Up until my youngest son entered middle school, he traveled with me to San Francisco every year for a conference I attended faithfully for quite a while.

Middle school marked the beginning of the years when math became something very different from what I had learned and could help with. Once that happened, school became harder to leave behind.

But before then, San Francisco was our annual adventure.

He got to visit with my mom and my brother, and sometimes other relatives. And we always made my required pilgrimage: Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, Chinatown, North Beach — preferably by way of a cable car ride.

I have photos of Travis over many years sitting on the side of the same fountain in Ghirardelli Square.

It never got old.

It still doesn’t.

One year, when he was eight or nine, we had an adventure before we even landed.

As we began our descent into the San Francisco airport, noxious smoke started filling the cabin.

Passengers began yelling to the flight attendants that smoke was coming in. I had been trained in disaster response because living in Miami, with its hurricanes, requires that kind of training — especially for those of us in the helper world.

I told Travis to put his head down so he could breathe the better air closer to the floor while we listened for instructions.

Then the flight attendant started screaming.

Not speaking firmly. Not directing calmly.

Screaming.

In a very stressed-out voice, she told everyone to bend over and put a piece of clothing over their face and nose. I can’t remember the rest of her instructions, but I do remember they were all delivered in the same hysterical tone.

I looked over at Travis and said, “I wonder who did her disaster training. She’s not too great at this.”

Then I asked him if he was frightened.

He said, “A bit.”

I told him, “Since we’re almost landed, I think being a bit scared is all you need. We are likely going to be fine.”

I’d like to think that because I didn’t whitewash things for my kids, I had some credibility with them. I didn’t tell them everything was fine when I didn’t know that. I also didn’t feed panic when panic wasn’t useful.

A bit scared was reasonable.

Hysterical was not.

The plane finally stopped on the runway.

They had deployed the rear slide.

By then, people were frantic. Some were crying. Some were pushing. A few were vomiting. I focused on one thing: protecting Travis from being trampled as we made our way toward the exit.

He went down the slide first.

I followed.

We landed on the runway, surrounded by chaos, smoke, sirens, upset passengers, and general mayhem.

There are moments in parenting when you realize your child is learning more from your nervous system than from your words.

That day, I could not control the smoke, the flight attendant, the evacuation, or the terrified passengers around us. All I could do was stay present, tell the truth, and help my son know what to do next.

He did the rest.

He took something frightening and turned it into a story he could live with.

“That was really cool.”

That is what I remember most — not the smoke, not the slide, not the chaos on the runway, but the astonishing human capacity to turn fear into adventure when someone steady is standing nearby.

And honestly, as parenting reviews go, I’ll take it.

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Recognition, aggravation, courtrooms, ceremonies, parties, and the strange legacy of building something before its time

That being said, this last article about my agency is going to be a little different. I’m going to cover topics that still sit with me — some because they were awesome, some because they were aggravating. Mostly awesome, though.

And in no particular order.

Even though Barbara Perkins covered my agency in Miami Monthly Magazine and named me The Trauma-Nator, that by no means made the unbelievers believe in the importance of resolving trauma.

In fact, during one meeting of the Juvenile Justice Board, the only snooty Ph.D. on the board openly disrespected me for my insistence about addressing trauma. The group sanctioned her for it, but I still let them all know that I knew what was coming down the line from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, where I was a consultant.

Everyone was going to have to become trauma-informed.

And when that happened, I told them, I was absolutely going to say:

I told you so.

Sure enough, a couple of meetings later, the mandate was released. Anyone having anything to do with mental health and/or traumatized populations had to become trauma-informed.

I attended that community kick-off meeting wearing this T-shirt.

I was nominated to chair the task force.

And so I did.

For about two years.

Acknowledgements of My Work

Every so often I would whine to myself — and maybe sometimes to others — that my agency didn’t get enough attention.

While it is true that we never received enough funding, we certainly received a lot of attention.

Over the years, there were a number of proclamations from the Mayor of Miami-Dade County and various commissioners acknowledging the work we did. These included recognition connected to the county mental health task force and even a proclamation declaring a day in July as the official day of trauma resolution in the county.

I wish I had kept a picture of that.

I accumulated a significant amount of press, which I still have copies of. Some of the letters of support I received over the years brought tears to my eyes. And for more than twenty years, I was a regular expert for television news.

I think my favorite validation came from the State Department’s Exchange Visitor Program.

They brought in professionals from all over the world — therapists, judges, law enforcement, policymakers — to learn from our country’s expertise. My agency became one of their stops for visitors to learn about trauma, human trafficking, and domestic violence.

It was such an honor that my country recognized that what my agency was doing was unique and worth replicating.

I also had fun with it. I would prepare snacks from each country that visited so everyone would feel at home.

Over a period of fifteen years, professionals from more than twenty-five countries visited us. One country, South Korea, even brought me in to participate in a yearly conference on trauma and refugees.

That was an amazing experience.

What an extraordinary country.

The Frog and the Scorpion

Yes, what comes next is an aggravating story.

Well, truly, I am no longer aggravated. I have finally accepted just how dark human beings can get, and I mostly cannot take things personally anymore. I am clear about what I gave and what I deserved.

This segment probably needs to start with the fact that I personally helped many unaccompanied refugee minors with trauma-focused evaluations to help them obtain the papers they needed to stay in this country.

I assisted countless kids before there was funding, essentially donating my time.

When the agency that asked for my help sought funding to pay for both treatment and evaluations, I was part of regular meetings for at least six months to develop the model. I continued attending regular meetings once we received funding.

As part of the grant, we had a position open, and my work partner at the time convinced me we should hire “Anna” — not her real name — because she had been a great intern.

This was no small ask. She was from another country, and we had to file an application and pay a $4,000 fee. It happened to be one of those rare moments when the agency had some discretionary funding, so we applied, and she was able to stay in the country and work for us.

I personally trained her in my trauma model and in the evaluation format I had developed with the help of the attorneys who needed those evaluations for court. She had no previous experience working with trauma or children.

After she worked with our child clients for a couple of years, the agency I had partnered with for years decided to give Anna a humanitarian award for her work with children.

I was dumbfounded.

I was never close to that agency director, and she had treated people in her own agency with some unbelievable behavior, so I was not shocked that she could treat me in such an offensive way. But I was shocked that the staff member I had given so much to did not insist that I be recognized for the work I had done over the years.

I also felt that I could not speak out because that agency still funded a couple of positions, and I did not want to lose them. Given the capriciousness of the action and the disturbing behavior I had seen directed toward some of her own employees, I remained silent.

Years later, while I was living in Costa Rica, I did tell Anna what I thought about her behavior.

She gets to live with herself.

And I am a firm believer in the physics of karma.

Court Expert

Over the years, I was qualified as an expert in Family Court, Immigration Court, Drug Court, Drug Dependency Court, Civil Court, and Domestic Violence Court.

This was the least favorite part of my job because, at least half the time, the system chews up and spits out whoever it has identified as the victim.

I understand that it is an adversarial system. It honors the energy it believes will win. And that is often the offender — or at least the person with the most money for the best attorneys, especially in Family Court.

And that is usually the offender.

