, guidance and care.

When she died, the role passed to me.

I carried on her work.

What fascinates me is that in this lifetime, she once said to my mother, “You are my little witch.”

Yet my mother never chose to embody that role.

And honestly?

I understand why.

Because being the healer is not always light.

There are beautiful lifetimes where you are loved and respected by your community.

And then there are the others.

The ones where wisdom is feared.

The ones where intuition is misunderstood.

The ones where women who know things become dangerous.

The ones where the healer becomes the outcast.

The villain.

The threat.

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As I’m writing this, another memory surfaces.

Years ago, I had just started offering Holy Fire Reiki in group settings.

I was living in Los Angeles at the time, but I was hosting an event in New York.

At the end of the gathering, I realized I had a basket full of apples.

Maybe it was apple-picking season.

Maybe someone had gifted them to me.

I honestly don’t remember.

What I do remember is handing one to a woman as she was leaving.

“Here,” I said. “Enjoy one of the apples.”

She looked at me and grinned.

“For some reason this feels like a test.”

I laughed.

“What do you mean?”

She held up the apple.

“Like… is this a poison apple?”

We both burst out laughing.

Obviously, that wasn’t the case.

But later, I sat with that moment.

And something about it stayed with me.

Because somewhere in our collective consciousness, we still carry these stories.

The witch with the poisoned apple.

The dangerous woman.

The woman whose power cannot be trusted.

Disney didn’t invent that archetype.

It inherited it.

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For a long time, I felt shame around the word witch.

Not because I didn’t believe in magic.

Not because I doubted my gifts.

But because I understood the weight the word carried.

The projections.

The misunderstandings.

The centuries of fear.

The healer was acceptable.

The Reiki Master was acceptable.

The spiritual teacher was acceptable.

But witch?

That felt different.

That felt risky.

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And yet…

If I’m being honest, there is witch energy woven throughout my life.

I make oil blends.

I light candles with intention.

I blow cinnamon through my front door on the first of the month.

I rearrange furniture to shift the energy of a room.

I speak to plants.

I cook intuitively.

I work with herbs.

I create rituals.

I pray.

I channel.

I heal.

I’m probably a kitchen witch more than anything.

And when I really look at it, I’ve been embodying this archetype for years.

I just didn’t want to call it that.

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But something is changing.

Maybe it’s age.

Maybe it’s healing.

Maybe it’s finally feeling safe enough to stop running from parts of myself.

Whatever it is, I no longer feel the need to reject the word.

Not because I need a label.

But because I no longer need to fear one.

I am a witch.

I am also a healer.

Someone call Meredith Brooks its time to change the lyrics… “I’m a WITCH, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I do not feel ashamed…”

I am a woman holding many archetypes at once.

And perhaps true wholeness isn’t choosing one.

It’s allowing all of them to exist.

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I’ve been talking a lot about Soul Summer lately.

But maybe this season is asking for something even deeper.

Maybe it’s the Summer of the Witch.

Not the witch we’ve been taught to fear.

The wise woman.

The intuitive woman.

The woman who trusts herself.

The woman who remembers.

The woman who creates.

The woman who heals.

The woman who finally stops apologizing for her magic.

An Invitation: Soul Camp

This Monday, June 8, kicks off an eight-week Soul Camp experience.

For eight weeks, we’ll gather for Holy Fire® Karuna Reiki healing experiences while simultaneously moving through a 40-day Kundalini practice.

Why these two modalities?

Because they complement one another beautifully.

Kundalini helps move what is stored within the body through breath, movement and awareness.

Reiki helps clear, restore, and elevate the energetic patterns beneath it.

One works through embodiment.

One works through energy.

Together, they create powerful transformation.

This summer is an invitation to move what no longer belongs.

To remember who you are.

To reconnect with your own inner wisdom.

Your own medicine.

Your own magic.

Whether you call her a healer, a wise woman, a mystic, or a witch…

She’s already there.

Waiting for you to remember her.

And perhaps that’s what this summer is really about.

Camp Tuition $888

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“Roger P” flashed on the screen—my former weed dealer from NYC turned homie.

We’ve been friends for years. With that, we only really call if there’s something important to say… or to wish a happy birthday.

I watched the screen flash for a moment.

Do I want to answer?

Do I have the energy to give in this moment?

Seconds prior, I had been getting dressed with the intention to sit down and write today.

I’ve been telling myself a story—that writing is hard for me, that when it’s time for me to write again, I will.

Yet at the same time, my mind feels filled to the brim with words… conversations I’m constantly having in my voice notes.

So here I was, ready to write—

as the screen flashed.

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I decided to pick up.

“Hey P, what’s up?” I said.

“Yo L, looking good, girl,” he said.

I paused for a moment as he continued.

“The guys called me—they saw your Instagram, so I had to pull it up.”

Earlier, I had posted a video of me dancing in a skimpy bikini.

Lights out.

Candle lit.

Just a moment of me connecting with myself.

I’ve been embodying a softer version of me.

It’s been very internal for months, and now I feel called to let it be seen.

My initial thought was to laugh… then spiral into, oh fuck, what did I just unleash by posting that?

But I paused.

I heard some noise in the background.

“Sorry about that—Terrence just popped his head in. You remember him, right?” he asked.

“The one white dude I was friends with, owned the deli uptown.”

I thought for a moment.

“Oh yeah… I remember him.”

“Remember that time we came to your place? You had all the girls over—St. Patty’s Day. Damn, we all had a day.”

In that moment, I paused.

“Wow… you have a great memory.”

Then I continued, without really planning to—

“I really don’t remember that. I think those are the memories I erased from my hard drive.”

I could feel his hesitation through the phone.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I added.

“It’s just… I’m used to writing from the past. From the character I was.

And I’m not her anymore.

I feel this desire to write in the present—my current life, my future— so I created space in my system.”

“Wow,” he said. “I love that. It’s always some sort of wisdom when we speak.”

I smiled.

I paused and thought to myself— the story goes how you tell it.

So here I am.

Sitting down, writing in real time.

Processing out loud.

Knowing that this, this moment, is the embodiment of something new.

Like I’m standing at the start of my next lifetime within this one.

Ready to rewrite your story? Join me for CYCLE BREAKER fka Glow Up Recovery. We begin the 16 week experience May 4th. Apply Now.

I need to admit something.

I tried to launch a program sooner than I was ready. I wanted to be back in the energy of action. Not waiting. Not pausing. Moving.

But what I was creating… wasn’t fully me yet. Because this wasn’t simply creation — this was expansion.

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After releasing my book, Glow Up Your Chakras, followed by a tongue tie release and healing my body in a way I had waited my entire life for, everything slowed down in a way I hadn’t planned for.

I knew releasing a book would change my life in many ways — all of which I had yet to consider, as I was simply following my inner knowing to write it.

I also knew releasing a tongue tie would bring on physical change.

I had not considered how much one snip would affect my nervous system, and lead me to the greatest unravelling I had yet to experience.

When I planned for these big moments in May of 2025, I never considered the healing and expansion they would both bring. Let alone…

The release.

The surrender.

The space.

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I had spent a lifetime gripping onto my often messy stories — the ones that shaped my identity, my business and my purpose.

My pain (emotional and physical) had been my purpose for so long.

I would grasp onto memories and moments and allow them to define me.

So when I finally found the path that lead to the pain dissolving, I found myself asking questions I didn’t expect:

Who am I now without the story?

Who am I here to help if I’m no longer her?

For so long I found my answers in moving faster. Creating. Launching. Being in momentum. It always seemed to work.

But instead, I was guided to pause.

I pushed Glow Up Recovery back a month.

I didn’t fully understand why at the time, but I trusted it.

And in that month, mountains moved.

I completed a Kundalini training that cracked something open in me. I softened in ways I hadn’t allowed myself to before. I took the hinges off the doors that had been locked within me from before this lifetime.

I even found myself re-connecting with cannabis after six months away — not from a place of escape, but from a place of awareness.

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And what I realized through this experience of slowing down is this:

My desire to write, to guide, to help others move through their patterns — it hasn’t gone away.

Its’ got stronger.

Clearer.

More honest.

I realized that this next chapter is about helping people rewrite their stories.

Not from theory. Not from bypassing. But from actually living it.

Through writing. Meditation. Movement. Breathwork and more.

Glow Up Recovery was never about becoming someone new.

It’s about releasing what you’ve been holding onto — the patterns, the identities, the stories that once served you but no longer do.

And creating space for what’s actually true now.

This next round begins May 4. And it’s deeper than anything offered before.

If you’re in a season where what used to work no longer does…

Where you can feel something shifting but don’t fully know how to move with it…

If you’ve been waiting to feel ready — and slowly realizing ready isn’t coming — that’s the door.

