My Internal Process of Writing, re-writing, and daring to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
Is this a Memoir or a Self- help book? Can it be both in one?
I have come to the conclusion that this is my Memoir. My story.
Memoir first. Focus. I am a double Gemini so I have several books in me…Get one book done, do not try to write 5 books at once! A voice within me shouts.
Self-Help Book next. How can I write a self-help book if I feel like I can’t help myself?
The other puzzles can wait. This is one puzzle. One story. My memoir. Focus on one. Then the next….
The process of writing my story has been a healing journey in itself. A healing journey about a healing journey.
Another self help book is forthcoming, which I predict will be a Healing Map Journey, A guide to radical forgiveness in your own style. Perhaps another of the Spiritual Mafia, my journeys with a Mexican Shaman who was like the Spiritual version of Pablo Escobar. My double gemini nature has 6 book projects sprawled all over the floor of my office, as I open my journals from 25 years ago…..I wrote almost everyting down that Yogi Bhajan and Guru Dev said to me over more than two decades.
I have had an insecurity of my English, as in College level English, the teacher wrote on the board, The boy runs fast — Fast is the noun. he said with confidence. I walked out of college that day and never returned, as at least I knew that Fast was a verb. So I have no formal writing skills as I write my story. But I am tapping into my heart and writing from a place where I hope to find humor as after all, this is the only life I’ve got.
I just found my first book proposal from over a decade ago, where I was writing about the dichotomy of being a blonde American woman in the stark Indian boarding school, and growing up to learn to be a Spiritual Master. But I left one key element out of the book. A secret so deep I had convinced dozens for decades that nothing “unusual” ever happened behind closed doors with my spiritual teacher.
Now with the rampage #metoo movement, but more the internal process of the relief that I no longer need to lie for another half century of my life, I include all the truths of the puzzle. They are ugly. They should not have happened. But it did. And now I am free to tell it from my direct experiences.
The process of telling my story has mirrored my misbelief that I was a victim, not good enough to get a book deal or a literary agent. Several agents confirmed my disbelief by rejecting proposal after proposal. Re-write, then new ghost writer, then new agent. There was even one top literary agent who had an encounter with Yogi Bhajan and almost abused herself.
Her direct quote “You do not have enough followers on instagram, you need to increase your instagram presence. And people don’t care about Yogi Bhajan, by the time your book comes out it will have been 20 years since he has been dead.”
As I pull up my first book proposal from 2011, exactly 10 years ago.
I am sitting in a private jet, talking to Wendy, the producer for Tom Hanks’s film Forrest Gump. She said it took her 10 years for people to believe in that film. So I am right on target, I think to myself. If Forest Gump took 10 years to get produced, I can take 10 years to get my book self-published.
After listening to my story, she said, There is definitely a story there.
So do I listen to A or B or C, so many diverse opinions of how to write, re-write. Delete all start over. Don’t write at all.
Hire a professional writer. My literary agent contract is about to expire. I was told to re-write it, without much input or assistance, my ghost writer/editor has quit as he wants to guarantee payment that I do not have right now. So it is back to me. Me writing for me. Not to please anyone else. To stand in my power, my light, my belief in myself that I can do it. I can put all the puzzle pieces out on my dining room table, and put them back together, one by one. I put one piece in and I freeze for a month in the re-traumatization of the event of that piece of puzzle
As I sit in Marina Del Ray, with a top hollywood film producer in his back yard due to Covid, he looks deeply into my soul.
“You know what to do. You must follow your heart. No one can tell your story but you.” I will stand with you. You are a remarkable woman, and it is an honor to be in your presence.”
He said, as the sun was setting and the ocean breeze brought freshness to the air. The birds were chirping, and in this moment, I knew. I just needed to write. Write to heal and heal and write.
As he squinted, I could barely see his eyes, but I could feel that he could see mine. He had a big smile on his face, then he got very serious. We had been sitting in silence for quite some time after a hearty 2 hour conversation.
“I have a sense that there is this veil.” he said. I sat silently looking at him. Not sure what to say so i was quiet, although I wanted to ask him what he meant by this veil. As we sat in this prolonged familiar silence, i recognized how tight my body was. How in this silence I started to relax into being myself. I was thinking to myself that I am thankful to recognize that I am myself. I am graceful, powerful and magnificent. Not because of these Spiritual mafia men. Not because they promised me the kingdom and the throne. But in spite of them. I was magnificent before I met them, and was magnificent throughout the trauma and abuse. And as I sit across from this unconditional loving accomplished hollywood producer, who can see through my soul in a loving, genuine way that wants nothing more than for me to heal completely.
I returned home sitting deeply in this experience.
“How was your meeting?” my daughter asked with demanding inquisition.
“It was intense. I feel seen. I feel sensitive. I feel raw. I feel beautiful and powerful. I feel ready to write my story myself, and get an editor.”
“The producer wants to meet you.” I said matter of factly.
“Why?”She asked
“To understand me better.” I said
We were both standing barefoot on the cold tile floor in the kitchen making salad, I was washing the lettuce and she was cutting carrots and celery. Our dog rascal was sniffing around begging for parmesan cheese.
“Oh” she said.
She looked at me with a deep look in her eyes, when she got serious and clear.
“If he asks me about you, I will tell him that even though all your students around the world think you are so special and la la la, you are just a normal human. You are just normal. That is what I will tell him. You are normal”
This book is about me, and my life. It is about my ‘not so normal life’ and my heart wanting and to have some sense of ‘normal’.
Amongst various tragedies, sexual assault, harem life, drama, romance, marriage, divorce, foreclosure, lawsuits, accidents, friendships lost and gained, defamation, all in the setting of what most see as a CULT, I would clearly define it as the Spiritual Mafia. I have watched all of the Narcos series and closely observed the behaviour of the drug lords, and the two Spiritual heads that I had the circumstance to be their lovers groomed to be the next Spiritual head, has given me a new perspective on the environment that I called home. Instead of power, sex and drugs, it was power, sex and yoga and healing. As I took a step back, I couldn’t see at the time that it was wrong. I was so conditioned, as it was stealing my soul.
This book is written for me to heal my heart and my body. I pray that you may feel healed or inspired to be your own version of normal. That you love yourself exactly as you are.