There were some amazing judges in these systems, starting with Judge Jeri Cohen, who were truly trauma-informed and gave full weight to what we were saying.

We also gained an excellent reputation in Immigration Court. After a couple of years, we often no longer needed to appear in court because our evaluations were sufficient. We were known as straight-shooters.

For the record, I gave accurate evaluations. At times, attorneys chose not to use them because the person seeking entry did not deserve it.

But there were also nightmare judges — judges who were seriously unfit, biased, or corrupt, and who had no business being on the bench.

I will never forget my shock when the first attorney I hired for my own custody battle told me I had to keep my demeanor very neutral because if the judge was angry at his wife and I reminded him of her, things could go badly for me.

I heard many versions of that over the years.

I experienced it personally, and I saw it through my clients when judges failed to protect victims and became sources of incredible injustice themselves.

I was relieved when the American Bar Association pushed training on identifying implicit bias.

But I’m betting the people who needed that training most were not very interested in anything that might shake their fixed ideas.

Party!!

I threw some damn good parties, events, and retreats over the years.

For about a dozen years, I hosted the Annual Victims’ Rights Awards Luncheon. At that luncheon, various local politicians and celebrities presented awards in different categories to providers who excelled in helping crime victims.

Almost 200 people attended.

In later years, I believe many came back because the Colonnade Hotel in Coral Gables gave me a great rate for their gorgeous rotunda.

One of the most memorable luncheons was also a celebration of the late Denise Moon, who was loved and respected by all.

For that luncheon, I asked three Taíno Native Americans to lead us in a healing drumming circle after the main event for anyone who wanted to participate in the ceremony.

Everyone stayed, starting with the State Attorney.

My Native friends brought several very large drums, including one that required four people to play. They spent hours making feather creations to give as blessings, which they handed out one by one.

As they sang and led the drumming, we released and bonded in a way that was unique and truly amazing.

Another drumming adventure came through Jeff Deen, a former attorney who created a business called Drumming for Wellness.

While he was a regular at my staff retreats, I also included him in a number of events. He had drum heads for more than 100 people, and we used them fully a few times.

One definitely cannot drum and remain uptight.

I still feel bad that I can’t remember the cruise line that donated a luncheon to us one year.

That event featured Naomi Tutu as the speaker, and the theme was creating peace by understanding how much we have in common.

After we ate, the instructions were simple:

Find three people you don’t know and discover three things you have in common.

I had a friend in Peru send up 200 rattles made by an Inca family, and each person received one as a gift.

I also hired a group of African drummers and dancers, who started us off. Then I invited everyone to join in.

It took a long minute of resistance until one woman finally threw off her jacket and started dancing.

And then we were on.

It was amazing.

Ten years of therapy would not have released more negative energy.

For several years, a few of us at the agency, along with a couple of board members, hosted a Halloween party.

So much work.

I never broke through the barrier of making large amounts of money from a fundraiser, and eventually we stopped doing that party.

But they were good parties.

There was also always a yearly retreat.

For a number of years, Women’s Park in Miami gave us a great deal on space. For another stretch of years, the Deering Estate had a beautiful room with stained glass windows that we loved to inhabit.

We did breathwork, singing bowls, drumming, team exercises, and activities that helped us learn more about each other.

We always came out refreshed and renewed.

The Vagina Monologues and the Free Clinic

The agency received funds from three productions of The Vagina Monologues.

The first two productions were done by students from the University of Miami drama department. I was so touched and honored that they chose us twice.

At one of those meetings, I met Priyanka Handa, who was seventeen at the time and headed a group she founded called Minority Women in Medicine.

Priyanka and her group had collected toiletries for our clients and asked for more things to do to help.

I couldn’t keep her busy enough.

So I finally said, “Open a free medical clinic for the agency.”

And she did.

What a wondrous woman.

That story is covered elsewhere.

The final production that included us as beneficiaries was a professional production starring Ricki Lake at a theater in Miami Beach in 2002.

That was a very fun, glitzy night.

My other experience with the play came in 2017, through a local production benefiting Casa Valentina, an agency that helps homeless youth and former foster youth make it to adulthood.

I auditioned for one role, but the African American director asked me to read for Coochie Snorcher, the monologue of a young African American girl from the South.

She gave me the part.

I was amazed that I memorized eight minutes of dialogue.

With a Southern accent.

Life is strange.

And often hilarious.

Closing

When I look back at the life of the agency, I don’t only remember the stress, the funding battles, the betrayals, or the people who tried to dismiss what we were doing.

I remember the people.

The clients who healed.

The interns who became better helpers because they did their own work first.

The staff who gave their hearts.

The judges, attorneys, advocates, reporters, funders, healers, volunteers, and community partners who understood that something important was happening.

I remember the drums.

The proclamations.

The tears.

The parties.

The clients who wrote that God had put us in their path.

And I remember how often I had to stand in rooms full of people who did not yet understand what trauma was, and say, in one way or another:

This matters.

The world eventually caught up.

Not completely.

Not perfectly.

But enough for me to say, with only a modest amount of satisfaction:

I told you so.

Om Namah Shivaya

Girija

Why we measured trauma from the beginning, and why that was almost unheard of in 1995

From the beginning, part of the protocol for our services included the use of validated measurements for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, depression, anxiety, and general expectancy of success as pre and posttests. Eventually, I traded the last measurement for the Posttraumatic Growth Scale.

This was 1995.

No nonprofit was putting its results on the line like this.

Well, neither was any mental health agency.

We were able to show measurable results in just a few months because we were completing clients in months, not years. That alone made us different. We weren’t asking people to become permanent mental health consumers. We were helping them resolve trauma, regain function, and move on with their lives.

That sounds lovely now.

Back then, it was radical.

I was also able to finagle someone into donating the time to create a SQL Server program so we could track clients, demographics, services, and outcomes. Again, this was 1995. I was way ahead of the curve.

It did not earn me many friends among other nonprofits or mental health agencies as I certainly set a high bar.

Years later, I added a qualitative question to our post-service protocol:

“Have you noticed any changes since starting sessions with us? If so, what are they?”

The answers to that question are part of what kept me in the stressful game of finding funding to keep our doors open.

Our clients talked about feeling empowered. They talked about being able to function again. They talked about increased self-worth. They talked about sleeping better, parenting better, making safer choices, returning to work, speaking up, and feeling like themselves again.

And more than once, someone wrote some version of:

“I think God put this agency in my path.”

That was humbling.

Those statements mattered to me more than the numbers. The measurements showed that symptoms were decreasing. The client statements showed that lives were changing.

One of the important things about our work was that people could see the difference.

Two of our major referral sources early on were the domestic violence intake unit and what was then known as the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. The people working in those programs were carrying enormous emotional burdens. They listened to story after story, often with limited options for real relief.

But they began noticing something.

The women who came to us for services became more grounded. They were able to follow through. They could participate in their legal cases. They were less overwhelmed, less frozen, less flooded by their trauma.

That mattered.

It also helped the referral sources themselves. When you work with traumatized people and have nowhere meaningful to send them, you end up carrying pieces of their stories in your own body. You go home with them. You worry. You rage. You grieve. That is the pathway to compassion fatigue.