Apply now.

it’s something to work with.

A reset point.

A moment where you get to consciously choose what you’re carrying forward… and what you’re not.

Here’s a simple way to create a ceremony for yourself or a group of friends:

DIY New Moon Ceremony

1. Set the space

Dim the lights, light a candle, get cozy.

Create an environment that tells your body: we’re slowing down.

2. Clear → then call in

Grab your journal and let everything out first.

The thoughts, the noise, the loops.

Then shift into intention—what are you ready to step into over the next two weeks?

3. Pull a card

Let it represent the energy of this cycle.

Not something to overthink—something to feel into.

4. Drop in with this guided experience

Lay back, close your eyes, and let yourself receive.

Ocean of Holy Love Reiki Meditation

It doesn’t need to be elaborate. You don’t need it to be perfect.

You just need a moment where you choose to be present with yourself and intentional about what comes next.

Wishing you a wonderful New Moon eve.

xo,
Lauren

He couldn’t have known I had written about him.

It had been five years since Chad and I had last spoken.

The last I heard of him was during the pandemic, when a mutual friend reached out to tell me Chad had taken mushrooms and ended up confessing to his wife all of the relationships he’d had, including ours.

Within days of hearing that, I noticed all of his social media accounts were gone from my view. Blocked, blocked, blocked.

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He had shut the window into my life.

And honestly, I was so grateful.

While we had stopped talking long before that, there was still so much love between us.

A wounded love. A mirror reflecting shadows I carried inside myself, though I didn’t understand that back then. It was an unhealthy, dysfunctional, nervous-system-disregulating kind of love, but love nonetheless.

We had met when I lived in LA, and I had since moved across the country.

Like I said, we had cut communication many times, but I always felt this connection in the ethers.

It was hard to make sense of because I hadn’t experienced that kind of telepathy with anyone else before. Somehow our souls felt connected, and I could hear him.

Eventually, after things went the way they did, I tuned him out. I changed frequencies, and I assume he did too.

Fast forward.

It’s the Monday before my book comes out, and I get an alert: you have a new follower.

It’s Chad.

“What the fuck”, I think to myself.

Confused, I wonder, “does his wife know he’s following me?”

I look at my stories. He’s viewed every single one.

Now, this is something my ego used to love.

A man watching me.

Him watching me.

Interested.

Wanting to know what was happening in my world.

Or maybe simply hoping I’d hint that I saw him seeing me with a flirty story the way I once did.

Whatever it was, I felt the charged energy.

It came pouring back like a pot of boiling water, and instead of stirring it, I wanted to let it simmer.

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This energy, I thought.

I know it.

I can feel you.

I found myself distracted, wondering, “Has he gotten divorced? There’s no way. I doubt it. I mean, it’s possible.”

And then I caught myself.

“Why the fuck do I care?”

It was none of my business.

Around 7 p.m. that evening, I went to my desk and decided to check my Kindle presale numbers.

It had been days since the last purchase and knowing most people were excited to get the paperback, I didn’t think much of it as I refreshed the page.

One new order placed.

“It’s him”, I thought.

“He knows”, I whispered to myself.

“He can feel it”, I said out loud.

He followed me for days and in those days I was able to do something I had never done before.

I called back my power but first I had to honor the initial spike in my system and become keenly aware of the dysregulation moving through me.

I honored what I used to be willing to settle for, while knowing very well I was no longer the wounded woman I once was.

I honored my old wounds and paid homage to the scars.

The scars I earned because I was finally willing to close the wound.

You see, this had happened in many relationships. I was willing to settle for less than I deserved because, for a myriad of reasons, I didn’t feel worthy of love.

I didn’t give myself the love I deserved and that allowed me to settle in relationships with men, with friends, and even in my career.

But I wasn’t carrying those wounds anymore.

I had gotten real, honest, and vulnerable.

Hell, I wrote a book to free myself.

So over those few days he followed me, I kept checking in with my nervous system and slowly, the water went from a boil to a simmer until it eventually turned cold and he unfollowed me.

The the book came out.

He never sent a message.

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It’s been almost a year since the release and recently a man asked me my type and what I look for in a relationship.

Along with a great sense of humor and good energy, I said this:

I expect a man to come correct, or not come at all.

What I mean is this: I have done the work to love myself.

I am not here to play games.

I am not dating like it’s a numbers game, because to me it isn’t and it never has been.

For me, it’s about showing up whole.

If you respect yourself, you will respect me.

I seek a man who is also doing the work.

A man who isn’t sliding into DMs or watching women on social media for a thrill, but is instead focused on his health and his wealth, wealth being how he shows up for his friends, his family, his business and community.

I desire a man who takes action and goes after what he wants, not one who simply fantasizes.

I have done fantasy.

Reality is so much more fulfilling.

So thank you, Chad, for re-following me last year and giving me the final push to regulate my unconscious dating patterns, so I could become the woman worthy of the man she’s been desiring all along.

And worthy not because someone else chose me, but because I finally chose myself.

If you’ve been finding yourself in the same dating patterns— different person, same feeling, it’s not a coincidence.

It’s your nervous system.

This is the work we do inside Glow Up Recovery—regulating the patterns beneath the pattern so you can actually choose differently.

We begin May 4th.

Apply now. (3 spots remaining)

And if you feel the urge to reach for something outside of yourself—whether that’s a person, a text, or a distraction…

Pause.

Try my free 15-minute nervous system reset instead.

Before you reach… regulate.

He could tell by my energy, look and words what that truly meant, which was “no” so he stopped pulling and we continued the walk.

That moment got me thinking, why didn’t I simply say “no”, and then I thought about how I rarely say no and instead will look at him and say “uh uh” and that’s always been enough for him to know and in my mind it means the same thing.

Then I got curious… “why don’t I say no” I asked myself.

So I reenacted the moment in my mind and out loud I simply said “no.”

Immediately I felt a tightness in my chest.

My mind said “it’s so harsh, it feels too final, I feel like I am being punished.”

I took a deep breath to relax my now triggered nervous system and thought to myself “its 8am, can’t you ever just go on a normal walk?” before laughing because excavating my traumas has become my norm.

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So I began to think about how long it’s been since I simply said no.

Without over thinking it.

Without planning what I would say next.

And the answer was: a long time.

“Why does it feel so harsh” I thought.

My mind began to flashback to being a child— as kids, we hear “no” constantly.

“No, you can’t stay up past your bedtime.”

“No, you can’t have ice cream before dinner.”

It’s not that my parents were mean— it’s simply that boundaries are necessary.

Nonetheless, those two letters seemed to carry this weight.

To feel the polarity I simply said the word “yes,” aloud to myself.

I noticed my body soften and felt this smile from within.

“Yes” feels like permission.

Like dopamine.

Like openness.

Where as when I say “no,” it feels like I’m being cut off.

Tight.

Closed.

Heavy.

It makes me feel… sad.

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It created this small yet reverberating realization…

It’s not that I can’t set boundaries. I just… don’t use that word, instead, I use tone, energy and sound.

And it still lands, because energy is always being felt.

The fact is my dog doesn’t need the word. He feels me. He reads my energy and adjusts his behavior.

And that’s the beautiful thing— we are always communicating beyond language.

And still… words carry vibration too.

Which means this isn’t random.

It’s a pattern.

A program.

Something my body learned.

Because our actions—what we say, what we avoid, what we soften— there’s always a reason.

As I began to soften into this awareness I began to think about how this may have effected me in past relationships, and situations like this one I recently wrote about the last man I dated before I stopped dating.

While I know more will unravel as it already is I thought I would share a small practice.

Feeling Safe Saying “No”

If the word “no” feels heavy in your body, you’re not alone…

Read more

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks… every so simply and casually she said:

“Your North Star is helping regulate people’s nervous systems and getting them off substances.”

“What the actual fuck” I thought as my eyes began to well with water as big as the bay before me.

It’s not that I didn’t know this, it’s the work I have done for years… it was simple that I had never stated it so clearly for myself before.

I had never fully claimed it.

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For the last ten years I’ve had coaches that I HIRED ask me the same question over and over:

“Whats your niche?” or “Who is your ideal client?”

Often I would reply with “everyone” because in a way my client is everyone.

But all of the sudden it was “everyone who has a dysregulated nervous system and has used substances to try and regulate.

BOOM!

I looked around, someone else must have felt that explosion I thought.

Here I was sitting on a bench in the park looking out on the bay with my dog, it was barely 10am and a path was clearing for me.

Now, here is the thing… I had always felt like my client was everywhere because in my experience, we are all using some version of something to regulate ourselves.

And substances aren’t just pills, alcohol or drugs.

