THE DIAGNOSIS
The First Doctor who diagnosed me suggested I have a bilateral hip surgery. He also said it would take me 1 year to recover from. Since I relied on my body for income through yoga teaching and massage therapy I was worried about how I would make an income during the rehab phase. My ego exploded immediately. The First Doctor also predicted I would have arthritis by the age of 40.
The Second Doctor took me aside and after getting to know me as a person, said that changing my lifestyle could potentially change the future of my hips. I went from getting horrible news to finding a potential way out of them! The Second Doctor didn’t really say how I would have to change my lifestyle, so this task seemed like Mission Impossible to me.
Luckily, I was willing to do anything to get out of pain and discomfort so nothing seemed unreasonable. Besides, as a student of osteopathy and I saw that as my way to heal myself. I had to believe in myself and faith my way through this seemingly impossible mission.
THE FAITH
I actually visualized that I had an energetic surgery and everything I did from that point on would help me heal and improve. So I decreased my yoga practice and started incorporating more physical therapy and rehabilitation exercises. I increased my food intake and backed out from feeling hungry. I stopped taking anything that I was told I needed. I also dropped taking supplements and stimulants and the only craving that I had was hot water.
I prayed a lot. I wrote a lot.
I even started binge watched the Prison Break and the True Blood shows online and whatever else I could out of the ordinary. I even started eating potato chips and pork. I did anything and everything to interrupt my patterns, my opinions and belief systems. But above all, I prayed and wrote. This helped me feel clear an strong. Besides, I had become my first experimental osteopathy patient I had dedicated and applied all my study time and material to myself. And, step by step I started making a progress trail on my impossible mission.
Before my follow up visit with the First Doctor, I focused on a miraculous disappearance of my symptoms. But, before I could even get to see my doctor for the check up, the First Doctor’s assistant booked me in at the wrong time at the hospital that was under renovation. Since patients for orthopaedic tests were waitlisted for months, the follow-up with my First Doctor never actually happened because the wait time for the next available time was very long.
I may have manifested that situation out of fear of receiving any negative information regarding my condition. So I continued to meditate and manifest and pray. I learned that manifesting was a great skill, but that listening to the universe was even a greater one. When I would ask the universe what I was to do next, it answered with “…swim, bike and speak Spanish…”.
BIKING, SWIMMING, SPANISH AND OSTEOPATHY IN TULUM
So, I let the universe guide me to swimming, biking and Spanish-ing. The only place I knew that I could do all that immediately was in Tulum, Mexico. I decided to give swimming and biking and Spanish speaking in Tulum a chance before the next follow up appointment with the First Doctor. So I went there.
I left everything behind and started speaking Spanish, biking and swimming daily. I knew this was going to be a long ride so buckled up for this unprecedented ride. I called it The Integration Mission because I was immersing myself into a different lifestyle beyond my comfort zones.
The only way was all the way cultural, spiritual, physical, professional, personal integration. Luckily, I had repeatedly integrated into different cultures in my life, so I believed in the formula. I was willing to do anything to avoid hip pain or more clinical hip tests. Biking made me strong and stable in places I was weak and loose. Swimming made me feel pain free, playful like a kid, feminine and even sexy. Swimming was an integration between activity, prayer, meditation and sensory inhibition. There was nothing else in this world like that turquoise ocean. The ocean was helping me balance out my physical body and my emotions.
I learned to release my anger and pain through biking and swimming. So I did more of both. I could feel the changes in my body and my mind. Speaking Spanish was reprogramming my brain and helping me un-become ME. It helped me release my fear of perfection and introduced me to the joy of swearing in another language.
Besides studying Spanish I worked on my osteopathy studies daily. My brain and my face were so tired all the time from learning and speaking in new ways that I hadn’t really had the time to be or feel like my old self. As I was loosing my identity and unbecoming myself, I felt my old ego identity thinning. I was building the new ego on faith.
THE TRANSFORMATION
I sacrificed the past ambitions of my ego and put unreasonable faith into the impossible hip healing Tulum transformation journey. That faith focused me on what was most important in my life.
Over the last 8 years, my faith in myself helped me finish school and keep me out of pain through simplicity of daily dose of swimming, biking and speaking Spanish. As a result of my transformational journey I was able to embody the knowledge through a lot of trail and error, create a practice called Pranacore and finally share it with the world.
Last time I visited my First Doctor, he only congratulated me and said he would be around if I ever needed him. I don’t think I magically changed the damage in my hips or the soft tissue, but I did change everything about my movement and thinking over the last 8 years. I had to give up many ambitions of becoming or doing fancy things with my body and grateful accepted having functional movement for life rather than ambitious driven injuries and surgeries for life.
PRANACORE
Pranacore is a dynamic movement experience that will take you on a journey from your breath to your inner power through biomechanics and asana. It is a class for the contemporary humans that encourages you transform chronic pain, tension or injuries into a functional lifestyle.
You will walk away empowered, having released tension and having developed a deeper awareness between your movement and meaning. You will transform back, neck, knee, hip and other pain and injuries into new functional mobility. You will build joint and core stability and aid your neuromuscular fitness ad well as smooth movement patterns off and on the yoga mat.
So do I believe in my gifts!? Yes, absolutely!!! Do I believe in your gifts? Yes!!!
As a therapist, teacher and guide, I can show you tools and formulas specific to your needs. I can help you soften hardened places in your body, transform pain into usable energy, and help you find a connection between your deepest meaning and your movement through your breath. I will help you focus on things that you could do to help you expand your experience towards becoming a better you. But, is someone else's calling good enough for you to change your life?
We all want to be better humans, either personally, professionally or in relationships. This is a natural human condition. The reality is that we are bombarded with multifaceted marketers selling us quick fix programs and telling us what we should do to to fill the whole that we are lacking. And we buy them. Daily! But are they good and nurturing enough products to give us back some deep meaning and resolution to our problems. Just sit with it!
When deciding to go on any kind of a transformational journey, consider your purpose. Know your purpose, or reason, or your why. This key element is will benefit you in the long run. Your reason for change has to be important enough for you. You are the reason worth changing your life for. So choose you. And choose with integrity.
TULUM
Finally, do I think traveling to Tulum is worth it when you feel the pull? Absolutely! Yes! Beyond doubt! Just come! And do it with a meaningful purpose or vision because it is the key to keeping you focused. But, if you don’t know your vision or purpose, this place will help you release the things you need to release, recharge your spirit and clear your vision.
I am so grateful I was able to do my changing and growing in Tulum. This place is the magical elixir that transforms lives at a very fast rate. For 8 years now I have steeped in it’s powerful transformational energy. I have also seen many other people go through transformational Tulum experiences. Even though you would benefit from its beauty and power on a restful vacation, Tulum’s specialty is to enhance anything you are driven or inspired to do.
In the old days, people used to pilgrimages and to show their devotion to a spiritual path, to recover their meaning, health or mission. Regardless what their mission was, they always came out with strengthened spirit and a clearer vision. A pilgrimage is equivalent to what transformational travel is in modern times. And neither are very different from a fairy tale.
So, if you were a fairytale hero what would your journey be like and how far would you be willing to travel to reach your magical elixir?
Click HERE to hear my story as I share it in 10 min talk I prepared for a presentation. Contact me if you have a similar story, or would like to learn more or come and work with Reprogramming Habitual Movement and Breath Patterns. Exclusively your 4/5 day retreats with therapeutics, coaching, practices, aquatic sport integration and more. I look forward to hearing from you