But when providers knew they could refer someone to us — and that person could actually get better — it relieved something in them too.

They no longer had to carry the whole story alone.

That was another thing that made our work different.

We did not see trauma resolution as something that happened only in a private office between a client and a clinician. We saw healing as something that could be supported by a whole environment.

We started with the one-on-one trauma resolution work, which eventually evolved into what I now call Traditional Trauma Resolution. But over time, we added many more layers.

All clients received psychoeducational groups so they could understand what had happened to them. We taught the psychobiology of trauma in plain language. We helped people understand that their symptoms were not proof that they were crazy, weak, broken, or defective. Their symptoms were evidence that their bodies and brains had tried to survive something overwhelming.

That alone brought relief.

We also taught the basics of domestic violence, the impact of violence on children, and trauma bonding. Those four groups became staples of the program for years.

And then we kept adding.

We added Transformational Breathwork.

We added yoga.

We added crystal singing bowls.

For six years, we had a chiropractor providing free services.

Eventually, we added massage and became a licensed massage facility. We had students from a massage school come in, and later we also hired people directly.

Then came acupuncture.

I will never forget the first time acupuncture was introduced to one of our groups. The acupuncturist spoke Spanish, which was essential because many of the clients in the room were Hispanic women for whom this was way, way outside the box. He explained what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how it could help.

By the end of the session, they all had needles in them.

It was kind of sweet.

For a couple of years, until 2008, we also had a free medical clinic. When I thought the agency was going to close during the financial crash, I gave that clinic away to another program.

It still exists.

That makes me happy

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Looking back, I realize that what we were building was not just a trauma program.

It was a healing ecosystem.

We were measuring outcomes before that was fashionable. We were integrating body-based work before “somatic” became a buzzword. We were teaching trauma education before everyone was talking about being trauma-informed. We were helping people resolve trauma while many professionals still insisted that trauma could only be managed.

And that is part of what contributed to the witch hunt.

Because if your agency is built around helping people cope, what happens when someone else starts showing that people can heal?

If your funding depends on people needing long-term services, what happens when someone else is completing clients in months?

If your worldview depends on seeing domestic violence victims only as victims of external oppression, what happens when someone says, “Yes, and they are also traumatized, and that trauma deserves direct care”?

Some people heard that as blame.

It was never blame.

It was respect.

To acknowledge trauma is not to pathologize someone. It is to recognize that something real happened inside the body, mind, spirit, and nervous system — and that it can be helped.

But not everyone understood that.

Some of the women who attacked this approach were themselves long-term survivors of domestic violence who had never resolved their own trauma. I do not say that lightly. But it taught me something difficult and important: there is a narrow and dangerous border between victim and perpetrator when trauma remains unhealed.

Without resolution, the physiology and worldview of victimhood can become organized around blame, aggression, control, and reenactment.

This is not a condemnation of victims.

It is an argument for trauma resolution before suffering calcifies into identity and behavior that harms others.

We were not trying to stigmatize anyone.

We were trying to free people.

We were trying to tell crime victims, domestic violence survivors, sexual assault survivors, trafficking survivors, and people who had suffered unbearable losses:

You are not crazy. You are traumatized. And trauma can be resolved.

That message was threatening to many systems.

But to the people who received the help, it was often life-changing.

And that is why I kept going.

Not because it was easy.

Not because I was always funded.

Not because the field welcomed me with open arms.

I kept going because the numbers told one story, and the clients told another — and both stories said the same thing:

This works.

When I look back now, I see that the measurements protected the truth of the work. The client statements protected the heart of it.

Together, they gave me the courage to keep walking through the fire.

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My eleven-year-old grandson, Clark, started playing baseball when he was six. I was very bummed to have missed so much of it because I was living in Costa Rica at the time.

A couple of years into his playing, a fabulous app called GameChanger became available. And for years, I was able to watch livestreams of Clark’s games from wherever I was.

I found it deeply gratifying to watch his progress — catching, throwing, hitting the ball, making plays. I experienced the whole range of grandmother emotions: pride when he makes a great play, tenderness when he strikes out, and anxiety when there are two outs, three runners on base, and he’s up to bat.

Sometimes I wondered if it’s my anxiety he feels when he strikes out.

The other thing I treasured during these games was texting with my son Royce, Clark’s father. We shared the excitement, commiserated over rough plays, and traded proud-grandmother/proud-father observations about Clark. I’m grateful for this unexpected doorway into connection with my son.

I really looked forward to these games.

Recently, I stopped for a moment and wondered: Is there something else going on here?

It almost seemed as if I were too happy watching Clark play baseball.

It didn’t take much searching on my part to find earlier experiences that had definitely colored my feelings about baseball.

Baseball After the Hurricane

In August 1992, we lived in Miami and experienced the wrath of Hurricane Andrew.

My youngest son, Travis, was with me, while my two older sons, Rory and Royce, were away on summer adventures. We lived in the southern part of the county — the area that was leveled by that Category 5 hurricane.

As I watched the weather reports before it hit, the forecasters kept saying the storm would “jog” away from its current trajectory. But to me, it looked like it was headed straight for our neighborhood. So I took Travis and went to a friend’s house about ten miles north.

It was frightening there, but nothing compared with the horror faced by people who stayed in the worst-hit areas, listening to those winds and wondering whether any house would remain standing around them.

Still, returning afterward was no picnic.

We lived in a badly damaged house with no electricity for a month, no potable water for weeks, and no clear idea how long it would take to find the help needed to make the house livable again.

My older sons returned and helped, thank goodness. But with everyone home, I had even more pressures to juggle. I had two school-aged children on different schedules, in different locations, both needing transportation. I had meals and lunches to prepare. I had workers coming and going. I had repairs to track.

It was overwhelming.

A T-shirt circulated at the time that said:

I survived Hurricane Andrew, but the recovery is killing me.

That pretty much summed it up.

Then Travis, who was six at the time and already a wise little person, announced that we needed an activity that was not about hurricane recovery.

He thought he and his brother Royce should play baseball.

I looked into it, and the kids’ leagues near us were just starting their season.

That decision turned out to be more important than I understood at the time.

Baseball gave us a schedule that wasn’t about damage.
A field that wasn’t full of debris.
A reason to leave the house that wasn’t about errands, repairs, insurance, or survival.

It gave my boys something normal to belong to when life around us was anything but normal.

But there was another layer too.

Baseball was one of the great joys of my own childhood. My father took me to games, and sometimes he even let me play hooky to go. Those were some of the best days of my life. In the summer, I remember hearing games on the radio and feeling my father’s excitement rise when things were going well for our team.

Baseball, for me, was never just baseball.

It connected me to my father on those magical days when he took me to games and let the ordinary rules of school fall away. It gave my sons something normal and joyful after Hurricane Andrew, when so much of life was broken and uncertain. And for a few precious years, it gave me a way to sit beside my son Royce from afar, watching Clark grow through a screen while we cheered him on together.

Clark is done with baseball now, and I accept that.

But I will miss it.

Not just the game, but what it came to represent — my father’s voice, my sons after the hurricane, my grandson at bat, and the long thread of family love running through all of it.

Maybe that’s what it is about.