Substances can also be:

• the codependent relationship you can’t seem to leave

• shopping for clothes even though your drawers are overflowing

• filling a refrigerator with food you will eventually toss in the trash by weeks end to only repeat

• that job that has become your identity

I know this because I lived it… and have helped hundreds of others who have crossed my path.

The fact is, I tried to regulate my nervous system with everything outside of myself.

It didn’t start suddenly in adulthood.

It started when I was a kid.

When I was little, I had a stuffed animal named Cookie.

That was what I turned to after I stopped sucking my thumb. You know the first thing we all regulate with.

Then as I got older it evolved.

Food for comfort.

Food to feel something.

Or limiting food to find a sense of control.

Then weed.

Weed for comfort.

Weed to dissipate pain.

Weed to connect or disconnect.

Then alcohol — mostly to fit in.

Because that’s what everyone else was doing.

Then there were relationships.

Sex.

When I lost my virginity, I can barely remember whether it was something I truly wanted. Sure in that moment I did, but I wasn’t in love with the man.

It was more like:

He desires me, most of my friends had already lost their virginity I probably should too.

Dare I had went off to college a VIRGIN! Oh the shame that could have caused.

I digress.

That first time, I was on ecstasy. That’s a whole other story… which lucky for you I share in my book, but sharing it here matters because it’s part of the truth.

And the truth is this:

For a long time I didn’t want to say my North Star was helping people regulate their nervous systems around addiction.

Part of that was because I struggled with the word addiction.

I never qualified myself as an addict.

My life never became completely unmanageable.

I would cheat the edge. Walk the plank. Get right up to the edge…

But somehow I always knew when to turn back.

Did I make mistakes?

Absolutely.

I’m human.

Or maybe more accurately:

I’m a soul having a human experience.

And sometimes those experiences are messy.

Another reason I avoided saying it out loud is because I worked in the recovery world as a private chef and holistic health coach.

When I stepped away from that chapter of my life, I stepped away from the whole world surrounding it.

But over the last two years I felt something pulling me back.

And every time that pull showed up, a voice inside me would say:

“You’re not qualified.”

“You don’t have the credentials.”

But the truth is…

When I was searching for healing, I wasn’t looking for someone with credentials. I was looking for someone with lived experience.

Someone who had battled their demons. Faced their darkness. Walked through their shadows and come out the other side.

Because I like real.

I like raw.

I like truth.

I like seeing the hero’s journey.

And don’t get me wrong — clinicians are incredible.

The people working in the field are doing important work.

I lived inside that world for years.

But this path started even earlier.

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Ten years ago my first love passed away.

And I remember saying something to myself around that time:

“One day you will help people struggling with addiction. One day you will create a program. One day you will build something that helps people who are hurting.”

At the time I didn’t know what that meant.

But every year since then I’ve understood it more clearly.

Because it wasn’t just him. I lost my best friend from kindergarten too.

And more than anything…

I know their souls… I know how sweet they were.

How loving.

How kind.

How generous.

How beautiful.

And I also know that life was hard on them.

Being raised where we were, with the expectations of parents. The projections of teachers. Coaches. Siblings.

We were taught to perform when we were supposed to be kids.

When I told my friend this morning how emotional I felt saying all of this out loud, she reminded me of something.

She said:

“Lauren, from the outside everyone thought I had it all. An incredible career in Manhattan. The connections everyone wanted. The relationships people admired. But no one knew what was happening behind the scenes. No one knew she was taking Adderall to get through the day. And Xanax at night just to come down and rest.”

Not to mention no one knew her husband couldn’t get through conversations without smoking weed or taking pills because of anxiety from his own childhood.

From the outside they were climbing the ladder.

Inside, they were barely holding themselves together.

Would you believe her and I met because I knew her husband from my childhood and he refereed her to me…

That’s the messy beautiful part.

So many of us are silently suffering.

Today she is someone who changed her life and now helps others as a coach and she held up the lens for me to look through.

Because she sees me the way I see me when I am really honest.

I know who I am.

I know the work I do.

And I know how much change I have helped create in this world.

So this is me pointing the arrow at my North Star.

Claiming.

No longer dancing around the edges of what this work is.

I know exactly what it is.

I don’t simply help people stop using and hiding behind substances to cope.

I help people understand why they started doing it in the first place.

So we can regulate the nervous system.

And when the nervous system regulates…

People finally learn how to live freely.

This April Glow Up Recovery begins… it is the first group program I have launched since my book was released. It is a culmination of the work I have done over the last three years and continue to do. It is the extension of where Glow Up Your Chakras left off. There are 6 spots left, you can apply now.

As I retuned to my back I thought to myself the ceremony is over. You made it through the battle.

This familiar internal pressure showed up:

Okay… you’re done. Get up.

But the woman holding space hadn’t said anything. I took a breath, I could just feel her angelic presence.

And then a quiet voice inside me whispered:

You’re safe here. Relax.

And in that moment something extraordinary happened.

The entire right side of my body lit up — the masculine side.

And it felt like it was speaking to the left side — the feminine side.

It was saying:

You can trust me.

And then I felt my body soften. In my minds eye I began to see the round tip of a thumb. And in that moment, everything softened.

And then a memory surfaced.

A feeling I hadn’t connected before.

Suddenly I remembered the pressure I used to feel during sex when I was younger.

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And a familiar question, one I had heard too many times.

“Did you cum yet?”

“Are you going to cum?”

“Did you cum?”

It was never about connection. It was about performance. A finish line. A goal. Something to complete.

And I realized something heartbreaking.

I had spent so many sexual experiences feeling like I had to perform instead of actually relax.

My mind drifted back to a moment in high school.

Walking into a friend’s living room. A bunch of guys sitting around watching porn like it was a baseball game.

Just casually watching.

Talking about different types of porn, like it was normal.

At the time, I didn’t question it. Dare I risk seeming “cool”.

But lying there during that ceremony it hit me in a way it never had before.

Porn is performance. Not intimacy. And so many of us were taught that performance is what sex is supposed to look like.

So we carried that into our relationships.

Into our bodies.

Into our nervous systems.

And I let myself feel that realization and share it when the ceremony ultimately came to an end.

Fast Forward to February ten months after my tongue-tie release, a month post medicine ceremony and something else surfaced as I was integrating.

My jaw felt better.

My neck was less tense and inflamed.

My shoulders were rolling back.

My diaphragm was breathing deeper.

But my pelvic floor… something felt off. First I noticed a need to urinate would come out of nowhere. I felt bloated. Then I began to notice it was hard to apply root lock while practicing kundalini yoga.

I started asking my body questions.

“Why are you swollen?”

“Why does this part of my body feel tense all the time?”

My body whispered “your pelvic floor has been bracing for so long.”

So I started paying attention.

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During a Kundalini Yoga teacher training for Authentic Relationships weekend, we were guided to some movement and breathwork.

And my body said something surprising to me - “No, do not do these movements.”

I asked myself why.

“This would have been activating. Too much stimulation. Too much pressure on the pelvic floor.”

So instead of pushing through like I used to… I listened.

And I practiced something radical:

Being in an authentic relationship with myself. I felt this sadness come up, but I couldn’t identify it.

So instead I sat with it knowing it would reveal in time.

The following day in training we were discussing attachment, intimacy and pleasure.

And something hit me, it was like I was back on the floor with Bufo.

Many of my relationships had intimacy. MANY had unhealthy attachment. But very few had actual pleasure.

And I realized something even deeper.

My body still held memories.

Memories of times I blacked out and had sex.

Memories of times I said no and it still happened anyway.

Memories of pressure.

Expectations.

Performance.

Moments when my boundaries were crossed and I didn’t know how to protect myself… I wouldn’t have called it assault but I wouldn’t call it safe.

And the truth is…

I didn’t even realize how much that hurt me.

For so long I equated sex with love. I believed that if I gave myself to someone… I would be loved.

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You may have heard the phrase before “the body keeps the score” its a book after all and it is very true.

The body remembers the things the mind tries to forget.

It remembers the pressure.

It remembers the moments we dissociated.

It remembers the times we abandoned ourselves.

For years that pain lived silently inside my body. In my pelvic floor.

But something happened when my tongue was released— the jaw and hips are mirrors for one another after all.

And what I hadn’t been feeling because I was numb was finally at the surface ready to be seen, felt, heard and transmuted.

Because healing isn’t just about understanding what happened.

It’s about letting the body release what it’s been holding.

And that’s what I experienced.

The unraveling.

The remembering.

The reclaiming.

My voice.

My body.

My power.

It’s no longer trapped inside of me. I am free.

And if there is anything I have learned through writing and sharing based on my agreement with God its time for you too to be free.

It was two years post pandemic. I had stayed committed to my celibacy. I was “doing” the work.

My business was thriving.

