Canada — The Fire Before the Flight: Finding Myself in Ottawa

I want to say that my journey to finding myself started in 2015. I had just finished my four-year bachelor’s degree, and I felt free to do stupid things and do whatever I wanted. I hit a real pit — I mean, fell into a huge ditch, a hole that was my life — and lost everything. We spend our whole lives attaching ourselves to things: materials, people, environments, outcomes and expectations, searching for meaning outside of ourselves, thinking, hoping, even praying that one day we will be given that happiness that we so desire. I was definitely one of those people... and, to be honest, a part of me still is. That’s the beauty of the ego: it never truly, fully dies. Although having awareness, control and understanding of our own egos, allowing the ego to fuel our inner desires and passions — its self-empowerment — is the real gold.

Back to 2015 now; this setback was definitely one for the book of shame. I had never felt so low. I lost all my money, my trust, my love, my faith, my identity (or what I thought my identity was). My spirit was broken. Now, that’s not to say I did not have resources or people around me who loved me. The issue was that I was too broken to see it. I was too blind and ashamed of my mistakes and the major jam I got myself into, so I felt the best way for me to keep any type of self-dignity was to keep the secret all to myself. Of course, not only did this hurt me, but it hurt the people who cared about me too. You are probably wondering what this was. I will still never tell you. Some things are better left in the dark. Those shadows are long gone, and I’d rather keep those demons locked in hell where they belong. ;)

I spent most of my time between 2015 and 2018 rebuilding my life. Studying, working, exercising. I had debt to pay off and my soul to find. This was a pretty good time. Aside from the endless drought of living paycheck to paycheck, I was grateful to have been given the opportunity to study holistic nutrition and personally train clients at the gym. For me... I felt a part of me moving forward, like the rest of us, a hamster on the wheel, playing catch-up from the hole I dug myself into back in 2015.

Needless to say, the persona and the effort to put on a front of happiness were always difficult. Those skeletons in the closet would haunt me. I would talk about it; my soul tribe knew me for the darkness. Although I kept most of it to myself, and from my family, out of love, I wanted to protect them. The struggle I felt led me to feel depressed for a long while. I often did not even notice it. I was numb, and it became normal for me. Wake up, go to work, chill a bit, pass out, do it again.

I feel it was around 2017–2018 when my friend gifted me her oracle and tarot cards. I started to really play with them, and the positive messages and affirmations found in the oracle cards really started to lift me up. It would always be something gratitude-related, such as: “Someone will come and gift you something special today.” Silly, but what would “wow” me would be the fact that, at work, a coworker would bring me a coffee, and it would immediately lift me up, making me remember the card I pulled that morning with that message. Gratitude for the small things — and this is where the abundance really started to grow.

Every day, I would pull an oracle card before I’d go to work. I would receive a positive message, and I would seek that message out in my day. Hard to say what came first: the message or the synchronicity that the universe truly has our back. Whatever the case, I did not care. It would make me happy, and I felt aligned; I started to truly believe that all my dreams could come true. Over time, I started to see a positive shift in my environment, and I started to attract creative ideas that would spark my passion for food, nutrition and spirituality. The matches started to magnify, and I felt more and more confident and happy about my abilities to truly create something magnificent that could change this world. Recognizing the smaller picture, I allowed myself to surrender to the limitless possibilities that this life has to offer us. No experience, to me, was a coincidence, and this is when I started to see small miracles become big.

I remember, towards the middle of 2018, springtime was approaching... (Aries season), and I was craving a fresh start, a risk, a chance, something exhilarating for my experience. I read Conversations with God — an amazing spiritual book that truly opened my mind and ignited a truth within me I could not explain.

A month before I flew to China, I was spending time with two entrepreneurs who were mastering Facebook marketing and are quite successful today.

I remember being outside, training an outdoor fitness group I had organised, feeling my crown chakra activate and hearing “Soul Food Fitness” whispered into my mind like a calming breeze.

They pushed me, those two guys, and I incorporated the business that week without a second thought. No plan, just a vision... and an adventure of a lifetime.

I quit my job, trained fitness clients on the side through outdoor boot camps, took a random English-teaching position in China, and flew out of Canada by the first week of September 2018...

Haha, I know that took a huge turn. It is that Cancer energy in my 5th house of fortune. ;)

If you ask me, all of these chain events were hardly explainable, even by me. I had no idea where my higher self was guiding me to go. Everything in my body, mind and soul was screaming fear, love, insanity, but the intuitive knowing that I had to do this overpowered anything else, everything else. What came first? The soul... and the beginning of my spiritual journey...