Baseball creates its own universe, a time and space to experience something sweet, connected and away from the rest of the world.

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In 1995, I founded the first trauma-specific community mental health center in the world.

Now that trauma has become a “popular” topic, I sometimes feel the need to repeat that statement. Back then, it wasn’t a movement. It wasn’t widely understood. But I knew—deeply—that unresolved trauma keeps people stuck, no matter how strong, intelligent, or committed to growth they may be.

And I was determined to do something about it.

When my youngest son turned four, I made the decision to bring one of the most powerful tools I had learned on my own growth path into the mainstream.

At the time, the traditional mental health field had very little to offer people suffering from trauma. In fact, during my studies, I was taught that once someone experienced trauma, the best they could hope for was to cope—to manage symptoms, often with medication, and live with a diagnosis that framed them as damaged.

That didn’t sit right with me.

It’s one of the reasons I switched my major from psychology to social work. I knew I would be fighting that mindset every step of the way, whereas Social Work is a person-centered field.

So at age 38, with no prior degree, I began my formal education. Six years later, I graduated with my Master’s in Social Work.

It was one of the most rewarding—and most stressful—periods of my life.

I often tell my children: if you’re going to pursue advanced degrees, do it before you have kids and full-time responsibilities.

During my first practicum, an acquaintance from England mentioned that he was considering moving to the U.S. and wondered what services were available in Miami for victims of crime.

He had participated in a study overseas using the trauma resolution technique I practiced and hoped to find something similar.

So I started making calls.

That’s how I found myself speaking with the late, great Denise Moon, head of Victim Witness Services for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

When I described what I did, she became visibly excited. She had just come off a task force that had identified a major gap: crime victims’ needs were not being met. Many didn’t want to enter the traditional mental health system because it labeled them as sick rather than traumatized—and in need of compassionate, non-stigmatizing care.

She insisted we meet immediately.

The next day, I spent 90 minutes in her office.

When I walked out, I had a memorandum of understanding—and access to evening and weekend office space inside the State Attorney’s Office. And the photocopiers!

When I returned to my practicum, another intern—who was also a police officer—asked me what on earth I had said to pull that off.

Honestly? I was on my Divine path.

Denise opened doors all over Miami.

In two separate meetings with agency directors, after I explained the work, each one burst into tears—revealing their own unprocessed trauma. I gave them both sessions. Both became strong referral sources.

Shortly after we began offering services, one of the State Attorney’s sons was seriously injured in a car accident. She shared in community settings that I provided sessions for him—even one while he was still in the hospital, which is why I can share that here.

After the first session, his recovery shifted dramatically.

She was astonished.

Another referral source.

The State Attorney also earned my deep respect one day when I joked that it was wise for her to understand what I was doing on her fourth floor—because for all she knew, I could have been practicing witchcraft.

Her response?

“If it helps people, it’s fine with me.”

While what I was doing wasn’t anything like witchcraft, it wasn’t mainstream, medical model mental health and for many, it was the same as witchcraft. More on that later.

There was no funding for this work.

Denise suggested I apply for a federal grant that was due in three weeks.

So I gathered a small team: one student helped with the budget, another with the research design, and I wrote the narrative.

It was a vertical learning curve.

If you’ve ever applied for a federal grant, you know exactly what I mean.

We didn’t get it. In fact, it took a year and a half before we received our first grant.

It was a stressful time. I was completing my MSW, working, and building an agency from scratch.

Thankfully, my university allowed me to complete my second practicum at the State Attorney’s Office, where I could devote most of my time to developing the center. Because of this, it was only three months from concept to opening our doors. Again, another vertical experience

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Years earlier, I had attended an event where a presenter delivered an extraordinary PowerPoint. I remember thinking, I want to be able to do that.

A year after opening our doors, a colleague shared a presentation with me titled “The Psychobiology of Trauma.”

(I’ve been updating it ever since.)

I’ll admit, I gave that presentation at least eight times before I fully understood it myself.

But I loved watching the moment when people finally understood their own experiences—when confusion about their mental and physical health issues turned into clarity.

That skill came in handy sooner than I expected.

Through a relationship with CBS and their nonprofit, Neighbors 4 Neighbors, I was invited to answer questions for a phone bank after a tragic event involving children.

When I arrived at the studio, I was told:

“We’ve decided we want you on live TV. Here’s the makeup bag. You’re on in five minutes.”

If I had known in advance, I would have been terrified.

But I didn’t have time to be nervous.

And I did well.

That moment launched years of media work—providing expert commentary on trauma, domestic violence, and human trafficking. At one point, news crews were coming to my house almost monthly.

(My kids helped clean the house for those visits… although I may have occasionally said, “The news is coming!” only later to claim, “Oh… they canceled.”)

And then there’s this.

One of my ex-husbands was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.

I later learned—from his sister—that he would become furious every time he saw me on television.

When I told one of my anchor friends at CBS, she shared this with colleagues at NBC, ABC, and FOX—and for one week, they all booked me as an expert.

What a hoot.

A couple of years into the agency, the Miami Herald discovered us and became a strong supporter.

I will always be grateful for that.

Next time, I’ll share what made this work so effective—and some of the efforts that were made to burn me at the stake

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Imagine sitting in a swimming pool heated by volcanic water, watching a nearby volcano send glowing rivers of molten lava down its side.

Imagine playing dominoes with your three grown sons while a bright green parrot casually joins the game.

That was our first real family vacation together.

As a single mother raising three sons on my own—and as the director of an innovative community mental health center I founded—there was never much time or money for big vacations.

So it wasn’t until 2005 that my sons and I—then 33, 26, and 19—took our first “big” family trip. We chose Costa Rica, though I honestly can’t remember why.

What I do know is that it turned out to be a life-changing decision.

My youngest son Travis and I were able to travel earlier than my two older working sons, so we flew ahead and spent one night in San José. As luck would have it, we arrived during Costa Rica’s celebration of Mother’s Day, which is a national holiday.

(Hello, rest of the world.)

The next day we traveled to Monteverde and began the climb up the hill on the coffee plantation where we had rented a beautiful cabin. The hike was steep—about 5,000 feet in altitude—and we had our suitcases with us, so Travis and I had to stop several times to catch our breath.

When my older sons Rory and Royce arrived later, we had the camera ready to record their own climb up that hill.

We added a soundtrack of encouragement:

“You’re out of shape!”
“You’re getting old!”

And other loving family commentary.

The cabin was perfect—wood floors, wood walls, wood ceilings, a big antique bathtub, and a porch overlooking the jungle.

Very quickly we discovered something surprising: we were perfectly happy just being there.

We spent hours on that porch watching wildlife, playing games, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes the simplest moments become the most memorable.

Still, we ventured out for adventures.

One day we rented horses. When we returned, the woman who owned them told me she wanted to talk more with me someday. She had a daughter, she said, and she hoped their relationship might someday resemble the one she had just witnessed between me and my sons.

She told me she noticed it before we had even left the gates—how we were already laughing together.

We stayed in touch for years afterward and even visited when I returned to Monteverde on later trips.

Another adventure was zip-lining.

Oh my.

I’m very glad I did that before my heart condition was diagnosed.

