3. My Witchy Side Was Trying to Tell Me Something

Let's talk about my witchy side. Right around the time I started my self-development, I started leaning into more hobbies and habits I enjoyed exploring. For me those were a series of what Bashar (channeled by Darryl Anka) would call permission slips that left breadcrumbs towards the awakening of my consciousness and what I would later find out was called "nervous system regulation".

For me those were:

Before I even got into my car accident, it started in 2015 when I was already attending classes at the NY Open Center about Integrative Hypnosis, the first time I was introduced to somatic tools and exposed to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I started doing the self-practices, but it never stuck then (and wouldn't stick for many years until my path kept flowing back to it). I studied Black Sect Feng Shui at that time to improve and optimize my home environment to be more favorable for my intentions and feel safer, more coherent for my nervous system.

After my accident, it became meditation, I went to several meditation workshops that were restarted annually. I usually dropped off at the point where they say to get deeper into the practice, you would have to eat vegetarian slop (at that point in my journey and Eastern European immigrant upbringing that was too much to bear). So I would drop the free courses because I didn't think I could be in integrity with the recommendation of being a vegetarian.

You already know I was into talking to Psychics. And my massage therapist was a bodyworker who received incredible intuitive insights during my sessions and was phenomenal. It introduced the concept of body-care to me, because my family weren't ones who regularly went for bodywork. I was nervous about getting enough "mileage" between massage sessions and was like what do I have to go for massage sessions every 2 weeks for the rest of my life? That felt foreign and I was scared to re-injure or beat up my body in between. and he said, well what are you going to do, not live your life? You like to be active.

I realized I'd been living in fear of re-injuring all this time, and this felt like permission to go do what I'd always wanted to do and try more things on my bucket list. I invested in a bike to ride around Brooklyn and the city (something I'd always wanted to do) and started focusing on my physical fitness by riding into work everyday, into my 12 hour shifts. But I put my flag in the ground that I was going to carve out the time despite my exhausting schedule and need for constant recovery blocks with this kind of work, to actually do things that STRENGTHENED my body.

I started going to yoga and pilates consistently, built up my flexibility and then worked my way up to rockclimbing (something I was afraid to do previously because I didn't want to hurt my back. I said fuck it and event went skydiving too. One of the precautions, for skydiving they said was back pain because of the at times not smooth landings. I said, to hell with that, I'm doing it. I'm not living my life in fear and holding back because there's a slight chance something won't go as smoothly as you'd like. I said fuck it and did aerial yoga, acroyoga and flying trapeze too (thanks ClassPass).

Eventually I found aromatherapy through the Open Center. I was AMAZED by what the sense of smell can do for creating more ease, relaxation, a sense of brightness and optimism for the nervous system. I even became a case study of a co-workers for her aromatherapy certification program for my back pain. I was impressed with how much relief I felt from the roll on oil she made me and even more amazed to learn that we had an department of Integrative Health in the Hospital that has a budget to reimburse you for Holistic wellness programs/trainings for self care or to infuse into your nursing work (what, hello work perk!?).

I immediately applied into the next cohort of the aromatherapy certification program my colleague was enrolled in and was for the first time in a long time super passionate about something. It invigorated my senses. And as I started learning how to make my own products, working with my hands, and learning about formulations for various ailments and calculations, I excitedly started making all of my own products.

I did my first iteration of what we now at Faces of the Future call "3 for Free". I took on 5 case study clients as part of fulfilling the requirement for aromatherapy certification to help them with a specific pain point, ie wound healing, insomnia, arthritic pain, oils for alopecia scalp treatment, etc. made personalized formulations for them, just like my colleague who introduced me to aroma did for me. I was one of her case studies.

I tracked their progress using my products, took great pics and documentation of their before and after situations. And after my initial round of 5 clients, I had a couple of repeat customers who wanted refills. I also began making these products for my friends and family as presents. Before I knew it, I had a tiny business that brought in a couple hundred extra bucks a year, and I had leads I met in the hospital at my job, my co-workers, my friends, family and yoga community.

It started making them out of love and excitement for my creations, and to be honest a lot of this started to help offset the cost of investing in the ingredients, they really add up!

At this time, I had already found an opportunity that fell into my lap to transition from my hell job into my next nursing role in Non-Invasive Cardiology, doing cardiac stress tests. Funny how that happens when I start focusing moreso on my interests and passions, this shows up.

It was a much more supportive environment in that I had stable daytime hours 4 days a week, Yes I still still on my feet, but it was WAY less physically demanding because most of the patients who came in came in electively as outpatients, with only a couple of inpatients who were bedbound, and it was way less life/death situations, only in the rare case someone had a reaction to their stress test.

I was relieved to have manifested a more conducive environment for work, where I had more bandwidth, emotional capacity and spaciousness to follow my passions and interests. Was it the answer to my entrepreneurial prayers? no. Was it a step in the right direction? yes. It was a more coherent work environment where I can land and reinvent my self and more intentionally redesign my life. A process that at Faces of the Future we now facilitate for our clients.

While I was developing my physical strength and core, working on my business ideas, refining my aromatherapy craft and spiritual pursuits for my soul like Kirtan, I went on a series of travels where I began seeking out more spiritual places amidst the party lifestyle adventure traveling. Like going to every "wat" (or temple) I could find in Thailand, retreats in Bali and then eventually even Burning Man, a place I had heard about but had no idea what it was really about, just that it was on my bucket list. Travel blogging and being a digital nomad was really popular at the time, so I thought how can I make this happen.

I agreed to go to Burning Man with a former colleague of mine who worked with me at my first nursing, nightmare job. Burning Man had been on my bucket list too. So in 2017, we went. We didn't know anyone else going, so I was in charge of picking an existing camp.

I went to the Burning Man main homepage, looked at the archive of camps, and my intuition told me to click to the middle of the alphabet to "L". I scrolled about halfway down the page, and the third camp I read that started with an L about sounded like the one -- LoveCow: a holistic healing arts & sound camp, with healthy, gluten free vegetarian, vegan and even raw options (perfect for my veggie friend!). I thought perfect, that's aligned with my interests! I found their Facebook group and found the group admin a DM telling them I'm a certified aromatherapist and my friend is into raw and vegan food.

I offered to host an aroma workshop. And just like that we were invited to join. More on what my first Burning Man experience taught me next time.