The Story Started Long Before Me.

So my story begins long before I was born.

I am a product of another story, where two souls came together to create me. What’s so special about that? Well nothing, I suppose, other than my dad thinks he is an alien hybrid, and my mom identifies as one of the original 12 thousand souls who first embodied the planet. When you have awesomely nutty parents like this, you have two choices on who you wanna be in life: You embrace their beliefs or you reject them. I chose to reject—until now.

I am a middle-aged baseball mom who lives in suburban DC. I had big dreams of being the next Patti Lupone or Bernadette Peters and had a pretty good career in theatre before I created my own kids. Parenthood is a role that worked for me on every level. Being a wife, on the other hand…well, let’s save that for another day.

Let’s back up to my childhood. Like I said, my parents were a little different from what I assumed most parents were like. At the time, I had no understanding of how their life choices impacted how I chose to roll as a kid; those insights would come clear to me much later. I was a moderately shy and careful kid. I was extremely sensitive and suffered from being so aware of my feelings. Only now do I recognize those qualities, they are what mark me as an empath today. 

So how does this all fit in to where I am now?  Due to a series of seemingly innocuous events and metaphorical frying pans to the head, I have finally given in to who I was meant to be. More accurately, who I have always been but, until today, rejected. I now recognize my true self: I am a creative artist (some see that at a healer). 

My story needs to be told. We are in a time in our history where what is considered “normal” has shifted. Chaos surrounds us, and there are seemingly few rules to live by. We have lost trust in our leader, our institutions, and our humanity. My purpose, then, is to realign the masses and reignite our mission of being humane to each other while we are here on this planet we all call HOME. 

The story I am about to share is that of how I woke up to my true self and how I learned I could no longer hide in my own shadow. 

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My awakening:

“Living in one’s shadow is daunting, but living in spite of oneself is entirely different and equally tragic.”

I have always known that before my awakening that I had a message to share with the world. But about what, who knew? I certainly didn't have any great message to share other than, “be nice and when in doubt, smile,” and that didn’t sound terribly compelling. Let’s also not forget the fact that for so much of my life, confidence had eluded me. Up until recently, I preferred hiding in the shadows for fear of calling any negative attention to myself. Yet on some dogmatic level my soul needed to be heard, so I looked for an outlet to purge my emotions; as a teen, I decided to follow my passion into the world of theatre. Ironically, I spoke passionately and convincingly there, projecting other people’s words and world views, but still, and always, hiding, behind the costumes and the characters I portrayed on stage. 

So let’s skip ahead to where I am now. I found myself in my late 40’s, a frightened, aching, financially ruined part-time yoga and singing teacher and single mom trying to fill up all the holes of the Swiss cheese in my aching psyche. My ‘traditional’ marriage had ended in despair, and I was in survival mode. But I knew it was a chance to start fresh and all that I had experienced had just prepared me for what was about to come. I thank the gods that I had that life experience with no regrets!

I was looking for peace and respite in my life as well as looking for a missing component to assist in my yoga practice. I was searching for dance-related modality because it was so close to my first love of theater. Then this funny little blurb showed up in my Facebook feed from a friend. It read: “Pure source, pure Vita...come dance with Jane’s Dancing Hands!” I thought to myself, “How dorky! What kind of schlock is this?” My first line of armor has always been skepticism, but that lovely word, DANCE, jumped out at me. I was instantly intrigued and felt called to check into it. Her message said clearly, “Come dance,” and on every level I wanted to dance. I knew this experience held the key to my healing, so I told the Nervous Nelly voice whispering in my ear to climb into the back seat and let my explorer self drive for a little while, and went off in search of something I knew absolutely nothing about. 

When I arrived....

I shared the space with 40 other strangers, every one of us looking for something, maybe even looking for the same thing I wanted. Deep in my heart I know now, I wasn’t looking to shake a leg, but to heal the hole that was left in my heart from years of limiting beliefs. When Jane began the session, she danced for everyone, but I didn’t, not at first. She took private moments with each hungry soul. She got closer and closer to me and I knew soon it would be my turn. My anxiety was increasing. Five people away, then four, three, two. With my heart beating outta my chest, suddenly, it was my turn. I no longer had the chance to run for the door.

She touched me…my face....my jaw…my arm. She captured my stare and looked so lovingly into my eyes, like a mother finally seeing her baby for the first time. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I could not look away, and believe me, I tried. The intensity of the moment terrified me, leaving me extremely vulnerable. I was feeling this beautiful kind of intimacy with a total stranger, so, I called unto my deepest inner strength, to not let fear and cynicism steal this sensual moment from me. With a last effort, I quietly calmed my heart, saying, “I want this to be real…see me…heal my heart.” I let myself give into the world of the unknown, even as a question still lurked in my head, as if I’d had a predestined agenda all along. “Do you recognize me?”

The world has not been the same since.

I will share my stories of soul retrieval as I have learned that I am growing up human  

I am an open book......

xoxo,

Marni