I wasn’t looking for anything serious, I just felt like I NEEDED some passion. Enter a man who lived way to close in proximity to me and was much more unavailable then he led me to believe.

The moment we met there was an undeniable spark - “girl thats chaos, run” is what I should have said to myself.

Instead I had felt the flame and wanted to play with fire.

I told myself I was empowered, that I could just enjoy sex didn’t need a relationship.

I reminded myself I was successful and independent.

I had been on the celibate journey for so long “wasn’t it time I just enjoyed myself?” I wondered.

My body craved the connection, my mind began to melt.

I began to question my inner knowing that every time I slept with someone, I gave away more of my power than I realized.

I did it anyway.

I slept with him.

I let go of my celibacy to lose control with a man who as soon as I let my guard down I was able to see mirrored so many parts of my former identity.

Let me be clear, I am not mad I made the decision. It was a moment for me to learn from.

It locked in what I already knew:

My sexuality was never meant to be casual.

Because I am too fucking powerful.

And I had never actually been taught how to hold that power.

Can you relate?

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Fast forward… January 1, 2026

I arrive for a medicine ceremony at 11:11 am to sit with Bufo— a frog medicine which is also known as 5-MeO-DMT.

The last time I worked with this medicine was eight years prior. I sat three times across nine months and time something strange happened.

I would inhale the medicine and suddenly I would hear this INTENSE chirping in my ears like the sound of cicadas and then poof, I would “black out” and return minutes later with no memory of what had happened.

I didn’t understand that I was dissociating at the time.

What I did understand that after those experiences my life changed.

I found Reiki.

Sound healing.

Bodywork.

Shamanic practices.

Got sober.

But this ceremony was different.

The practitioner opened the space, we anchored the energy and I set my intentions which were to continue healing from my tongue tie and my focus was on my diaphragm and opening up to breath with more ease. The first dose moved through my body like electricity.

The taste was terrible. It brought me right back to eight years ago.

But once it moved into my system, my body didn’t panic. I was present.

My body wanted to move.

To stretch.

It was as though I could feel the medicine in my tissues, in my cells.

Energy moved through my entire body.

For about twenty minutes I stretched in ways that felt primal and deeply relieving.

When it settled, the woman holding space and I talked for a bit before she asked if I wanted a second dose.

I already knew the answer before I arrived.

“Yes" I replied.

The second round was stronger. Immediately I felt the difference.

At first, fear surfaced. I thought I may be leaving my body.

But something else happened…

My body flipped over on the mat and pillow supporting me and something inside me began to roar.

Like a lion. I felt my jaw unhinged.

I was screaming, drooling, shaking. This surge of power was moving though me. I felt like I was both dying and SO ALIVE within the same moment.

Something was happening and the only way I can describe it is this:

It felt like a demon was being pulled out of me. Something that had attached itself to my system, to my spiritual heart and had lived in my body for years.

I continued to toss and turn feeling the spiral of my DNA and I let it unravel.

And unravel.

And unravel.

Until my body was finally ready to rest.

I don’t know how long it lasted— maybe five minutes, maybe ten. It felt like eternity.

Eventually my body softened and I rolled onto my back.

* Stay tuned for part III

For the past few years, I’ve been consciously celibate, something I never imagined saying.

It’s not because I hate sex or that I am afraid of intimacy… not in the least.

It’s actually because I realized something that was deeply uncomfortable to admit: I had spent years giving pieces of myself away in relationships that didn’t actually serve me.

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Maybe you can relate.

Hi my name is Lauren and I looked for love in all the wrong places.

The final straw came during the pandemic. I had met a man though mutual connections. I was living in Miami, he in LA. We spoke everyday — hello it was the pandemic. The conversations were deep and insightful at times, we spoke of passed ancestors, our business goals, desires in relationship.

Until one day he said, why don’t I just fly to Miami so we can actually spend time together. Ummm we are in the middle of a lockdown?!

But he loved the idea and I well, I was open to it and said I would think about it.

That same weekend I went into a Reiki Upgrade experience and I remember being in meditation and received a VERY clear message that he and I would no longer be a match in frequency, that I was shifting at a rapid rate and it was time to let go.

We spoke a few days later and I shared that I thought perhaps he shouldn’t come with it being a pandemic and all, he was insistent.

I talked to a girlfriend and she mirrored what he said “maybe you are just scared to let someone in, you haven’t been in a relationship in a while.”

But I knew.

I knew something shifted in that Reiki experience, nonetheless… I gave in.

A week or so later he arrived at my door.

Before I event opened it I thought, “why didn’t I tell him to book a hotel, why hadn’t he been a gentleman and suggested it?”

My thoughts continued to spiral “Is this man who flew across the country really about to stay with me for a week?”

Sure we had facetimed and he had even met some of my friends in Miami via facetime, but WHAT THE FUCK was I thinking.

“Get it together Lauren” I said to myself.

He had already buzzed into the building, there was no turning back.

Finally the knock.

“What if I am not into him?!?!”

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I opened the door. I knew this wasn’t right.

Not simply because he was shorter then me, I could learn to live with that, something just didn’t feel right.

But I let him in. I wasn’t getting danger vibes, turns out it was just my body trying to say I don’t feel safe with you.

I won’t get into the whole story with this man, but here are the highlights, the ones I felt shame around.

That first night I allowed him to share my bed. And I allowed him to talk me into giving him head.

Prior to his coming to Miami we did talk about sex and he shared with me “I love to give oral sex.”

As a woman who loves to receive it at the time I was intrigued.

Well let me tell you, this man was either not into me from the jump or was simply a liar because a few days later after I had allowed myself to engage in sex with a man who was gaslighting me because he loved my world more then his own… it did happen.

I will never forget this moment. We were sitting on my couch and I asked him about the oral sex comment he had made. To which he then made a move.

He began and at some point I said the word “pussy” referring to, well my pussy.

He jumped back, his face had a look of shock, he then said “I just can’t believe a goddess like you would use that word.”

I was so uncomfortable from his sheer terror that I could speak of my body that I got up and ended the moment.

This was supposed to be a man, one that “was into me” and I had been with quite a few men before who would fall to there knees to be in his position.

At the same time all of this was going on I was building out my online offers turning my first group program Glow Up Your Chakras into a program you could do on your own through an online platform.

My afternoons I would tinker away at the program, only seeming to take breaks to help him create a mens coaching program, cook us breakfast, lunch AND dinner.

Was it because I was great at creating programs, maybe.

Was it because creating came easy to me?

Was it because I am a former chef and love to cook, maybe.

Was it because I felt like I wouldn’t like what he made so it was easier to do myself, maybe.

Was it because this man was actually a boy masquerading as a man and I was “trying to save him”— MOST LIKELY.

He left about 10 days after he arrived.

Once back in LA he told me didn’t think we were a match.

I was devastated.

Not because of him, good riddance… but because I had already know that before he came to my home, slept with me, ate my food and allowed me to build his brand.

That was it…

It was time for a change because the problem wasn’t him, it was me.

* I had no idea I would be writing multiple parts, I actually didn’t realize I needed to share this specific story until I began typing… that’s the beautiful part of this agreement I made. I trust that someone needed to hear this story before they get to the rest.

I was in the midst of a massive spiritual awakening brought on by the death of my best friend. By July my parents thought I had completely lost my fucking mind.

I’m talking, they bought me a flight to NY for my birthday in July because they missed me — while true I am pretty sure they were wondering if I needed to “go away somewhere”.

When I landed in LA I got a job doing social media for a friends cannabis brand and later was hired by another brand as there spiritual advisor.

I had become very vocal about the fact that I was a medium.

In addition I was smoking joints or as I called them “Spirit Sticks” on my Instagram stories while doing live card readings.

Let’s just say, my mother was concerned what her friends who followed me may think.

In LA I found the most free version of myself that not only had they never met — I had never met before either.

Fast Forward…

August 2017

My mom let me know her Aunt had called and wanted us to take a trip to the cemetery where her husband, my great-uncle was buried. It had been years since anyone had been there and she wanted to be sure it was being well maintained.

I didn’t know my great-uncle well.

They had moved to California when I was very young, maybe before I was born and about 10 years prior to his passing he had a stroke that left him immobile.

While we had never met I always looked forward to my annual musical birthday cards that would come from California, if I was lucky they hadn’t broken on the cross-country journey and still played a tune upon arrival.

Now, my Great-Aunt Irene was my grandmother’s sister with that said, I somehow never really considered that they had a different last name, even with signed cards and birthday checks.

Now here is why this matters…

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As I mentioned, I moved to LA in the midst of my spiritual awakening and since arriving the initials JC had been showing up EVERYWHERE for me.

It was not only JC it was also 33.

Random to some, but to me… I assumed it was Jesus.

