You've Come a Long Way, Baby.
Many people don’t know that I had a whole other past life in THIS life working in New York City government and politics.
This first pic is of me sitting on the steps of City Hall, where I could often be found smoking cigarettes.
The other encapsulates what I was doing the other couple of hours when I wasn’t working 65+ hours a week — drinking at a local pub!
Past life, indeed.
It’s interesting that Spirit has been giving me lots reminders of this old life lately...presumably for some healing.
I hated the government in college, but I wanted to move from New Jersey to NYC with the rest of my friends when I graduated school and somehow by the time June of my senior year came along I was offered a job for a State Assembly Member in Manhattan (because even then I was a powerful manifestor ;).
When I first started working in government at the ripe old age of 22 I was so naive (and still VERY much unconscious and asleep). I actually thought that maybe I would be able to create the change that I wanted to see in the world from the inside, instead of using the protest and resistance tactics that I had been accustomed to.
For a while I really did. I was a part of making some cool shit happen in New York City — like the emergency contraception pill being offered over-the-counter in City pharmacies, legalizing gay marriage in New York State, increasing transgender rights, etc.
I also saw the shadow side of government. As I worked my way to “senior staff” of the New York City Council I saw up close and personal all of the ugly of politics — the hidden agendas, the insatiable egoic desire for power, the political favoring and posturing, lies, deceit, etc.
Fortunately, I started to practice yoga at the end of my tenure in City Hall...and I began to wake up.
I’ll never forget the moment when I first experienced a glimpse of transformation and spiritual awakening:
I am in the basement of City Hall, finishing up a conference call at some obscene hour and out of nowhere I have my first known moment of being able to step outside and observe myself. I hang up my office phone and experience a stillness like I never have before. And I think, “I don’t belong here. This is not what I want to do with my life.”
And thus, the transformation began. A couple months later I quit my job to become the therapist I had dreamed of becoming, but always wondered if I was too crazy to pull off. ;)
So here I am, ten years later. And I have declared a moratorium on anything government-related or political from my life because of the bad taste that was left in my mouth from my experiences...but maybe it’s time for a breakthrough. Maybe it’s time to reclaim the baby that I dumped out with the bathwater...
An astrologer in India told me that in the future I would teach meditation and spiritual principles in government. It would be so wonderful to contribute to the system in that way, given where I was and what I have learned since.
I am grateful for all the skills, knowledge and expertise that my previous life awarded me. It’s definitely assisted me in creating the structures and organization required to build and grow the business I have now.
And upon further reflection, I’m so grateful for how far I’ve come over the past ten years. I’m grateful for yoga which catalyzed my life transformation. I acknowledge myself for having the bravery, balls and courage to leave something that was no longer in integrity for me...and for continuing to leap and jump into different versions of myself, as I move forward to unlock who I really am.
