From Panic to Purpose

How Ayurveda Changed My Life

It all started with a panic attack at 29. You may wonder, “Why would someone so young experience panic attacks?”. When the mind and body feel disconnected, and there’s a profound sense of loss, gaining clarity about direction and purpose can seem elusive. As if that weren’t enough, another significant event contributing to this forced shift was the death of a family member. After all, isn’t that a typical rock bottom? A reminder to pause and reconnect with yourself. A nudge to truly LIVE?

So lets back up a little bit and review what a 29 year old is doing hyperventilating in the back of a parking lot in Hollywood?

I managed a production company in Hollywood for five years. I was very good at it. My entire life and soul was devoted to this place. As if I owned it, as if it was my creation. Except, without the recognition, without the respect, and without the acknowledgment of being valued. I just gave. I gave my time, my soul, my life to this place. Nothing else mattered. Not my sleep not my social life, not my eating habits. Definitely not my health.

I took it personally; every fault, every mistake, every failure. Hollywood is all about schmoozing… pretending to like someone to get what you want. If you hold the keys to what others want, can you imagine the schmoozing I was exposed to daily? Manipulated to people please.?

It wasn’t the job that made me become the person who gets a panic attack. Rather it was simply the vehicle to expose that person; to bring her out of the subconscious. It worked. Something drastic needed to happen for me to realize I need to change the course of my own life.

Have you had a panic attack?

A feeling of breathlessness, while the world outside of you is spinning faster and faster. You just can’t keep up. It feels like a fist is wrapped around your heart, squeezing it endlessly. There’s an imploding sensation that if you let go, the whole body will burst into millions of little chunks across the concrete. The vision blurs, the throat closes, a full body contraction, narrowing in on you from the inside and screaming out; “Are you hearing me now???, Do I have your attention now??” That is what a panic attack is all about, a desperate attempt to pay attention to your inner world.

For most of my life, I loved life. I embraced new possibilities and listened to my heart so long as I could hear it. But when I no longer could hear, I became lost; living a life based on the expectations of others, and feeling resentful and disconnected with myself, and frankly disliking myself for it. Sounds familiar? The sense of stagnancy where nothing changes, and therefore no growth is on the horizon. The key is when you recognize your comforts as that, which keeps you the same, you realize how life isn’t fulfilling any longer.

In the eyes of others, I seemed to be on the brink of living my best life—embarking on a promising career in the film industry, residing in the City of Angels where dreams materialize, captivated by the lifestyle of celebrities and the vibrant social scene. However, the reality within me, while navigating the expectations of those around me, was one of struggle. The more I suppressed my opinions and emotions, the more detached I became from my body’s profound needs, projecting my pain as blame onto others and manifesting a range of physical symptoms that could potentially signal a serious underlying condition.

Even though I subconsciously sensed the cries of my inner self pleading for change, it wasn’t until a profound tragic event to top off the panic attack, that the awareness of change illuminated my path like a guiding light.

A transformation must happen now

The panic attack made me feel this sense of absolute hopelessness, while gasping for air and literally choking on the life that isn’t meant for me. I understood that change is necessary, but, was I ready to follow through with it, or was I too fearful of the unknown and hesitant to abandon a life that many aspire to?

When you are disconnected from your truth, how can you know what choice is right for you?

The rusty gears started turning, contemplating how to embrace change and realign with my true self. It took months of deliberation to determine whether I am facing impostor syndrome, afraid to take a leap of faith, or simply in denial about my potential, which has resulted in me living the life as it is, while blindly believing there is nothing more for me out there. Slowly I began slipping back into the comfort of denial, and fearing the discomfort of change.

Grief of Death, literal, and metaphorical

Just as I was beginning to accept the idea that panic attacks might be my new normal, and that change felt too challenging at this moment, another life-altering event jolted me awake: the death of my father, ensuring I could no longer retreat into the comfort of merely existing.

I returned home, weeks before his passing. I knew for a while he was unwell, but we never want to believe our parents could ever leave us to death so soon. Now I had a front row seat to the way he slowly succumbed to illness, drifting from the person he once was. And all I could think of seeing him like this was : “I want to LIVE! A FULL HAPPY, HEALTHY, EXPANSIVE LIFE.

It’s a fleeting instance when you realize you’re seeing someone for the very last time. He appeared somewhat prepared and conscious that his time was near, yet I can’t help but wonder whether he had closure with his life purpose in his final moments.

He shook my hand in his casual stoic manner the day I was leaving. There was something so powerful about how he gazed straight into my eyes with this glimmer of hope, gratitude, and pride for knowing me; almost as if thanking me for being in his life, and being his beatiful daughter. In that very moment, deep within my core and gut, I felt a knowing that this would be the last time I would see my father in physical form. This feeling inside me was so powerful, so intense, so supernatural almost, that I was afraid of it, and resisted it. 

A week later, my father passed away. His death fueled me with rage, regret, denial, the whole orchestra of negative guilt ridden emotions. At the same time, it awakened in me the urge to live. To reconnect to that knowing, that inner voice, and begin to take action toward living my path and purpose. What if that deep supernatural knowing can be harnessed not to detect death, but simply to detect the direction of my path and purpose? To lead me to fulfillment.

The lifestyle I was leading was a recipe for burnout, and a psychological disaster accompanied by the emergence of physical ailments due to the unhealthy habits and social expectations. It took six months of doubts, insecurities, depression, darkness, grief to finally get the courage to rise again and listen to my heart.

Ayurveda finds me.

Picture this. Saying goodbye to the only life you knew. Relieving yourself from all, but the necessary possessions, which conveniently fit into a 40L carry on backpack, and holding a one way ticket to another continent miles away from everything you have ever known.