JC, 33, Jesus, rebirth… it all made sense to me that even as Jewish woman I had this newfound connection with Jesus.

You see, as a student of Holy Fire Reiki I was taught that the lineage was brought to the people on Earth by Jesus and the Ascended Masters to help us become our greatest healer.

Side note - if you weren’t aware, no one is coming to save you.

OK, fast-forward — my mom and I arrive at the cemetery to visit my Uncle Joe. We walk over to his plot.

It’s located in a very open space, but there happens to be one tree nearby and not many in the area. My aunt wanted to make sure the headstone was still there and cared for.

We arrived at the location and I looked down.

Joseph Cohen

Born March 3, 1933.

JC.

3-3-33.

My knees bucked and I fell to the ground. Tears began streaming from my eyes like a faucet filling a bathtub. I remember thinking, holy shit— Have I just solved a mystery.

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Then mere moments later, the tree over my right shoulder began releasing dragonflies.

I’m not talking one or two.

I’m talking hundreds — like a hive had just burst open.

My mother started screaming, “What are you doing? You’re scaring me! Stop it!”

I was hysterical shouting back, “I’m not doing anything. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m having the same experience as you.”

My mom was pretty sure I was performing some kind of ritual.

I was pretty sure I had just unlocked codes from the Universe.

We remained still as hundreds of dragonflies released into the sky.

Minutes passed before the dragonflies stopped. The faucet that was my eyeballs shut off and I was able to stand again.

All I could think and say was “Okay Uncle Joe, I understand — JC, 33 and dragonflies are your symbol to me.”

As we looked around, we noticed the headstone next to Uncle Joe’s had the name Bell, the same as my ex who had passed away.

We continued walking out of the cemetery and my mom spotted the name of her college boyfriend. It wasn’t actually him — but it was his exact name.

At this point mom had drank the Kool-aid and was wondering what the Universe was trying to say.

Within the next six months my mom’s college boyfriend got in touch with her. They created a friendship. Within a few years he became sick and passed away, but not until after they had reconnected.

Fast-forward a month post cemetery experience.

A girl I had met in NY almost a year prior who had given me my first tattoos was heading to LA.

I was headed out of town for much of her time so I offered her my space. In exchange she said she would give me another tattoo. I jumped at the opportunity to say yes.

I had been envisioning this rose with roots growing up from my heel. A nod to being rooted with love (which later became an e-book series… anyway.

One morning before our separate journeys began, she woke up and said, “I had a vision of a tattoo for a client in my dream, but I don’t know who it’s for.”

I asked what the tattoo was.

She described an intricate dragonfly.

I laughed, smiled, and said, “That’s my tattoo.”

That dragonfly now sits on my left shoulder and has been with me along my journey.

Why am I sharing this?

Last night I was at the dog park. The wind had picked up. There’s an upcoming shift in the weather patterns and as the wind was swirling, dragonflies began to visit.

Not one, two, or three, but four… they were clearly wanting my attention.

I smiled and said to a friend at the park “ do you see the dragonflies? They are our ancestors visiting.” He looked at me and said “huh”. I let out a laugh.

In that moment I knew my Uncle Joe and my ancestors were surrounding me, reminding me that abundance is showing up in new ways and opportunities are blowing into my direction.

And perhaps if you have gotten this far, that message is for you too.

(give this post a like to let me know you made it this far and are also open to receive)

Her father passed away last weekend. The ceremony was this week. She wrote, I can’t stop crying. I’m so sad… but my dad sent me a sign.

She told me she got in the car and a radio station she never listens to was playing. A song from Caddyshack came on — Rodney Dangerfield, a movie and star that was a huge part of her life growing up. She said she instantly knew it was him telling her to laugh… that it was going to be okay.

I replied, “1000%. You’re so tuned in.”

Because I knew that’s exactly what it was.

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But what she actually needed from me wasn’t confirmation. She needed a nervous system that could feel her. Someone who could listen, understand, and not make her feel crazy.

I know that because when I had this experience myself, I didn’t have that.

After I sent the message, I started sobbing. I was driving to a doctor’s appointment, crossing over to Miami Beach and tears just started rolling down my face.

And I had a thought I didn’t expect.

I’m jealous.

Not the kind of jealousy people might assume. I am incredibly lucky — both of my parents are alive and healthy.

I was jealous because she had someone reassuring her he was still with her.

This July will be ten years since my first love died — my best friend, my ride or die. I’ve long grieved his passing, so I wondered:

Why is this hitting me now?

Where are these tears coming from?

Then I realized… I wasn’t crying for him.

I was grieving a part of myself.

A few days after Jeff died, I drove to his parents house to sit Shiva. I turned on the radio and R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion started playing. At first I cried, it was coded on the energy of Brenda and Dylan from 90210, star-crossed lovers.

But within moments the crying stopped.

I could feel him with me. My inner knowing felt I’m with you. You don’t need to cry. I’m always going to be with you.

And I had no one I could tell.

No one I could share that with.

No one who understood signs or communication or what I was experiencing.

I felt completely alone — like I was on an island — and the only person who understood me was the person who had just died.

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Today, sitting in my car sobbing in traffic I realized I wasn’t grieving him, I was grieving the girl who had to grow up the day he died.

The girl who told God:

If you get me through this, I will help other people so no one has to go through this alone.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done for nearly ten years.

I’ve held space for friends who lost siblings, parents and partners.

For clients grieving partners, parents and friends.

For my own family through the loss of parents/grandparents, best friends and loved ones.

I’ve been the person telling them:

“They’re still with you.”

“You’ll get signs.”

“You’re not crazy.”

“You’re not alone.”

And it hit me today…

No one ever told me that.

It was something I had to learn on my own so I could become it for others.

I thought I was jealous that I didn’t have someone like me beside me.

But then I realized the truth.

I did.

I had me all along.

I spoke it out loud before I ever knew what it was.

This is the story of how I found the root of my pain, my voice, and my body — and why I can never go back.

SEPTEMBER 2024

It was in September of 2024, I knew that everything was starting to change once again.

I had spent the three years prior doing deep healing work after my grandmother passed. I was figuring out who I was once again.

Because after my grandmother died, I burnt out. My body, my brain, my nervous system, all of it, I couldn’t keep up anymore with working the way I worked.

And it was after her death that I was guided to slow down in my business, and with that, start writing my book.

THE BOOK

So fast forward. At the end of September 2024, my book is written. It’s done.

I’m setting the intentions that I am gonna find a publisher, that I am going to be signed by Hay House, that I’m going to be a New York Times bestseller.

I had these massive dreams. I still have massive dreams.

I had these massive dreams, except for the foundation underneath it all was not stable. And I was still figuring that out.

THE BREATH

In September of 2023, I had been on a breath work retreat and realized I didn’t breathe properly.

I knew there was something off with my breathing, but I couldn’t quite describe it.

It’s like my breaths were shallow and stuck in my chest, never making its way down to my belly or diaphragm.

So at that time, I enrolled in Kundalini yoga teacher training, thinking like, okay, this will figure it out. If I do enough breath of fire, I’ll break through.

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THE PAIN

And at the same time, I was still dealing with chronic pain, going to the chiropractor at least once a week, if not twice. And I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have answers for my pain.

It had been already over 10 years since I had my reconstructive jaw surgery, over 10 years since I had stopped taking pills.

I had given up cannabis for five years, so I knew I could manage.

But the more I kept digging to figure out where the root of my pain came from, the more pain I was experiencing.

And it wasn’t just like regular pain, like, oh, my jaw hurts, or oh, my left hip is bothering me. It started to become things that were really actually issues in my life.

SOMETHING WAS WRONG

I noticed that when I needed to pee, it was like, I need to go right now or I’m gonna have a problem.

And I’m 40 years old. I was not willing to just accept that I’m getting old. I knew something was wrong.

I felt that I was uprooting things so fast, but I didn’t know who to speak to.

I didn’t know how to speak it out loud because I felt so misunderstood much of my life.

THE SYSTEM

And it’s not that doctors didn’t try to help me when I was younger with the jaw stuff. I suppose they were doing the best they could.

And unfortunately, the best they could led me to immense trauma.

REGULATION + SHAME

So here I was, I had just written my book, and I’m dreaming big.

And I’d be able to hold that frequency for a week, two weeks, sometimes three. And then I would drop down again.

I’d return to using cannabis to support me because it was the one thing that I found that could help me regulate myself.

And I felt shame around that. Having been sober for five years, I felt shame.

I didn’t wanna talk about it publicly because who was I to preach about being sober and then go back to medicating?

But that was the journey I was having.

THE DIAGNOSIS

So back to September. I fly home from this yoga retreat, this breath work retreat, where I made this great claim.

That I am going to publish my book within a year. My book will be published, and I will find a publisher, and I will find an agent.