On one of the longest lines, I had to ride tandem with my oldest son so we had enough combined weight to make it all the way across. That still gives me a little heart bump when I think about it.

Then there was the Tarzan swing.

The guide quietly sent me up the stairs first. Only when I reached the top did I realize his strategy: he wanted the oldest person to go first so everyone else would feel brave enough to try.

I was terrified.

But after a little encouragement—and one very loud scream—it turned out to be fun.

Leaving Monteverde was difficult. We even wondered if we should have spent the entire trip there.

But we said goodbye to our cabin and the mountain and took the famously harrowing drive down to La Fortuna.

For the record, harrowing drives are normal in Costa Rica.

We stayed at a hotel that remains one of my favorites to this day.

In 2005, Arenal Volcano was still erupting, and day and night we watched in amazement as glowing lava flowed down its side.

The hotel pool was heated with volcanic water, and every evening we sat mesmerized as red lava slid down the mountainside.

That spectacle hasn’t occurred since 2010.

We had two rooms with a shared patio where we played games and sometimes ate our meals.

One of the most unexpected things happened there.

A large green parrot joined us at our table.

And he kept coming back every day.

We also discovered a small river of warm volcanic water where we spent hours relaxing. I still wish I could find the photo of my three sons sitting in a row on a log above that steaming river.

Strangely, I can’t remember every activity we did there. I know the boys found a casino somewhere. I know I had a massage.

And I remember my oldest son smashing his hand on a fast-moving water slide that was later removed because it was considered dangerous.

One evening while we were sitting on our patio playing games, I made an announcement.

“When I retire,” I told my sons, “I’m going to live in Costa Rica.”

I was impressed by the country—the high literacy rate, the absence of a military, and the peaceful energy of the places we had visited.

None of us realized then how prophetic that moment would become.

In 2008 the financial crash hit.

Miami-Dade County informed me that all community-based funding had been canceled, and I began the long and painful process of dismantling the agency I had built.

At the same time, I began the process of becoming a resident of Costa Rica.

Two weeks before I was scheduled to leave, the county reinstated my funding. By that time I had already laid off most of my staff and given up two of our three floors.

But it allowed us to rebuild.

And I still took that trip to Costa Rica.

No exaggeration: I spent a full week simply letting my body breathe again. I had been carrying enormous stress.

Fast forward to 2017.

That was the year I decided to retire.

I told my sons I was moving to Costa Rica.

They were a little shocked.

But they should know me by now.

When I say something like that, I usually mean it.

Looking back, that trip in 2005 feels less like a vacation and more like an introduction.

Costa Rica wasn’t just a place we visited.

It was a place that quietly began calling me home.

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Breath has always been more than air to me—it is the bridge between body, mind, and spirit. Years ago, that understanding led me to India after the devastating tsunami, where I discovered just how powerful breath can be in helping people recover from trauma.

I was first introduced to breathwork on the table of chiropractors who focused on a method called Network Spinal Analysis for a period of time. I don’t know if the original version of that practice included breathwork, but the two amazing people I saw were innovative healers in their own right. The breathwork they had me do on the table could have been their addition.

I have covered this in another article, as it gave me one of the most powerful experiences of my life—the closest I’ve ever come to actually levitating.

In the late 1990s, at an event that was a fundraiser for my agency, I was introduced to Transformational Breathwork. I have engaged in—and facilitated—it ever since.

In case you don’t know: the term “spirit” (Latin: spiritus) originally meant “breath.” Over time, it evolved to signify the animating force of life, much like the Greek word pneuma.

I have always been on the lookout for effective breathwork, and in that search I came across The Art of Living. They promoted a breath routine facilitated by their teacher, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. They also had research showing its effectiveness, and as someone who has used validated measurements to demonstrate effectiveness since 1995, I decided to check it out

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I did my first Level One class with Melissa, who had just returned from Costa Rica. I ended up hiring her, and eventually all new staff, interns, and volunteers at my agency had to take the Level One class so that we would all be on the same page and on the path of our own healing.

(They also had to watch the movie **What the Bleep Do We Know!?.)

Just after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Sri Sri was in Miami for a number of events. I was asked to speak at one of them about the impact of trauma.

He heard my talk and announced to me that I needed to train his tsunami workers—and that he was leaving for India in a week and that I was to come with him.

I told him that was too soon for me. I had an agency. I had to make arrangements.

I left with him in a week.

Melissa came with me. I definitely needed a second trainer.

We arrived in Mumbai in the middle of the night, and there were still about 3,000 people waiting for him at the airport. I can only imagine what that must be like twenty years later.

When preparing for the training, I had the presence of mind to make hard copies of all my PowerPoint presentations in case we were without electricity. While that was wise, I certainly did not prepare for forty people from all over India who needed to be taught in four different languages. That pretty much threw out my workshop packet as well.

Still, we got through it. It was a truly life-changing experience for all of us.

In the evenings, we had Satsang with Guriji. What a beautiful and sacred time. The Kirtans each evening were powerful and joyous.

After the singing, Guruji was open for questions. If someone asked what to do about trauma, he referred them to me as the resident trauma expert.

What an honor.

I cannot remember exactly how it was organized, but I did travel to Nagapattinam, the southern point of India that was most impacted by the tsunami.

We pre- and post-tested everyone we recruited to participate in both the Long Kriya and Traditional Trauma Resolution.

One of the questions asked was: “Have you lost sexual desire?”

I was told that question could only be asked of another woman by a respectable woman wearing a sari.

We rolled with all of it.

One story that deeply affected me involved a woman whose husband had died in the tsunami. She was forced to live with relatives, and her brother-in-law was raping her repeatedly. She was terrified to tell us because if he discovered she had spoken, he would kill her—and possibly kill us as well.

Sadly, these kinds of horrors still exist in the world.

The staff stayed in a building without air conditioning. That simply wasn’t an option for me, so I stayed in the dingiest hotel of my life. We had to change rooms once because I could not deal with the hole-in-the-floor toilet.

On my first evening, I went to the bazaar and bought colorful cloths and pillows to help the energy of the room.

I traveled to India once more for the research and recruited another trauma-resolution practitioner to spend the final three weeks wrapping up the sessions and completing the research. Everything happened on a wing and a prayer. The funding for my second flight to India was raised by a nine-year-old girl who asked all of her relatives to chip in for the ticket for her birthday. No surprise that twenty years later she is an extraordinary young woman.

An article was eventually written and published about the experience.

I have many sweet stories from my encounters with Guriji—in India, Miami, North Carolina, California, and New England—but those are mine to cherish.

I am not someone who easily aligns with organized religion or structured spirituality. But that has not prevented me from recognizing what a gift Guruji has been to this world.

As for the title:

I AM THAT.

The sounds used during the Kriya are So Hum, which translates to:

I am That.

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In 1965, I was a thirteen-year-old girl standing outside the backstage gate at the Cow Palace in Daly City, determined to sneak into rehearsal for one of the biggest concerts of the year.

A beautiful young couple walked past me singing The Name Game. (Click to play.) When I asked if they could help me get backstage, the woman smiled and said, “Sure. Wait here—we’re getting donuts.”

