Embracing My Story: Chapter 39.

On Christmas Eve, 2016, I lost my son, and with him, a part of me died. That event triggered a cascade of unprecedented self-destruction and sabotage. A year later, my marriage ended—my marriage was everything to me, and I believed it would last my lifetime. Shortly after, I lost the job that fueled my passion and purpose. In those months, my grandparents also passed away, and the day I buried my beloved grandmother, I received my divorce papers.
Subtle, right?

In less than two years, I lost everything that defined me and couldn’t catch my breath. I found myself sitting on my parents’ balcony, feeling like a ghost of my former self. The lively and positive woman my friends expected was gone. I was a shadow, drowning in thoughts of guilt, panic, and fear. I was falling into an endless abyss, crying uncontrollably, in unbearable agony. When meditation and mantras managed to calm me a bit, some random event would trigger the terror again. I experienced anxiety that even thirteen bottles of floral essences couldn’t soothe. Airports became hell, and I couldn’t understand why, as I used to love traveling! I started smoking again. Everything hurt—life, thoughts, memories, seeing my friends with their perfect families. I avoided my own family because I couldn’t bear their worried looks. I felt numb, and the only moments of escape came from drinking myself into oblivion. Friends drifted away, and those who stayed lost patience seeing my deepening sorrow. I couldn’t grasp how life had turned so violently, nor could I imagine finding a way out. Clinging to the past, I resisted accepting a new reality where nothing of my old self remained. My world went dark.

Gradually, images started to appear—some from my past, others mysterious but comforting. I clung to these visions, which surfaced in dreams and rare meditative moments. I recalled two premonitions I had years ago in India—writing a farewell letter to my grandfather months before his unexpected passing and foreseeing, with horror, the end of my marriage.

An entire universe within me demanded my presence, and I knew this was my chance to heal from within, not by seeking answers outside. I was scared, divorced, and jobless, but my inner voice insisted I needed to stop and listen. I was ready.

I rented an apartment, turning it into my “ashram,” and organized my savings for a sabbatical filled with intense meditation, writing, workshops, dozens of books, two master’s programs, and weeks of silence. Guided by my heart, I surrendered everything and asked to be shown the way. Gradually, I started to breathe again, validating my deep-seated fears rather than avoiding them. I moved between the material and spiritual worlds. Always a mystic, I enjoyed studying religions and philosophies, though I never identified with any particular one. To me, spirituality is knowing that I am part of a divine, creative energy and that it is part of me. It’s understanding that our physical experiences have purpose and order, even if often incomprehensible. Spirituality isn’t something I believe in; it’s who I am. In my time of silence, I walked with great teachers who illuminated my path; through meditation, I received information and tools that healed my deep wounds. I journeyed to the darkest corners of my being, experiencing the “Dark Night of the Soul,” aptly described by Eckhart Tolle as “a kind of death.” It was indeed a death—and a rebirth. When life brings us to absolute uncertainty and our systems collapse, we must look inward, to our center of power, and realize we are much more than just mind and body. It was there that Wonder Woman revealed herself to me.

In the catharsis of a psychotherapy session, facing an empty chair, forgiving someone who wasn’t asking for forgiveness, and saying a painful goodbye to what I loved most with a shattered heart, I closed my eyes and surrendered everything. I didn’t know to whom or what, but I knew I couldn’t bear the pain much longer. Despite having a supportive family, a functioning body—even though my nervous system was in survival mode—a warm bed where I spent most of my time, and writing in my gratitude journal daily, the pain and guilt were unbearable.

With eyes closed, trying to breathe to a count of five, pause for two, and exhale for five, I entered a state I still can’t describe.

Suddenly, I saw myself—there I was, immobile on the floor, bloodied, battered, abandoned. Nothing I had studied could prepare me for that reflection. Total silence, feeling nothing, as if the Universe had finally heard me when I had asked days before for it all to stop.

I observed myself, without judgment or attachment, as if watching a movie from the beginning. I saw a golden beam of light touch my heart, growing with each heartbeat, bringing warmth, tranquility, trust, compassion, love, and tenderness. Within seconds, the place illuminated, and I sat beside myself, hugging tightly, wrapping myself in a mantle of light, and whispered: Everything will be alright. I promise. This too shall pass.

I turned into Wonder Woman the day I faced my darkness, the day I understood that no one had mistreated or abandoned me—it was I who had done so. Life merely provided the experiences I needed to understand and heal it. Wonder Woman isn’t the strong, masculine superhero we saw battling external enemies to save the good guys. Wonder Woman is the feminine energy within us, supporting us when we recognize, love, understand, and value ourselves despite our darkness. We are all “good” and “bad”; there is no separation. We are all one, and the call is to go within, to acknowledge ourselves as we are, without rejection, invoking that divine energy to show us the way lovingly.

Today, more than ever, the world needs us to be aware. This blog, this space of compassion and respect, is my offering of love to that divine cause. Today, I understand I have a powerful voice, a story to tell, and thousands of stories to listen to and learn from together. Today, I know I am a cleaner channel because there’s less noise in my mind, allowing me to hear myself better. I’m aware that more moments of darkness and storms will come, but I also know I am not alone, and everything will be alright. That promise keeps me going when the path becomes rocky again. That voice reminds me that this too shall pass because I am Wonder Woman.