And I get home and I start the process of learning all of the things.

And I start learning about the traditional publishing model, how it can take up to two years for a book to come out, how you’re giving away about 70% in some cases of your book.

And not just the money, but like, you’re giving your story away and letting other people weigh in, not just on what’s in the pages, but also the cover of the book, the promotion of the book.

And with traditional publishing, they actually only promote for about two weeks and then they’re on to the next.

And then the next thing I knew, I was invited to an event in New York to see my editor speak.

It was called the Tortured Blogger Society, an event hosted by Cara Alwill.

Now years before I had heard of Cara, actually, I had won a giveaway that she was a part of and got this snake ring.

And now here I was in the year of the snake, connecting with her.

But let me rewind for a moment, because that was in December.

MIAMI

I get back from the breath work retreat, fly to Miami for a week, because I’m headed to Morocco two weeks later to hold space on a retreat.

So I fly back to Miami with the intention of being able to teach my kundalini classes, and this girl I had met through social media, who is a myofunctional therapist and treats people with tongue ties, reaches out to me.

“Hey, I’m gonna be in Miami. I’d love to come to one of your classes and connect.”

And I said, I happen to be back in town. I’d love to connect. Come to one of my classes.

The day before I’m set to leave to start my journey to Morocco, she comes to my class.

It’s a beautiful class. I can’t quite remember the Kriya I taught.

But after class, we start talking. She tells me how she loved it.

And she also tells me, I can see what’s wrong with your cervical spine.

I froze.

Tears may have formed in my eyes because no one had been able to help me up until this point.

Not my doctors, not my chiropractor, not my body workers, not my mentors.

I was gaslit into thinking it could be many things. Explored my consciousness around them, but I knew there was something physical.

She offers to do a consult for me as a friend. And of course, I said yes.

That afternoon, she diagnosed me with one of the worst tongue ties she’s seen that often goes misdiagnosed.

I cried for days because I finally felt like I had an answer.

THE BODY REMEMBERS

I started doing research.

Learning about the tongue, how it’s connected to the pelvic floor, and the issues I was having around feeling like so much pressure to go to the bathroom, I started realizing the connection to the tongue and the diaphragm and breath and not being able to actually breathe into my belly.

I started to understand the connection that I had that when I’d get body work on the back of my legs, I’d clench my eyes and feel this sense internally, like, like I’m blind.

And it always felt like a inherited pattern because my grandmother, in the last five years of her life, went blind, and then so did her sister, my great aunt.

And I just always felt like this is something deeper. It’s something deeper in my roots. It’s something deeper in my lineage.

And tongue ties are inherited. And everything just started to make sense.

ANGER

With that, I was so angry.

At the age of 17, I had surgery. At the age of 21, I had surgery. And at the age of 24, I had my jaw broken and rubber banded shut.

And for the better part of all of those years, I was taking painkillers, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories, Klonopin, Ambien, Xanax, smoking more weed than anyone should, just to regulate myself, both to numb and to feel.

I was dying inside, and I never knew how to express myself because my tongue-tied, cut off my voice, a voice I worked so hard to find.

MOROCCO

So when all of this came to fruition, I first felt a lot of anger.

And then I found myself headed to Morocco with all this new information.

Right before I left for that trip, I cut off 10 inches of my hair the day after the diagnosis.

I was ready to shed. I was ready to let go.

I had no idea what that meant or what it would look like, but I was gonna find out because I finally had the answer that I was looking for.

And I wasn’t gonna let anything stop me from fixing it, from healing it, and from finding my voice and coming into my body.

We were about five days into the Morocco trip, and I was holding space alongside of the lead facilitator.

I was providing energy healing and shamanic practices, extra safety, and doing work that’s honestly hard to explain in words.

Because the work that I do crosses time, space, and dimensions. I see things, I feel things, and I know things.

And I had to do a lot of work on that trip because the energy was a fucking mess.

But that’s not the point. That was what I was there to do.

THE SISTER WOUND

But something happened during one of the days. I needed to step into a ceremony to have even numbers so everyone could have a partner.

And it was a ceremony for the sister wound.

And I’d already dealt with a lot of my past stuff in terms of feeling wronged by friends, feeling hurt by friends, feeling abandoned by friends.

Friends who were sisters.

Now, my sister and I still had shit to work through, but the truth is, we couldn’t work through anything until she was ready to stop abandoning herself and she was still in her shadows.

And I didn’t feel called to talk about my sister in that moment. It didn’t feel aligned.

So when I stepped into the ceremony with my partner, I wasn’t sure what would come up.

And then there it was.

My best friend, Ashley. My best friend going back to kindergarten, who passed away four years prior.

I hadn’t yet grieved her death.

And here I was, fucking angry.

How could she abandon me? How could she abandon us?

And I let myself feel the anger.

She was my best friend. The friend who in kindergarten, I shared a koala bear rug at nap time with.

The friend who I had sleepovers with more often than not.

The friend who also, as we got older, and I was prescribed pills, stole pills from me.

The friend whose family I ultimately had to call. To tell them she had a problem.

And instead of owning up to what was going on with her, she told them I had a problem.

And it caused a huge rift in our family.

But I was willing to deal with it because I knew something was going on with her.

And maybe I had wished someone would say something to my own parents, but the truth is, I seem to be able to manage everything to somehow stay in control in this out-of-control world.

Anyway, there I was, finally surfacing my sadness, the pain I felt in her leaving.

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UNRAVELING

Fast forward, it’s December. I’m house-sitting for a friend.

And I had been briefly dating a therapist, a therapist who was also a former addict, who recommended a book for me for my clients.

Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families Workbook.

And I said to him, this book isn’t for my clients. This book is for me.

And all of a sudden, everything started to unravel.

THE DECISION

Two months later, I found a doctor in Miami who specialized in tongue ties.

They let me know I would need braces as well as the surgery to release the tongue tie, therapy to strengthen my tongue, and the whole process.

I called my parents. I let them know what I had found out. I let them know what I was experiencing.

And their response was absolutely not.

Now keep in mind, I’m 41 years old at this point.

And my parents tell me, no, you’re not doing that procedure in Florida.

So I told them, okay, if you want me to look into this in New York, then you can fly me up and you can pay for that because I’ve spent enough money.

Enough time and enough energy to try to figure this out.

And I’m not talking about just in the consult I had with the doctor. I’m talking about years and years of work.

I’m talking about flying to LA three, four times, for trainings, and intensives with a mentor who I studied trauma with.

I’m talking about flying to Romania twice for two more trainings.

I’m talking about going on breath work retreats to Egypt and Greece.

I’m talking about Kundalini Yoga teacher training.

Reiki level 1, 2, Holy Fire Master, and Karuna Master Trainings.

I’m talking about flying to Northern California to study with a shaman.

I’m talking about sound healing training and investing in sound bowls, drums, and more.

I’m talking about hiring mentors who supported me.

I probably invested over $300,000 into my healing.

And I wasn’t about to invest anymore.

VINDICATION

So in February of 2025, I flew up to New York and met with my orthodontist from when I was 24 years old.

She looked at all my old scans that were still in the system, saw that my bite had shifted, had collapsed a bit after having it expanded.

And she saw what could be a tongue tie, but since that was near specialty, she sent me to a specialist.

A few days later, my father accompanied me to that office.

And now my parents were open to what I was telling them and also skeptical, because again, no doctor had ever presented this previously.

So we went into that doctor’s appointment, and as it would turn out, this doctor had studied under the surgeon who performed my first two surgeries.

And he shared with me that doctors weren’t looking for tongue ties back then. It simply wasn’t something they were checking for.

It’s much more common now. It’s more talked about.

For what reason, I’m not sure, but here I was in New York City, having a conversation.

I’m 41 years old.

This could have been dealt with at my birth.

This could have been looked at by doctors when I was a colic baby, when I wasn’t breastfed, when I was irritable.

When I grew up to have acid reflux, gastric issues and when I grew up to have ADD.

So many signs. So many signs. So many signs come right back to having a tongue tie, but no one was looking for it.

And there I was in this doctor’s office, and he confirms, you have a tongue tie, and it would be very beneficial for you to release it.

“Based on the symptoms, based on what’s happening in your body, you’ll find a lot of relief” he said.

I walked out of that appointment into the waiting room, and I looked at my dad and I said, with tears in my eyes, “I feel so vindicated.”

And he looked at me and he said, “I don’t think that’s the right word.”

And I said to him, well, that’s not even a word I usually use, but that’s what came through, and I know that’s how I feel.

And I went as far as to look up the word, something I do often when a new word comes through to me.

And I read him the definition and said, “that’s exactly how I feel.”

I made it clear I wasn’t saying that he was wrong or my mom was wrong.

