2024 – a milestone year

2024 will remain a milestone year in my life’s story.

Roughly a year ago – in November of 2023 – my husband and I made a decision that felt insane at the time, but has proven to be among the best decisions we have ever made.

We decided to give up most of our possessions and leave the place where we lived for 25 years, where we raised our children.

We did not have a set plan of where we would go from there beyond the first three months.

We allowed ourselves to surrender to a calling, to life’s bigger plan for us, and trust that we’d land on our feet.

On the last day of February of 2024 we moved into complete unknown.

Our only plan was to spend the first two weeks in New York, which used to be home and where many friends and relatives still reside. Next we were to spend three months in Playa del Carmen in Mexico.

Although this massive decision was made and executed quickly, for me this move was a culmination of years of premonition, visions, inner nudges, breadcrumbs, mystic encounters and unexpected messages.

Life has been training me to get comfortable with the unknown and to surrender control for ten years leading up to this move.

Now, being on the other side of the last ten years, I marvel at the bigger picture that emerges.

Once my husband came onboard with my vision in the fall of 2023, it only took us 3 months to give up the possessions we spent over 30 years of amassing, and execute the move.

Looking back at it all now, I see how our path was lit with green light all the way. It was such the right move at the right time. Such an aligned decision.

This move not only helped us both address and heal multi-generational trauma of displacement, separation and loss of possessions due to changes in political systems and wars.

It freed us from some conditioned burdens we were dutifully carrying for most of our lives.

Both of us – children of immigrants, ourselves immigrants – had to experience these wounded places again in order for possible healing to occur: healing our childhood wounds around life changes. Clearing generations before us and – hopefully – our children and their children.

An unexpected and welcome side effect of this move is that it did wonders for our relationship.

To make such radical decision together reminded us of who we were when we met, and why we are together.

To venture into the unknown felt youthful and adventurous. It felt powerful. It reunited us, and reminded us what it feels like to be a team again.

This disruptive move that we chose in full conscious awareness became a moment of co-creation of a life by design.

For me, this wish/need to move was part of my life’s evolutionary drive. There was a maturation period of several years before the inner drive could align with my mental constraints and emotional capacity.

Once on the path, I felt protected. The unknown felt less distressing and more of an adventure toward healing, toward expansion.

Upon landing in Mexico we felt at home within two weeks. Three planned months here turned into five, as we felt so happy exactly where we were. Before it was time to leave we knew we’d be back.

A few weeks into our 2-month return to France and Italy which was very enjoyable and felt like returning home, it became clear that the European chapter of our lives is over. We were eager to return to what feels like our new home – Mexico. The kind of life we tasted here – in absolute simplicity, quietude, proximity to wild nature, and meeting beautiful welcoming people – was where we clearly wanted to be now.

We are back here for 6 months. There hasn’t been a day since we returned when I did not say “I love my life.”

But there was another event that stands out for me in 2024.

A two-day in person retreat called Embodied Performer in which I participated in August, which synchronistically fell on my birthday weekend.

These two days excavated feelings and fears in me that I thought I had put to rest long ago. Being witnessed and observed by 30 bodies of unknown other participants turned out to be an exquisitely and excruciatingly vulnerable process.

I have been peeling and revealing layers of myself for ten years now.

First, through words while remaining unseen through my first articles. Then venturing on video as I was stepping into my speaking and coaching commitments. Each stage challenged me to exercise an atrophied muscle of finding safety in visibility. Far from easy, but with persistence and repetition I had found comfort.

Being seen on screen by hundreds of people as a participant in other people’s groups, leading my own Masterclasses for groups of 30-40 people became normal to me.

But what happened to my nervous system when I had to speak, move through space, and step onto stage with all thirty eyes on me, while my nervous system was co-regulating and co-dysregulating with 30 other nervous systems was a shock and a revelation.

It took me at least a week to nurse my scared and exposed inner child – which I documented in my daily video diary in August. If curious to know what came up for me during the retreat, you can watch this, this, and this video.

It was clear that this was my next challenge: creating environments where people I work with can come together physically and find Safety to Be themselves, which they can then bring with them when they return home, or wherever life takes them next.

In May of 2025, I am preparing to lead my first retreat for one of my extended groups of Safe to Be Me.

Once we decided to meet in person – after growing so comfortable and so connected with each other over zoom, much has come up for each of us around fear of being seen physically.

This private retreat will take place in Castle Valley, Utah and is called Safe to Be Seen. I have designed a series of somatic practices and exercises that will help address the confrontation between the basic human need to be seen and the core inner child wound of being seen.

I am hoping that this is the beginning of a new chapter in my work – adding meetings in person to my current work on zoom.

Stay tuned for the news in the new year.

If you are excited by the idea of participating in my upcoming retreats and would like to be sure to get the information as it becomes available, please express your interest here.

Meanwhile, I am winding down my work schedule this week in preparation for some upcoming travel time for a holiday with my children.

We’ll be exploring Puerto Escondido and Oaxaca region until February. I am excited and nervous. My girls will be joining us at the end of this week and we’ll be the five of us together for the first time in years. I try to remain realistic in my expectations and allow life to bring me whatever I must face next.

To all of you reading me – my most sincere wishes for holidays filled with good doses of rest and movement, time for self and time for connection with others.

Thank you for being here! I treasure your presence.