I arrived in Southeast Asia, like many, eager to escape a life I instinctively knew was harming my well-being and vitality. I had a loose plan to immerse myself in the things that had provided me solace until then: yoga, art, and a light exploration of esotericism. With a skeptical mindset, I plunged into a realm that encouraged me to forget and unlearn everything I had previously known about myself. As my dad often described it, I became a “tabula rasa,” a blank slate, an empty canvas ready to embrace a life that I hoped would be free from panic attacks.

I wanted to heal, and I wanted to help others heal as well, but in a more wholesome, and expansive way. The first yoga teacher training course I just finished, barely just scratched the itch I was having about how my life is about to change. This is what I said to the stranger sitting across from me at a cafe in this magical island in Thailand, when he asked what is it that I am so busy staring at my computer about instead of basking in the joy of “worry free island life”

See, you cannot fully enjoy where you are physically, if mentally you are imprisoned by your own limiting beliefs and coping mechanisms that no longer serve you. There it was, the moment when this complete stranger introduced me to the word Ayurveda. At last a transformation of putting the fragmented pierces together and seeing the bigger picture of my life.

Seeing the bigger picture, and embodying the life you are meant to live, are two quite different challenges to overcome. It took years before I can begin to accept the changes and recalibrate belief systems about myself and society before I could finally begin to live life aligned with my cyclical nature.

Ayurveda changed my life not in the way I thought it would. Like most, at first I found Ayurveda quite rigid in terms of diet, lifestyle etc, and how it went against what society has been teaching us all this time. I resisted it in attempt to protect the habits I created to fit in society, until I realized that those habits are not benefiting my wellbeing at all, and if I am not well, than what does it matter whether I fit in society or not?

I believe in the concept of the 7 year cycles. 7 is quite the number anyway, According to medicine, it takes 7 years for the physical body to completely regenerate. Which means, the power of choice and ability to change life as you know it, can ultimately reshape your physical existence… quite literally. Isn’t that amazing? What is more amazing is quantum science, that up until I came across Ayurveda, I understood quantum as something only outside of this solar system, something beyond the Earth’s threshold. Little did I know, that every cell in our bodies is in fact a quantum particle. That alone is enough of a motivation for me to believe in the truth of being a co-creator of my personal reality. That is how powerful thought is, and its ability to mold the functions of 18billion year old cellular structure that is part of our DNA code. I began to see the reflections of myself in others, and recognizing that through my own perception I create the life I believe in and see. That in truth, existence, the concept of life is simply an individual perception, that can be clouded by modifications of the mind, what we understand as moods. So your mood governs your perception, and therefore your experience in this life.

In the last seven years of living, breathing, teaching and practicing Ayurveda, I found that it really is a philosophy of life. It is literally the manual for how to reconnect with existence because we have diverged from nature and the animal kingdom to create civilizations. It is the way of life that optimizes wellbeing, heightens your true potential and prevents physiological and mental harm, naturally, and with the flow of the Universe.

It’s not a new age trend for lifestyle, diet, or fads, it has ancient roots. So ancient, in fact, that your great-grandparents practiced it intuitively, without needing to study or understand its principles logically; they simply recognized the signs of what wreaks havoc on their digestion; knew when to harvest crops, how to prepare medicines, and how to live in harmony with nature’s cycles.

The Ayurvedic Path Forged

Ayurveda helped me recognize a profound longing for a pure and natural way of being, one that fosters complete harmony, enables me to hear the truth, respond to the seasons, and enhance my self-care and healing.

I haven’t experienced a panic attack since. I now focus on my wellbeing instead of social expectations, aligning my routine with my circadian and infradian rhythms. I am gradually releasing the grief that has been bottled up in my chest, which had contributed to back pain and a tendency for physical injuries, as I held onto unprocessed emotions that affected my posture.

You see, everything is connected. The feelings you hide from yourself manifest inside the physical body and eventually lead to serious issues.

Ayurveda transformed my life by directing my focus inward, guiding me to rediscover my true self. It illuminated the shadows within me, enabling me to redefine what it means to truly live. Through this journey, I have learned the values of gratitude, grace, and patience, and how to cultivate that inner knowing that transcends logical thought, expectation, and desire; it dismantled my self-perception, and new insights revealed the path to my authentic purpose.

As Maya Angelou expresses, even in moments of sadness, brokenness, disorientation, and solitude, it’s essential to remember that the universe places a rainbow in every cloud. So, prepare to become the rainbow in someone else’s cloud. This aligned with my journey of how to welcome myself back home to a state of complete harmony and take responsibility of my actions.

It took seven years for me to share this story, to release the shame surrounding my panic attacks, to confront the grief of losing a parent, and to acknowledge my guilt while embracing a life in harmony with nature, liberating myself from attachment to negative emotions. The path was not always clear, and there isn’t really a destination of being healed, rather it is an ongoing process of taking responsibility and responding gracefully to life.

My healing journey led to the creation of the Ayurvedic Path. A program forged out of direct experience combining all of the tools from western and eastern medicine, and customizing it according to where one is on their life path. Ayurveda changed and shaped the life I live today, and unmasked a way for me live my design of creating safe containers and holding a healing space for others. Not only did it show me the way to my inner growth, but it unraveled my true gift of teaching, sharing and welcoming in the ancient wisdom to those whom may find themselves stuck in their life.

I did not have a direct guide, one who held me every step of the way and met my needs as I forged the path, although I wish I did, which is why I am here now to be your guide, so you don’t have to go at it alone. Let me build a safe container where you can unravel and reclaim the pieces to your soul; a space in which your healing process begins of arriving back home to yourself.

You are invited to Live Life Aligned too.