I knew that they did everything they could for me.

It wasn’t them that failed me, it was the medical system.

It was a broken fucking system that chose to medicate me and break my jaw instead of finding the thread that I’ve been pulling on for years that I was left to find on my own.

THE RELEASE

A week later, I went into the orthodontist and got scanned to start the Invisalign process.

And four months later, I was ready for the release of my tongue.

Perhaps what I wasn’t ready for was all of the change that was ultimately going to happen because of this release.

Because everything changed.

First, it was physical.

The first few days after surgery, I questioned if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life because my jaw ached.

It felt like my lower jaw was hanging.

And remember I had sutures, so I ate an edible because I was in so much discomfort.

And for days, I just kind of laid in bed. Getting up only to walk the dogs as I chose to do the surgery in NY while my parents were out of town,

So I’d go for long walks and then I would just lay down.

I began to understood that that feeling was because I’d been clenching for so long.

My jaw had been clenching my entire life, and all of a sudden, it was loose.

I had freedom.

And I’d stand in the mirror and practice my tongue exercises and just hope it would feel better.

THE BODY OPENS

Within a week, the pain dissipated, but then it moved.

All of a sudden, on a normal day when I was already walking 10K steps, it felt like I had squatted for hours.

My glutes on the side, specifically, this part I had never felt before felt like it was activated.

Like, oh my goodness, there was a muscle here that I’ve never felt before.

And it was a mirror to what I was experiencing in my jaw.

I’ve been clenching my pelvic floor my whole life.

I remember years ago being told I had a tight pussy. Like it was a prize. And I wore that prize like a badge of honor.

Guess what? I had a tight pelvic floor. I was in deep, serious pain, thinking like, oh, this is so great. I have a tight pussy.

When in reality, it was like, no, your whole body is tight. You are not okay.

LETTING GO

Anyway, back to the point.

I spent about two weeks like that, dealing with the pain in my glutes, trying to walk through it, knowing it would relax, knowing that my body was finding safety, that it was no longer bracing.

Eventually, the pain dissipated.

And then it became my neck, my shoulders, my collarbone, all opening up, all deep, deep pain.

So I was using cannabis to medicate because I didn’t know what else to do.

Of course, I was going to Myofunctional Therapy, seeing a specialist, and getting support.

And outside of those sessions, I was doing a lot of my own work.

I was stretching. I was working on the fascia. I was pulling the stress and trauma out of my body, and it felt like I was dying.

It felt like I was dying, and no one really understood.

I talked about it with friends, but no one really understood.

Maybe it’s because I just couldn’t let them in.

Maybe I just couldn’t let them in because ultimately, I knew I was gonna let them go because I was no longer going to be who I was before the surgery.

STABALIZATION

Come October, a lot had stabilized.

I had dropped about 10 pounds of inflammation and had given up alcohol.

Not that I was drinking often, but I just felt like, I don’t want this.

And then came October and I thought, you know what? I’ve already given up alcohol. Maybe I do sober October. Maybe I let go of cannabis.

Twelve days in, I decided I needed to smoke.

And that’s when I had a really big moment.

I realized it was time to let go of her for good.

GRIEF

I realized my relationship with cannabis was codependent.

It was codependent on the pain that I had been experiencing for so long.

That was no longer defining me because I was getting free from my pain.

I was unraveling myself.

And I knew. I knew I didn’t need it anymore, and it broke my fucking heart.

It literally broke my heart.

The day, or I should say night, that I decided to give up cannabis for good, I wrote her a letter.

I cried. I was grieving.

Just like I had grieved my friend that had died, I was grieving this friend because cannabis was always there for me through everything.

Through everything I went through, this plant supported me.

Through the pain, through no one understanding, through the grief of the loss of my my first love and then my best friend, from the grief of my grandmother passing.

It would help rebalance me and stabilize me when I couldn’t do it myself.

Then I gave her up.

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FOURTY DAYS

And shortly after I gave her up, I flew to New York for unknowingly what was 40 days and 40 nights.

And on that trip, for the first time, maybe ever, I didn’t gain a single pound.

And this is important because I was no longer taking on energy or inflammation from being with and around my family, which had happened many times before.

And at the same time, I was grieving what I ultimately knew was going to be the end of a friendship, a friendship with someone I deeply, deeply cared for.

And I also could recognize the sister wound within our relationship and why I had called her in because she reminded me so much of my mother and my sister.

I was starting to see another relationship that was likely going to end.

And I was grieving.

TRUST

And ultimately, I was also trusting myself, my voice, my truth, because I’d already been tuned in.

But now not only was I tuned in, I was fully turned on.

THE PRACTICE

I came back from that trip and decided to begin a 40-day Kundalini Kriya and Meditation practice, specifically for my back, to build strength, to open myself up, along with a mediation to connect my heart with the earth and ethers.

And I was guided to set my mat up in front of my mirror.

And every morning, I’d sit in my practice.

And I realized that I was breathing into my diaphragm, only it was still collapsed on the right side.

So each day I focused my attention there, to breathing into my whole diaphragm, to breathing into my whole belly.

THE CALL

And then in December, my cousin came to visit.

And she had plans to sit in a ceremony with Kambo.

I did not think I’d be joining.

But then I was asked if I wanted to join her for one of the days, and my whole body said yes.

And I decided to listen.

So I sat in ceremony on Friday, 12/12, and I realized that that ceremony was a catalyst for me to get more grounded in my body. It was a catalyst for me to clean out my diet a bit more and to get ready for what, I wasn’t sure quite yet.

BUFO

And then Christmas came, and I spent the day with the medicine woman who I had sat in ceremony with.

And I told her I felt the call to sit with Bufo.

It had been seven, maybe even eight years since I had last sat with the medicine, and I knew it was time.

And one of the intentions that came up for me in that desire was that it would help me go deeper into my diaphragm, and it was going to open me up. I thought it was going to support me in reconnecting me with my womb space and bring further, deeper healing into my pelvic floor. Connecting me from my crown down to my root.

My breathing had gotten deeper through all the work, but I wasn’t quite there yet, and something told me that the Bufo would help.

NEW YEAR

On New Year’s Eve, I stayed in.

I rested.

On New Year’s Day, I saw the sunrise on the beach, and at 11 a.m. I headed to my bufo ceremony.

That ceremony cracked me open.

THE BATTLE

I could feel myself at war with entities and energies doing their best to keep me stuck.

But I’m a fucking warrior, and I didn’t come this far to only come this far.

So I let the medicine work through me, and I went into that battle, and I came out on top.

SOVEREIGNTY

I’m now well over 100 days sober from alcohol, as well as cannabis.

I’m well over 40 days into the Kundalini practice I planned to do, which I’ll now do for 90.

I’ve walked away from people and relationships, that I loved but no longer served me, in order to ultimately choose to be my best friend and release the sister wound that once lived inside of me.

My sister’s also been on a deep healing journey, and we’re able to talk about it now. How when she abandoned herself, she also abandoned me. The conversations are deep and meaningful.

INTEGRATION

The thing is, when you do work on this level to figure out ultimately who you are, why you’ve struggled, what your purpose is…

You can’t go back to who you were before you healed it, before you found it, before you fixed it.

So I’ve let go of the friendships.

I’ve even stopped going to workouts at studios so I could work out with myself, connect with my body, not what works, quote-unquote works for everyone, and instead figure out what works for me, for my body, for my nervous system.

I’m no longer picking up the energy outside of me because I’m focused on me. I’m not giving my energy to others.

I’m not leaking.

It’s been a wild few years.

THE BEGINNING

I thought writing my book would be the moment everything changed.

It turns out it was only the beginning.

I was spending the week house and dog sitting for friends. I had just gotten back from a long walk with my dog as well as theirs when I decided to hop in the shower for a relaxing unwind to my day.

Right before I stepped into the shower I felt a pull to take a hit of some Blue Dream— a hybrid blend of cannabis that I tended to favor. It was the perfect balance of uplifting and grounding and great for shadow work.

That should have been my sign that I was about to go on a journey, but I didn’t think of it as much more then it will be nice to relax and unwind.

Fast forward, I step into the shower and I am faced with what feels like chaos.

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There before me on the shelf is not one, not two or three, but FOUR open body scrubs!

THE HORROR!

FOUR OPEN BODY SCRUBS!

“That’s crazy” I thought.

“But is it” this inner voice whispered back.

I stepped under the water letting it wash over me and began to process.

Safe to say the Blue Dream had kicked in.

I could here my sister’s voice, “Lauren, one scrub is more uplifting for daytime, one has lavender for nighttime, one for the weekend and one for fun because I like the smell, but only sometimes.”

I laughed, it made sense.

And all of the sudden I was overwhelmed with sadness.

“What is this?” I wondered.