When they came back, she handed me the donut box and walked me past the guards like we were old friends.

That woman was Mary Wilson of The Supremes.

As a teenager, I was lucky to live in San Francisco, very close to the Cow Palace. I adored music like any other thirteen-year-old. When KYA Radio—Boss of the Bay!—brought their Battle of the Sounds concert there in early 1965, I was determined to get backstage during rehearsals.

The lineup was incredible:
The Supremes, Sonny and Cher, The Righteous Brothers, The Temptations, Dionne Warwick, and many others whose names I can’t remember now.

I had tickets for the show because my brother Ray had agreed to chaperone me and a few of my friends. I made sure our seats were right behind the stage—close to where the performers hung out.

Before I left for the rehearsal adventure, I asked my brother:

“Which Supreme would you like to talk to? I’ll have her call you.”

He humored me and said, “Mary.” I had no idea at that moment that I would come through with my bold promise.

When the lovely couple returned with the donuts and brought me backstage, I swear I almost fainted when I realized who she was.

Mary Wilson treated me like an honored little sister.

She introduced me to everyone and spent time with me as though my visit had been planned all along. It was awe-inspiring. I got to see these performers with their human faces—and most of them were incredibly kind.

At one point I asked Mary if she would do me a huge favor.

My brother Ray was a massive fan of hers. Would she mind calling him?

She said yes.

When I got home hours later, Ray was still sitting in shock.

Later that night during the concert, I hung over the side of the seating area watching where the performers gathered.

Mary spotted me and motioned to meet where we had planned.

I took off flying.

One of my friends understood immediately and ran with me without asking questions.

When we reached the barricade, the police officer tried to stop us—but Mary wasn’t having it.

In a very commanding voice she said:

“These girls are coming with me.”

And so we did.

Years later, the friend who joined me wrote this to me:

OMG Teresa! I still have all the autographs of the singers we met when you got me backstage at one of those Cow Palace concerts. I’ll never forget holding Diana Ross’ coat as she went onstage with the Supremes, being cheek-kissed by Sonny Bono, and meeting Cher, Dionne Warwick, all the Temptations, and many more. That night was so magical for a 13-year-old kid. My dad couldn’t shut me up when he came to pick us up after the concert. I remember it like it was yesterday. Thanks for the memory!

But the magic didn’t end that night.

Mary and I became pen pals for about two years.

It was a perfect time in my life to have such an extraordinary “big sister.” Teen years can be turbulent. Distancing from parents is normal, and I went to Catholic school where many of my deeper questions had no real answers.

Mary was simply kind, warm, and present.

I’m deeply grateful that she took the time to be that loving guide and friend to a young girl who adored music and courageously hung around backstage gates.

I’m sure she holds a place of honor in whatever realm she now inhabits.

And every time I think about Mary, I hear The Name Game, and I see the moment I first saw her walking toward me, singing and smiling.

Mary, Mary, bo-Bary
Banana-fana fo-Fary
Fee-fi-mo-Mary
Mary.

Love forever,

Teresa

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One New Year’s Eve, I found myself standing in a Hollywood living room while a group of glamorous women gathered around a baby grand piano talking about Dean Martin.

One of them sighed and said,

“He could park his shoes under my bed any day.”

My Italian Catholic mother was standing right next to me.

When I recently heard Dean Martin sing That’s Amore, it instantly brought that night rushing back to me.

In the 1960s, it became a small obsession of mine to find my way backstage during rehearsals for the big performances at the Cow Palace near San Francisco.

During one such successful foray, I met Murry Wilson, the father of three members of The Beach Boys. He was there promoting a new group called The Sunrays.

Somehow he got my number and asked if I would like to be the president of their fan club.

Of course I said yes—and I definitely worked hard at it.

Near the end of the year, in appreciation of my efforts, he invited me, my friend Julie (the vice president), and my mother to spend New Year’s Eve at his home in Hawthorne, California.

What an amazing trip for all of us.

We met all of his sons and quite a few Hollywood people—beautiful people who lived lives very different from anything the three of us experienced on a daily basis.

At one point, many of the women were gathered around the baby grand piano while someone played a song made famous by Dean Martin.

That’s when one of them sighed and said:

“He could park his shoes under my bed any day.”

Everyone laughed.

My mother laughed too—but her laughter was somewhere between amusement and mild panic.

This was my Italian Catholic mother, who had been married to one man her entire life. In another setting, she might have been completely outraged.

Then another woman walked over and asked what everyone was laughing about.

Someone said, “Dean Martin.”

Without missing a beat, she replied:

“Oh, he could park his shoes under my bed any day.”

At that point I was doubled over laughing—and extremely grateful that my mother didn’t swoon.

I’m sorry to report that the Sunrays didn’t make it as a group.

But I will always be grateful to them for the experiences I had because of them.

Sometimes a single song can bring back an entire world—and that night remains one of the funniest memories of my teenage years

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For most of my life I was surrounded by people—children, colleagues, clients, and family. It wasn’t until my forties that I discovered something surprising: I actually enjoyed my own company.

There was a moment—around the year 2000—when I realized that, besides the company of my children, I actually enjoyed my own company.

This was during the early years of my agency, when the work required my full consciousness and energy. I wasn’t interested in anything that dulled awareness or created intoxication. I didn’t enjoy going to bars or even many social gatherings. I was usually the only person who wasn’t drinking or otherwise altered, and it became lonely standing around making empty conversation and being somewhere when I would much rather have been somewhere else. Like home.

Home life during those years was something special, though I didn’t fully realize it at the time. Only later—after we went through some family trauma during a custody battle and my son was exposed to other families and environments—did I understand how unique our home had been.

We had dinner every night at six, just as I had growing up. Dinner was when we shared stories, kept things light, and discussed everything—including death! My middle son served as the household improv comedian for many years. There was almost always a friend over, and for one year the twelve-year-old son of an ex-boyfriend lived with us after we had broken up.

My home became the place to hang out. There were no arbitrary rules, but bad behavior wasn’t tolerated either. Everyone who walked through the door received the same things: honest communication and the safety to speak their truth.

It was during this time that I took my first solo vacation.

I remember feeling surprisingly anxious about it. Being alone was unfamiliar territory for me. Husbands had come and gone, but my children were always there. For my first solo adventure I chose something manageable—a short trip to the Bahamas.

I booked a weekend at a resort, which turned out to be a wonderful idea. I love the sunrise and sunset, and they were stunning there. That trip also included my dolphin adventure. I wish it could have been in the wild, but I’m still very happy with the experience I had. Two dolphins kept returning to me even when they were signaled to swim toward someone else. That was enough to give me warm fuzzies for years.

I often traveled alone for professional conferences, but that is a very different experience than traveling alone for vacation—or traveling somewhere that might be considered dangerous.

I traveled to Haiti alone on behalf of a client. It was, at that time, a truly terrifying place.

I had completed an evaluation for her that was intended to prevent her deportation, but it didn’t work. I was stunned that she wasn’t believed. She had the medical records to prove that she couldn’t conceive a child and scars all over her body from the gang rape and attack. I knew what awaited her in Haiti: a draconian prison where, at least at that time, women were frequently raped. Prisoners had to bring their own bedding, and family members had to supply food.

