My story started 9 months before July 17, 1987 when I was conceived into this physical reality by the gift of life. Light was formed. The positive and negative/ the feminine and masculine/ the yin and yang collided with each other and merged into one to manifest life. (Very much how all of our stories begin! :D ) 

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And although I would like to continue with the story in such a poetic way, it didn't actually unfold, or rather felt that way. 

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Using my earliest memories to depict my journey, I remember as a little girl feeling like I didn't  belong in any of the different environments I was exposed to where I had to interact with other children, and also I never felt truly seen. 

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I carried these not so positive thoughts and feelings with me throughout my childhood, teenager years and early adulthood. In some moments more acutely than in others but nevertheless, always there lingering in my being.

 

When I was 7 years old we moved away from the ocean to the interior part of Colombia. We lived in Cartagena from 1991 to 1994. This move was particularly significant, even though I didn't know it at the time, because the only memories I have of feeling completely in a state of ease, love and joy were when we would go to the beach and then would took a refreshing shower at night, or when we would go for strolls in the evening on the streets of Cartagena and I would feel the breeze in my face, hair and body. Those were the only moments I remember feeling in complete ease and belonging.

So when we left the ocean, my connection with the salty water, the sand, the wind, the warm air and the breeze were gone.  Taking with them my only sources of total belonging.

(I know, a little dramatic sounding but now that I understand my journey, this is exactly what occurred to my little girl.)

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The ocean, the wind, the warm weather and the sand were then replaced by the concrete walls, the waxed floors and the tarmac roads of the capital city of Bogotá; and its cold, unwelcoming Andean air. 

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As I mentioned before, back then I didn't know, nor had the power or capacity to see and understand how much this move had affected me, or how important those elements were to me.

Without knowing I stopped having the sources of refueling, connection, belonging, understanding and of the feelings of joy, peace and happiness. 

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Without consciously knowing, from 1994 'til 2013 I pretty much operated in an automatic matter. The memories, or feelings of recognition, belonging, love, understanding and ease didn't get viscerally and soulfully felt again by me until 2013, when I visited India. (A story to be told in detail later on).

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During those years I did life just because it had to happen or because it was happening. I would wake up and that was that. I would go to school because it was what was done. I didn't really question life or what I liked or disliked. I didn't really have an opinion. 

Now I know that it was because I really wasn't switched on. I wasn't in touch with me, with my source, with home, with what truly felt like to be me. I didn't know what it meant to be me. I didn't know me.

The concrete and city life were reflecting a world that I subconsciously didn't identify with, but was not consciously aware of as I was still forming my identity according to my surroundings.

I, as I know now was a very open-energy child. I absorbed energies from my surroundings and had mirrors that didn't show me back to me. I was lost and I didn't know it.

This strengthen the sense of not belonging but instead of identifying that there was something 'wrong' with the environment, I started to think that there was something seriously wrong with me.

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I went through my teenage years asking myself why I had to be the way I was: quiet, different, not at ease, not able to connect, to have normal conversations, introverted etc..  and I ended up wishing big time to be someone else, to be like everyone else: cool, at ease, extroverted, to not think so much, to have lots of friends, to be able to talk about music and stupid stuff.

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All this negative self-talk and emotional mutilation, led me finally to live the beginnings of depression in 2004 and full, debilitating depression in 2006.

Enough was enough and my psych had about enough pretending that nothing was wrong. 

I was finally externalising all the thoughts I had been carrying with me since childhood and pretending not to have. I got tired of trying to make things better, to pretend that I didn't think quite horribly of myself.

I gave up on the mask and started to show my real face. 

I started to be really quiet and withdrawn. I would ask my mum why I had to be the way I was and if I was ever going to be normal, happy and have friends that loved me (my friends loved me but I perceived them as doing me a favor by hanging out with me). I felt like I was the worst thing that could have happen to my family; the most troublesome, annoying thing for their existence. 

I also became quite debilitated in my thinking capacity. I couldn't fulfil all of my school's subjects' demands and when all my classmates where celebrating graduation and were sad that school was ending, I was relieved that I would never have to see them again which in turn made me feel even worse and worried that no-one would want to sign my yearbook, thus confirming the disgrace of my existence.

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Such was the extent of my perception of myself and life that I started to think that the only solution was to stop my existence. My parents and family would be better of without me. I didn't see any other way out. I thought I would always be abnormal, never belong and therefore could never be happy. Not being able to commit suicide because I was too cowardly, had me settle for being miserable and just exist. All I prayed for then, was that my family wouldn't get tired of me.

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I had to postponed my University studies for 6 months. I couldn't face the demands of going to that social and academic environment. All I wanted to do was hold refuge in my home, to not see anyone and quite simply not exist. I didn't want to be challenged with life. I couldn't stand seeing any other human being because it showed me how unadapted I was. I was barely existing.

 

My parents had to take action and took me to a psychologist. Horror! It was oficial, I was abnormal!

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Going there didn't give me any sense of relief, however I did it to do something about my impossible-to-solve situation, perhaps there was a solution and I could be normal?! All I needed to do was to be functionable, to do what everyone else does... go to uni, leave home, be normal, be self sufficient and successful.  (this would constitute  overcoming depression and therefore 'being' normal.) I didn't remember that the source of my unhappiness was feeling different.

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Anywho, I continued to go to the psychologist. She gave me cognitive strategies to evaluate my extreme believes and tasks to help me overcome my isolation.  

