Let's start with a look back: The year that changed my perspective.

Its been a while and also it feels like time just flew by. 

It has been one year, next month that I decided to radically flip the script. After working in the field of self-development for about 10 million years I finally decided that it was time for me to take a beat. To stop and to reexamine what and why and who and where. It was clear to me a while ago that my motivations to keep going were not entirely healthy. For me.

Making the choice to stop was not really a walk in the park. I knew a year prior that I had to slow down and take stock. But I still felt like I had something to prove. You see, I found out that all this teaching I was doing about the identity construction finally caught up with me. After teaching the A.O.C. (the art of color) in 2025, which was a 9 month program about the identity construction, I fell into a deepness within my own construction. This program felt like the cherry on top of everything that i created before. That is how good that program was and how smart I am, I got caught in my own contraption. At some level I always knew I was a wounded healer and I was trying to work out my own stuff as I was going along, but the way it was intertwined was like a punch in the gut.

It was during the A.O.C. that I started to feel the cracks in my identity construction and I started to see very clearly that I was doing the most. The amount of energy and effort I put into trying to be the best teacher the world has ever seen was unhealthy for my body and soul, so I had to look deeper. The students in the program were a dream for me, every single one of them. Really, all of them. And the team was just like a dream, the expertise and love they brought in carried me in more ways that i can expres. Because we were in a 9 month container of deep inner work, there was no escaping the amount of mirrors that were being presented. No one could escape, not the students, not the teachers and not anyone that was in a 20 mile range of this event.

Through this experience I saw that my self worth was dependent on being good. A good teacher, a good friend, a good mother, a good wife, a good person. And when ever there would be feedback that i was doing a bad job i would emotionally kill myself.  I saw that I was following the narrative, that in order for me to be loved I had to do the most. And in order for me to feel belonging I had to give something valuable. Like answers. Like direction. Like leadership.

This also created a dynamic with the people around me where they felt unsafe to talk to me, because I would be harsh and judgemental. They would start to feel afraid to be vulnerable because they would feel fear of doing something wrong. You see how that works? I had that energy inside of  me, and I felt it towards myself, and subconsciously I projected that outwards which created other peoples behaviour to then also project these kinds of fear back to me. Mind blown. What A wonderful construction, one that cost me friends and lovers over the years. So when the A.O.C. was done I knew in my soul that I had to  make  a radical change. If I wanted to break this vicious cycle I had to sit with this in a real way. 

Side quest. 

The spiritual world would love to say ‘sit with it’ and to some degree I would understand what they meant. I understood that sitting with it was to be in the uncomfortableness of negative emotions. I understand now that for me to ‘sit with it’ is to experience deep levels of shame and guilt to such a level that all defense mechanisms will be fired at the same time, which will create such a void of pain and emptiness that if i don't numb myself with drugs i will jump of a cliff. Sitting with it, is for me now, to be able to work through the deepness of karma and accountability in a graceful way. To be brave and honest about all the parts of me that exist. To let the shame move through me, grieve old versions of me and allow to be forgiven and to forgive. And that my friends, did not come easy for a person who spent their life thinking that they could not make any mistakes.

So I chose to quit. Quit teaching, quit building, just quit and come to a standstill.

In the first three months my system was exploding from restlessness, still looking for ways to be productive and worthy. After that I dove into sex, drugs and rock and roll, while writing a movie script. After all of that did not work I tried to find a regular job and see if that  might be a way for me to keep the lights on. Meanwhile my best friend and I finally ended our 15 year roommate/co-parenting situation, which created the final push I needed to fall into the abyss. 

There I was, a few months of doing nothing but still resisting, alone in a big house filled with my many many thoughts. And you guessed it, I ended up in a crisis clinic for the mentally ill. My depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies where getting the better of me. Once again there was no escaping. The months that followed were filled with more big choices. I gave up that big house, moved to another country, started therapy and could finally surrender to the process. Sitting with it.

I allowed myself to be. Be here now. And to rest, guilty free. It took me while but I got to that place. And then a few weeks ago, there it was again, inspiration. Like a firefly in the night. I looked at it, first unsure if it was meant for me. As the days went by and I was visited by the firefly every night, I felt it was safe for me again to follow it. It has only been one year, and I have loads to practice within myself. An I do feel it's time for me to show myself again. To share what i have learned, to inspire with my experiences and to reconnect.

So you know, follow along and cry and laugh and be confused with me as I take you along with me through my journey. Talk soon.

Love Navaya.