So I decided to arrive there in time to do whatever I could to help get her out.

Fortunately, she was able to convince a woman who was already vouching for someone else to vouch for her as well.

But I digress. I traveled there three times. At no time did I feel I was in danger.

I don’t tend to lead with fear. In fact, I seem to function at my best when a situation requires heightened alertness. I’m not sure whether that comes from childhood trauma, years of martial arts training, or decades of practices designed to raise consciousness.

Probably all three.

I traveled to India three times—once with someone and twice on my own. I was visiting an ashram, though I would sometimes wander off on my own, which created a bit of stress for my host.

But I never felt unsafe in India. In many ways it feels like home turf for me.

One time a client attended an agency event and told me that, after experiencing the programs we offered, she had expected to meet an older woman from India.

I told her she was correct—I was simply a much older woman from India.

Thinking about traveling and potential danger reminded me of an incident from my teenage years.

My niece, who was four at the time, and I were walking on a secluded trail in Golden Gate Park when three older teenage boys began walking toward us in a menacing way. I told her to run down the hill.

Then I raised my camera, pointed it directly at them, and told them to smile.

The hoodlums ran off.

(My sister Barb reads my Substack. Did I tell you this one at the time?)

And here I am—still alive, and dancing no less.

These days I live with my eldest son, a former Marine, who has me covered in my geezerhood.

Life is good.

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I spent my 19th year in South Africa with my first husband. We managed organizations for a well-known group, and we were sent there initially to help the management team and their satellite groups update procedures.

We arrived in the middle of the night, and a taxi drove us to our hotel. On that ride we saw signs along the road that read: Robot Ahead.

After watching us anxiously scanning the roadside, the taxi driver finally asked what we were looking for. We sheepishly answered: robots.

He had a very good laugh.

It turns out that in South Africa, robots are what they call traffic lights.

We had booked separate rooms because we had been told we would violate cultural norms if we, as an unmarried couple, slept in the same room. I will never forget the first morning when I looked out the window onto a busy street. It felt like another universe, not just another country. The smells, the clothing, even the air itself felt different from any environment I had experienced.

This was over fifty years ago, so there are details I no longer remember clearly. I can’t recall whether we arranged to stay during that trip or if we returned to Denmark to convince our bosses that building up the network in South Africa would be the best use of our talents.

But we stayed for a year.

We rented a small house that served as both our home and office, and I remember those as very happy times. It’s worth noting that there was no television in South Africa then. I think that contributed to our happiness. We had to stay busy doing other things. Or just enjoying doing nothing at all.

One day, while driving down a street lined with shops, I saw a tiny dog in a shop window who immediately captured my heart. I made my ex stop so I could investigate this little furball.

And so began our life with Salty Dog, our 2½-pound Pomeranian full grown.

At the time, flea collars weren’t available in the country, so I asked my dad to send one from the United States. I will never forget two things about that: first, the collar knocked the dog out, and second, the pile of fleas that accumulated around him over the next couple of hours.

Yikes.

Salty was all courage. He loved riding on the motorcycle. Sometimes he sat inside my jacket with just his head poking out. On longer rides he would sit in the saddlebag. At stoplights he would often stand up and look around, brightening many people’s days.

Even though we lived in a relatively urban area with neighbors nearby, it was common for people to keep ducks and chickens. I bought three of each and kept them inside a fenced enclosure. One night, however, some clever predator got in. By morning, all we had left was one small duck with a large patch of skin torn off her back.

For reasons I can’t explain, I named her Jemima.

After I nursed her back to health in the corner of one of our rooms, she became my constant companion. She was the hardest one to leave when we eventually left South Africa for good.

With the addition of a few new staff members, we later rented a farmhouse about half a mile away from a township. We loved that property. There was even a pond for the duck, so I bought six more ducklings who followed Jemima everywhere.

Whenever I called for her, Jemima would waddle over with her little troop trailing behind to say hello.

Salty loved the farm as well. This tiny two-and-a-half-pound ball of courage—or perhaps stupidity—would chase horses and cows.

The amazing thing was that they actually ran away.

In another life he must have been a cattle dog.

Bugs were abundant where we lived, and instead of spraying toxic chemicals, I asked one of the young men from the nearby township to catch a large lizard for me. We kept him in the house.

His name was Fred, and he did an excellent job keeping the house free of pests.

One of our housemates was a drummer. Many evenings, when he practiced, people from the township would walk across the field with their own drums and percussion instruments. Before long we would have the most incredible drumming and dancing session.

Looking back, I feel immense gratitude for the grace and joy we shared during those times.

At one point my beloved duck developed a problem with one of her legs—it began to shrivel. When it became clear it wasn’t improving, we bundled her butt into a bag (wasn’t going to risk flying poop) and took her to a veterinarian on our motorcycle, which was our only form of transportation.

The goofy duck thought she was flying and assumed the position. People laughed as we rode past.

When we arrived, the vet looked at us and said,
“I haven’t treated many ducks.”

But he figured an antibiotic would be safe to try, and thankfully it worked. Her leg healed and she continued living her happy life.

We were very sad to leave South Africa.

But I am deeply grateful for the experience and for the memories that still bring me joy—and a smile—more than fifty years later.

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This was truly one of the funniest moments of my life. It was funny when it happened, but it became incredibly hilarious when I shared it with my staff in Miami.

I can’t believe it was twenty years ago, but it was. I had recently been to India with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living to help with tsunami relief, and I was about to travel to North Carolina with my friend Melissa to attend one of his events and participate in a class.

As Melissa and I were walking to our seats on the plane, I suddenly realized that I had left half of the most perfect papaya I had ever eaten sitting in my refrigerator at home. Horrified at the thought of it going to waste, I quickly texted my son Royce:

Eat the papaya.

That was all I had time to write.

When we landed, my phone buzzed. The message read:

Who is this?

It turned out I had entered the number incorrectly. My message had not gone to my son.

I wrote back:

Clearly, not your mother.

At this point, Melissa and I were laughing.

Then my phone rang. A clearly Hispanic man—with the sexiest accent imaginable—demanded:

Who is this?

Through my laughter, I explained that I had accidentally sent him a text meant for my son. And that was the end of it.

Or so I thought.

Later, when I told this story at a weekly staff meeting in Miami, the room nearly collapsed from laughter. Most of my staff was Hispanic (hello, this was Miami!), and that’s when I learned something crucial:

In many Latin cultures, papaya is slang for vagina.

No wonder this man was so insistent about finding out who I was and what exactly I meant.

Maybe I should have asked for his picture—and whether he was single.

That trip had another funny moment.

Melissa and I were joined by another friend. We were walking through a lovely downtown area and needed to get somewhere a bit farther away. I think someone was having shoe issues, so we decided to find a ride.

In India, there are many three-wheeled taxis that seat three people. And as if in answer to prayer, along came one with no passengers. I flagged him down, we all climbed in, told him where we wanted to go, and he brought us there.

When we asked what we owed him, he said nothing. He wasn’t even a cab service—just someone promoting his business. He was delighted that we had commandeered him.

I’m a little less pushy these days.

I think so.