I did my homework, read up on depression, the different schools of thought and therapies, and I really welcomed in the suggestions. On a logical, factual, and theoretical way, the cognitive strategies were really helpful to see that I was exaggerating my believes, and evidence showed that I wasn't all that bad.  I had things to my advantage like I was a good driver (something cool for teenagers), I wasn't too bad looking and for some reason I had friends in the cool circle. Thus the things that gave me confidence and gave me support to believe that I was normal were my sex appeal and my sense of coolness because of the driving and parties. 

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Regardless, I wasn't able to completely fool myself and I kept reinforcing in my mind that I was actually an inapt. My parents sent me to do a massage course in Bali for a month, since it was the only  thing that I conceptually knew I liked and I had to do something! For them it was clear that staying at home wasn't good for me. 

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Doing the massage course was a way of getting out into society, not having to form strong bonds with anyone, therefore not having to confront my sad reality too strongly, and to do something that supposedly meant I was doing something with my life and that it would take me somewhere.   I found it heart wrenching that I was forced to do so, and that I had to go and live alone and face my sad reality of not being liked by anyone.  Nevertheless, I had to go through the motions, pretend to be normal and complete my massage course.

Through the course, I was able to create new relationships  with people from different ages. It was reflected back to me that we are all so different, and that it was okay. Outside the school environment there was no need to be accepted or to fit in. And that there were things about me that were rescuable. I started to think that perhaps I wasn't completely doomed.  What saved me was a sense of perhaps being accepted by other people.

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Also, during the course, I had the opportunity to go partying without the need to fit in, as everyone was an acquaintance and not close friends. I was asked in one occasion if I wanted to have a threesome with a married couple because the woman's husband found me really attractive and it was something they were opened to trying :o. Even though this came as a humongous shock to me and I declined, I was left with a feeling of a pleasant surprise. I was desired and liked by someone! I had a solid reason to move forward confidently (note how my sense of self-worth was coming from external factors?) 

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So anyway, with all this new found 'confidence' and reasons to believe that I wasn't all that bad and that I could fit it, I had the strength and pseudo-believe to keep moving forward and be brave enough to take on the move to university  and live in another country and city by myself.

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It was as if I was miraculously healed. However, I continued to feel this fear that the depression would come back and that perhaps I was indeed too different and incompatible with other people. Fortunately though, university had a much more independent setting than school, and I didn't have to belong or be forced to be part of a small  group of people. 

I was able to be part of a community where I was perceived as being cool because I was Colombian (at this point in my life I was living in Perth, Australia, after graduating from school in South East Asia)/ the sexy latina, and with my new found sense of independence I found my own people.

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I was studying human movement (sport science) and a major part of my degree was moving and exercising. In  high school, I had had a taste of the benefits of exercising because as a way to deal with my social awkwardness, I took up playing basketball in my spare time with the boys. So in university, having the space and time to be with myself more freely, and to be doing exercise, gave me a greater sense of well-being. The big question and lingering sensation of not belonging still remained with me but I could ignore it more readily.

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I formed friendships with people that allowed me to be me, people who I sensed I was providing something for and who felt genuine, stimulating and real. I still had a few issues of self-worth, belonging and belief in my capacity to make it in this world, but I was able to ignore them doing the things that needed to be done on a daily basis.

My biggest concern and worry had become how I was going to be self-sufficient, independent and successful after university. I had this real worry and doubt that I would be able to perform in the real world. That ultimately my real truth, that of not being enough, was going to come out and be manifested. 

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After graduating from my Undergraduate degree, I chose to do an Honours research year, to help me face my doubts in my ability to fulfil complex tasks and projects, and interactions with more complex personalities in the social and working contexts. As pure plotting of the universe, I was partnered up for my thesis with one of the most driven, confident and self-sufficient women of all of Earth. She was driven by the desire to be the brightest, most intelligent and accomplished scholar. On the other hand, there was me, trying to hang on to my life and purely doing this to prove  myself worthy and capable of this life.

Life couldn't have sent me a more testing situation. In one hand, it was super helpful to have had Peta as my partner because she injected so much life force into our project that she helped my thesis happen and showed me so much of what was possible in this world. But on the other hand, it was detrimental as someone else had come to the rescue, and I forever doubted if I would have been able to complete my thesis on my own. I started to compare myself to her, and see everything that she had that I would never have and I questioned if I would be enough to make it in this world. God damn it! The question of my life! (tearing my hair by now!)

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After graduating with First Class Honours, although handing in my thesis a few minutes late and with the help of my supervisor (my goodness, perhaps I'll never be able to complete big projects on my own), I set off to facing my fears of not making it in the real world. 

 

Thanks to the encouragement, help and guidance of my ex-boyfriend, I did the motions to get a job. I confronted my initial fears and started working as a Personal Trainer. Soon after that I signed up to obtain my accreditation as an Exercise Physiologist and worked in the research field. After a year of working my boyfriend had moved interstate and I started to feel alone and without motivation. I chose to move interstate with him. 

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And my conscious journey started  in 2011, when I was 23 years old, I studied Pranic Healing from the World Pranic Healing Foundation Inc. in Australia and Oman.

I started to understand many things that I hadn't understood before on a mental level but had always felt without knowing.

Me, my life, and my reason for being started to make sense. Knowing of the subtle world of energy in a conceptual manner was revolutionary to say the least, not to mention, tremendously helpful for me to overcome my shortcomings. 

 

how energy is behind all things, how every thought creates a different vibration, and how our  physical world is affected by our energetic body. 

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in by becoming an Exercise Physiologist and Scientist in Exercise & Health from the University of Western Australia.

I wanted to be connected to the human body and impart health and wellbeing to humans.

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    In 2014 I completed 5 different certifications in Massage Therapy with the school of Jamu Spa in Bali, Indonesia. 

I always felt a strong pull towards the world of relaxation and peace.