I’m sitting in a rose garden behind a cafe in Berkeley. It’s a Wednesday afternoon. I pause my writing, look up and feel the moment. A soft breeze on my skin, a majestic field of pink, red, and yellow flowers in front of me, and a ceramic mug of warm matcha in my hand.
1 year ago I rarely noticed flowers, drank espresso over tea, and spent the entirety of my weekdays in my office in front of a computer, often without pause between back-to-back Zoom calls and neurosis.
A lot has happened since then. A giving up of all grounding pillars in my life—my company, my relationship, my home. A journey East. A Vipassana. A solo Ayahuasca ceremony in the jungle (phew, this one’s due for a post). Living nomadically, sometimes planning month by month, or even week by week. Experiencing my first ISTA training…which released cinder blocks of hang-ups and unleashed my sexuality in a way that’s been so damn liberating. Studying Human Design and the Gene Keys golden path. Giving up coffee and alcohol. And practicing my own Surrender Experiment, endeavoring to not force any next outer venture, to focus entirely on my inner awakening and let the answers, actions, and invitations flow from there.
There are two primordial emotions—love and fear. Everything we do is either because of love, or because of fear.
When I faced the root of much of my behavior before this year, I humbly and painfully realized it was fear. Fear drove my eating disorder, my work on personal growth, and my achievement-addicted professional life.
I didn’t, don’t, want to live that way. I want to be driven by love and love only. I’m here to wake every morning into love. Love for myself, others, and my service to the world. I’m here to laugh and play in this crazy beautiful cosmic dance and inspire others to do the same. I’m here to never forget the truth of our connectedness and our source, to remember by looking inward, and surrounding myself with the things that bring me there—Roses and art and tea. Sunrises and redwood trees and swings. Poetry and sexuality. Emotions, feeling and expressing them to their deepest depths. Blueberries and candles. Rain and cashmere and books. Walks and meditation. Water and fire. Music and dancing. Napping and parks and puppies. My tribe and family. Authentic connection and belly laughs. Silence. Softness. Creating. Guiding and nurturing. Selfless service. Surrendering to the mystery. Slowing down. Being.
My intention with this path has always been the same. To discover and live my highest purpose. The result, of course, hasn’t been what I expected. The idea of what my purpose is has changed, along with much else in its wake.
My primary purpose is not some achievement in the outside world. It’s finding my bliss within.
The love list above is one of the many gems that have arisen from this. The second my inner world began to quiet, to meet the calm stillness that is its natural state, a purity came through. A pure way of living, being, and choosing—untarnished by programming or expectations from family, peers, or society. I began to hear myself. Hear my heart. To recognize and choose the things that resonate with its peace frequency, that contribute to it. That keep it not just living but alive. Not just present but in love.
There is a common thread in the love list you may have noticed, it’s all Yin.
I’d been in Yang for most of my life. And oh what a glorious place the Yin is. How deliciously wonderful. Maybe because I’d been so far from it. Maybe because it’s more my truth. Either way, I’m grateful to be here. And I don’t want to leave.
At first it felt wrong, like I’d have to leave eventually. Like it was a vacation to experience or dessert to taste, then time to go home, back to reality. But no no dear one, my inner Goddess says so lovingly…what’s wrong is the conditioning that kept you from it.
We live in a rhythmic, harmony-seeking universe. Yin and Yang are the dual ends on the energetic pendulum underlying everything. When there’s an imbalance, a swing in one direction, a correction must occur in the other. And when this natural rhythm is resisted, it’s forced through chaos and suffering.
This is the chaos and suffering that broke and opened me to the self-realization journey, and it’s what we’re seeing in our world today.
I’d been in Yang most of my life, at least partially because our Western human race has been in Yang most of its life. An overextended, toxic Yang. That’s the conditioning we’re working with. Build, progress, compete, achieve, and do it all from the logical thinking mind. Ignore your heart. Be hard. Quiet your emotions. Move fast. Charge past subtleties, beauty, intuition, empathy, presence. No time for presence.
It was unnatural living swung so far that way, particularly being a woman. We all have both energies in us, and do well to connect with and heal both sides, but the Yin is the feminine and so most commonly embodied through women (I believe that the root of much collective female trauma on our planet is due to the neglected and ostracized Yin).
I now see this painful imbalance as the breaking point that brought me to the spiritual path. As I went deep into my fear, facing the trauma and shadows driving it, I began to find my own sense of authenticity and safety. I learned my feminine truth, and I at last felt safe to express her.
My inner Yin, the feminine, began to unleash and wake up. Like a stretching cat after a long sleep, she slowly rose and draped herself over my awareness, thawing what was cold and rigid to something wonderfully warm and wild. Concrete to velvet. Soon she permeated my feelings, desires, and actions in the world.
Fear and lack of safety are the barriers to the Yin. The Yin is shapeless, flowing, yielding and pliant. Soft. Sensitive. Vulnerable. Without feeling safe, she won’t bloom through us in the divine radiance and abundance she’s meant to. Our hard Yang world isn’t a very inviting and safe place for the Yin.
But that’s changing. It’s changing in me, and As Above, So Below—it’s changing in our world. The planet’s consciousness is shifting. The pendulum is beginning to swing the other way, correcting after centuries of Yang. We can see this through the rising interest in psychedelic medicine, meditation, astrology, spirituality, holistic wellness, and movements like the New Age and environmentalism.
You can also see the shift happening through war, economic recession, and political unrest—this is the chaos before the new order.
We’d do well to surrender and let it happen, but many of us remain attached to the old consciousness out of fear. While surrendering to the unknown is scary, the outcome of resisting is worse. With resistance comes suffering. We’re fighting the natural rhythms of the universe, and we won’t win.
A perhaps contrarian statement—I invite this chaos. I see it as a symbol of great change on the precipice. Needed change. A change that will seep into the hidden but fundamental cracks in centuries-old systems that brought us progress and innovation while sacrificing compassion and love. A change that’s coming.