No… I am.

A little later, still within that same season of life, Melissa began a romantic relationship and was about to go on a date out of town. Her phone didn’t have coverage there, so for some reason she gave me her date’s phone number. Just in case.

The prankster in me woke up immediately.

About halfway through what I imagined was their dinner, I texted this unsuspecting man—who did not have my number:

Eat the papaya.

It definitely gave Melissa a good laugh.

At some point, I wondered if that first Hispanic gentleman had thought I was some kind of pervert sending that message to my son.

Hopefully, he understood that sometimes, a papaya is just a papaya.

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I came of age during the actual 1960s, but it wasn’t until my 60s that I fully explored what “turn on” could really mean. This is a story about curiosity, discernment, plant medicines, and learning—slowly and imperfectly—how to live with less anxiety and more grace.

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In my endless quest to find an equal and conscious partner, I tried tantra dating sites. I definitely met some interesting men there, the most promising being a very young man who lived in Cusco, Peru. Too young, too far away, I decided. I let him know a relationship wasn’t going to happen.

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By far, one of my favorite places I have ever lived is Amsterdam. I lived there for just over a year, more than fifty years ago. How I came to live there unfolded through a series of unlikely events that began with our travel from South Africa to Denmark.

My first husband and I were involved in management for a group that started as applied philosophy, evolved into a religion, and eventually became a cult. We both left in time, but while we were still involved, I have to say—we had some extraordinary adventures.

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I was recently reminded of a strange quirk I lived with for at least a decade of my life. While giving instructions for yogic isometrics not long ago, I confused right and left — and then completely blanked on which side I was supposed to tell everyone to move.

The inability to distinguish right from left is often described as a minor quirk. I can tell you that during the years I struggled with it, it felt anything but minor. Not knowing which way to turn something to shut it off, not knowing which direction to move my body while dancing, and not being able to clearly articulate directions to another person was deeply stressful.

I remember wondering how I would ever be able to drive. I also remember telling the person driving the car I was navigating to trust my hand signals, not what was coming out of my mouth.

At times I wrote L and R on the backs of my hands. Other times I used a dental filling, a ring, or a bracelet as a reference point to remind myself which was which. Still, the question lingered: How will I ever drive when the time comes?

One of my great teenage adventures was serving as crew on a private ship in the Mediterranean. I left home at sixteen — before my mother and I killed each other — and began the long, winding road of sorting myself out, figuring out who I was, and finding higher states of consciousness. (Only a slight exaggeration.)

One of the final incidents that convinced me I had to leave was, on my part, completely innocent. My mom asked me to clean the dog’s papers in the garage. I told her I needed ten minutes, as I was in the middle of something. Ten minutes later, I went to do the chore. She followed me and slapped me across the face. I slapped her back.

And so off I went — on the adventure that keeps on giving.

I worked many jobs on that ship. I still remember how to varnish wood. I wish I still remembered celestial navigation. I took food hygiene seriously, thanks mostly to my dad, who in the 1950s already knew not to cook with aluminum, not to dry dishes with a hand towel, and the importance of handwashing and safe practices when someone was ill.

I’m proud to say that during my time as first cook, no one got food poisoning.

When it was my turn to work in the engine room, however, I had serious misgivings. The engine room was full of opportunities to get right and left catastrophically wrong. I remember the terror of turning the boiler on and off — a task with very real consequences if done incorrectly. I checked and rechecked every valve until I was certain I had turned them the correct way.

But my most memorable engine-room experience came when I had to use the bilge separator after we’d been docked in Cádiz, Spain, long enough for the bilges to fill. That miserable machine had knobs that went against all logic. Some had to be turned right to turn off and left to turn on.

Despite my best efforts, I got it wrong.

So yes — that image above is me, at sixteen, trying to make an oil slick in the port of Cádiz disappear using detergent meant to neutralize oil. It didn’t work. There could have been a fine for that infraction. Somehow, there wasn’t. And I didn’t get in trouble.

Whew.

I don’t remember exactly when this quirk finally resolved itself. It still showed up occasionally when I started driving at twenty-one. I’m deeply grateful that it has surfaced only once in recent years — just enough to remind me of how far I’ve come, and how adaptable the human nervous system really is

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Many years ago, when my middle son was nine, my mother went through a series of serious illnesses that left us all shaken. Dinner time was always our sacred space for conversation, so it was there that he asked the question no one else had dared to voice:

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One of the best things that happened in my childhood was Yosemite. Every year, from as early as I can remember until I was about thirteen, we traveled from San Francisco to Yosemite for one to three weeks each summer. Whatever you’ve heard about the magic of Yosemite doesn’t do it justice. It is truly a full-of-grace place.

The adventure actually began halfway through the drive, when we stopped at the same diner every year for their incredible waffles and whipped butter. I still salivate thinking about those perfect waffles and that delicious butter.

My parents rented a housekeeping tent with beds for themselves. My brother Ray, during the years he joined us, and I slept under the canopy attached to the tent, wrapped in our sleeping bags. I remember the nightly ritual of hiding food and sealing containers tightly—because if we were foolish enough to leave anything out, the bears absolutely paid us a visit.

For many years, my only uncle, Eddie, and his wife, Aunt Marina, along with their sons, joined us. That always turned the trip into a big party. My dad was a big cheese, but so was my uncle, and together they were a riot.

Every night we attended the camp program, sang along, and then watched in awe as the real firefall—discontinued in 1968—closed the show. For hours, park staff built a massive fire at the top of a granite mountain, and at the appointed moment, they pushed it over the edge while someone sang a beautiful song. It never got old.

These events were always well attended, and one night when we couldn’t get our turn to drive out of the parking lot, my uncle got out of the car, pretended to be a cop, and got traffic moving. We laughed until we cried.

One of our favorite daytime activities was floating down the river in inner tubes. The water was always cold, but it was worth acclimating to for that long, lazy drift.

Some of my earlier memories of Yosemite include getting my first kiss when I was about nine—sweet, chaste, and very exciting. The boy and his family later visited us in San Francisco. Young love is fickle; I remember that I wasn’t into him by then.

But one of my most treasured memories of all happened when I was six. I was playing by the river’s beach with another little girl about my age. I held my arm up next to hers and said, “I’m almost as dark as you now!” She was African American, though that had no meaning to me at the time.

What I do remember is the feeling that followed—the warmth emanating from both sets of parents. From mine, pride that they had raised me well. From hers, the recognition that this kind of innocence and connection was possible in 1958. I didn’t understand the significance then, but I knew I had been love-bombed in that moment. That feeling stayed with me.

Looking back, Yosemite gave me more than memories. It gave me a felt sense of belonging—to nature, to family, and to humanity itself. It taught me wonder, ease, and connection long before I had language for those things. I’m deeply grateful that such a place helped shape me, because once you’ve known that kind of grace, you spend the rest of your life recognizing it when it appears again.

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Every year, the same myth resurfaces: the belief that suicide spikes during the holidays. It appears in news cycles, casual conversations, even clinical discussions. But the data tell a very different story. Suicide rates are lowest during the major winter holidays. The phenomenon is so consistent that researchers refer to it as the holiday-suicide myth.

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