“I’ve been trying to be perfect my whole life” I thought.

If I had stepped into my shower there would only be one open body scrub.

Why? Because you shouldn’t open something new until you finish what’s already open. An unwritten rule passed down to me from my mother.

I began to think of my childhood, how my sister was always getting in trouble for making a mess, for opening something that was already opened.

How my sister would have numerous scrubs and I would feel anxious in a shower filled with so many options.

While she rebelled from the unwritten rules I had followed them to my own detriment.

Not realizing that I was shrinking myself.

Always wanting to keep things organized and clean, like my grandfather.

Never wanting to create trouble— ultimately walking on egg shells as to not disturb my environment.

I was the peacekeeper.

The go between— the manager.

Always managing other people’s emotions at the cost of myself, unbeknownst to me.

And here I was in a shower with a plethora of body scrubs having an awakening.

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When I finally wrapped up my shower I sat down and journaled.

Like a faucet tears began to stream from my eyes before exhaustion set in. I got into bed surrounded by my dog and his doodle friends who all look like my childhood stuffed animal and I drifted to sleep.

The following morning on my walk I called my sister and shared about the scrubs.

As I thought, she laughed “duh Lauren, four scrubs makes sense because it really depends on your mood.”

The truth is, it did make sense!

I simply couldn’t deny that.

This programming in my mind wasn’t mine and I had never noticed it before, and now here it was— staring me in the face.

I had two options, deal with it. Or not.

I chose option A.

It took a few days, but I finally had a conversation with my mom about it.

Sharing how the experience made me feel.

She listened.

She understood.

She held space for me to process my emotions.

She even laughed when I compared it to the fact that things expire in our house before they even get used.

I brought up the fact that I had stationary I loved when I went to camp and never used it because I didn’t want to mess it up with “my ugly handwriting.”

After we hung up, I cried some more.

Not because I was sad, but because I was witnessed.

I was heard and understood.

It wasn’t about placing blame on my mother or shaming her, because I know the depths of healing and it goes deeper then her. Her father, my grandfather had OCD tendencies… but let’s be honest they didn’t start with him either.

And the truth is, it doesn’t matter where it started.

It matters when it surfaces, when it ends and ultimately when the cycle breaks and the lineage simply gets a new imprint where this no longer is dormant in the field.

This was the start of me understanding the dysfunction running dormant through my lineage. I was ready to uproot it, shed it and let more and more be seen.

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Four years ago, I was traveling constantly—hosting sound healings from New York to L.A., Miami, even Spain. Then, I was guided to pull back.

To ground.

To go deeper into my own healing.

That journey eventually led to discovering my tongue tie—a small physical tether that had created great dis-ease in my body.

I spent years doing everything I could to come back into alignment.

Then three years ago, I got my dog. I knew right away he was part of my healing, reflecting the part of me that still needed care, safety, and consistency. Raising him grounded me in ways that nothing else could.

Now, he’s three years old—twenty-one in dog years. I released my tongue tie five months ago and feel more balanced and at home in myself than ever before.

And once again, life is calling me to expand.

Tomorrow, my home will officially hit the market—just as I board a plane to New York for six weeks. Six weeks of sound healings, of stepping onto a stage for the first time to share my book and guide a Glow Up Your Chakras experience.

I can feel both the overwhelm and the excitement, but really… it’s just aliveness.

I’m leaving a timeline that was messy and miraculous—one that shaped me into who I am today.

When I bought this home, it was dark and heavy. Three men had been living here before me, and it felt tight and dim. I transformed it. I filled it with light. I made it sacred.

And now it’s time to let go. It feels like a death. But staying would be another kind of death, too.

So I’m honoring the liminal space—the space between what was and what’s to come.

No longer who I was.

Fully embodying who I am.

Ready for what’s next.

Ready for the unknown.

Because this time, I know that the unknown is simply where the magic begins.

xo,
L

I came to the beach and talked to my dad on the way. Then I arrived and sat down with a joint.

I was having trouble lighting it and then I asked for you to join me and the flame grew and I knew it was you. My ears began to tune into the lyrics of Dave “you and me, together, can do anything baby, you can me together yeah yeah…”

I decided to pull up the lyrics and as I read them I began to choke up, I was crying, but happy

* NOTE - handwriting now switches from my dominant right to my left….

Then I noticed a man see me crying.

He approached me and said “he’s not worth it.”

The tears stopped, you and I didn’t like that because you are worth it.

I got up and off my towel and walked towards the man and said “did you say he? Because he is my best friend that passed away and he is sending me a message.”

The man apologized.

I said, “no need”.

I told him the message was to know the world is bigger then us.

He then told me he lost his mother 27 years ago TODAY.

I told him she is here.

You liked that didn’t you? The wind is fast now, so you must have I did too Jeff. I love helping people with you…

In the past, I know it’s offended people when I say I don’t want to talk about politics or world news. I don’t watch the news—not because I’m unaware—but because I refuse to get bogged down by it. I believe the state of the world is a reflection of what’s happening inside of us. That’s what I’m here to focus on, that’s what I’m here to help people with.

No one wakes up one day and decides:

• “I want to be a dictator.”

• “I want to kill people.”

• “I want to start a war.”

• “I want to hate a religion.”

That hate, that disdain, comes from hating themselves first.

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Maybe it comes from growing up with parents telling them they weren’t worthy. Maybe it comes from abandonment, abuse—physical, emotional, sexual—or from the ever common household dysfunction. Whatever the source, hurt people hurt people. You’ve heard that before, and it’s true.

That’s why I don’t focus on “healing the world” all at once or dwelling on the negativity that exists. The change begins closer to home: healing myself, healing my neighbor, healing the people around me.

That’s how the ripple effect works. Peace within leads to peace in our environments. Chaos within creates war, because we’re at war with ourselves.

There are so many adults—so-called leaders—who, if you look closely, are just children on a sandbox, stealing toys and crying for validation. At some point, you have to grow the fuck up. Stop blaming your parents, your teachers, your ex, your friends, or anyone who hurt you. You went through every situation to grow, to become a better human—not to become worse, not to become like them, but to rise above. You know better now. You know your worth.

There’s a reason you’re reading this. I’m here to remind you who you are and how powerful, worthy, and incredible you are. If no one has told you this before, I’m sorry.

So hear it again:

You are perfect. You are amazing. You are worthy.

You can take down the walls. Stop being so guarded. Live from a place of love.

And just like my client reminded me yesterday, healing doesn’t happen all at once. It’s messy, it’s personal, and it starts with looking inward. Each step we take toward our own wholeness creates a ripple that changes the world in ways we can’t always see.

If you are seeking support on your healing journey, I am here for you. Learn more about how I can support you in a Glow Up Healing Session or heal on your time with my Glow Up Your Chakras Program at www.laurencourtneyheals.com

Interested in energy healing and want to learn more - check out my recent class available to view here.

Check out my new book Glow Up Your Chakras: From Medicated to Meditated - available NOW.

I’ve realized something…

Just because people want something for you — even if it seems like a good thing — doesn’t mean it’s right for you.

BOOM!

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For years, I had friends rooting for me to meet a partner, get married and have kids. And at times, I thought I wanted that too. But here’s the truth: when we “think” we want something, often we’re trying it on.

We step into the energy and feel if it’s ours.

And sometimes, it’s not.

The problem is, when people project their wants onto you, you can find yourself living inside someone else’s story instead of your own.

In the last two years, I’ve had people care more about me being in a relationship than I cared to be. I’ve had people more concerned with how I make money than I was. And honestly? That’s not their business.

This is the confusing part of relationships and friendships: how much do you let people in, how do you stay rooted in your own energy, how do you make sure you’re speaking your truth?

I keep coming back to this: What do I actually want? What really matters to me?

Because when someone says, “Why aren’t you dating more?” or “Don’t you think you should launch something soon?” it can feel like care, but what it really is — is projection.

And projection is heavy.

It’s not love.

No one knew that when I dyed my hair from blonde back to my dark roots a few years ago, I was at the beginning of a very big depression.

To be fair, I didn’t even fully know, because I was so good at masking. And when you mask well, people assume you’re fine.

But here’s what I know now: once you repair your nervous system and come home to yourself, you can’t mask anymore.

You can’t play along just so everyone else feels okay.

I’m tired of being the one who pretends so that everyone else is comfortable. I did that in my family dynamic, and I refuse to replay it in friendships or relationships.

So let me be clear:

    •    I don’t want projections.

    •    I don’t want concerns disguised as gossip.

    •    I don’t want people assuming what’s best for me.

What I do want: unconditional love, genuine care, and people who ask instead of assume.

And right now, what I want most is space.

Space to hear myself.

Space to breathe without noise.

Space to be.

This is where I come home to myself.