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From contemplating a cardboard box as a bed to empowering others to change their lives
I sat on the stoop with no money, no keys, no phone, no hope. The night was coming fast and I had no idea how to reach my AirBnB host.
The fog from burnout kept me from thinking clearly.
For hours I:
Smiled at people as they walked to dinner
Walked 10 paces back and forth
Sat in meditation
Eventually, I started to prepare a bed of cardboard boxes to sleep on. Right before giving up and sleeping on the bed I had prepared, I decided to swing by a nearby hotel to try my luck. They let me stay on goodwill.
The Airbnb situation eventually got resolved. What’s more important is I came to the island with the intention of doing yoga, and now I knew it was time.
I cried my eyes out in my first yoga class.
Only through the emotional roller coaster of the previous 24 hours was I really opened up, and ready to start releasing all the tension I stored in my body over the past decade. No mental gymnastics to process the grief and guilt trapped inside me were required.
The preceding six months had been terrible. My 10 year relationship had come to a burning demise, and my professional life was in upheaval. I had never been more off balance.
As I integrated into the yoga community on Isla Mujeres, I discovered a medicine couple that hold healing circles. I knew immediately it would help me greatly to work with them.
I made a pact with a friend to go there together, and a few months later I went to my first healing ceremony where I realized:
"We are all of the same essence."
This idea struck me like lightning.
For the ceremony, I was advised to bring an intention. I decided to seek clarity on a question that had been gnawing at me for many years:
Why did I cheat on my last partner?
An hour into the ceremony, a few Sanskrit words floated through my mind—Sat Chit Ananda—meaning truth, consciousness, and bliss absolute.
"You forgot you are Sat Chit Ananda. You forgot she is Sat Chit Ananda."
I burst into tears and started laughing.
What a fool I’d been.
In hurting her—my best friend, my lover—I had only hurt myself.
It was my ignorance, my confusion between what is real and what is not, that led me into situations I never would have allowed myself to enter. If only I had remembered the truth.
Now I understand: when I harm another, I harm myself. When I judge another, I judge myself. The world is full of mirrors, and striking a mirror—whether with words or fists—only bloodies the striker.
The level of destruction I created in my life started me on a healing path which led me to Mexico and Ecuador to follow different medicine paths.
First I opened to the path of yoga, something I had great resistance to for many years. I always felt too cool for yoga–like it was not something that would help me (yeah I was wrong…). Then I began to combine my meditation practice with plant medicine work.
During a two week retreat in Ecuador in April 2024, I shared a meditation technique with a friend there. At that point in time, I did not think much of what I had to offer the world.
After one of the medicine circles, the same friend said I gave him the greatest tool you could give another person, the power to change their life.
And that’s what this newsletter is all about.
Helping you to find the power within yourself to change your life.
Today’s dominant cultures teach us to look outside - to money, to influence, to sex - but none of these things grant us inner freedom.
I will share the tools that empowered me to discover this freedom, after a decade of not having it, because I want you to avoid this unnecessary suffering.
To that aim, this newsletter will focus on a few key topics.
Personal Transformation Stories
How I changed myself from someone who burns out every single year to being in touch with the essential balance between creative energy and recovery.
Maybe you are facing burnout, and I want you to remember you are not alone.With rest, inspiration, and the right tools, all of which are available, you will soon find yourself rejuvenated.
Bringing Meditation and Breathwork to Daily Life
Various meditation and breathwork tools you can use in the middle of a high stress board meeting, or late at night on your meditation cushion.
The modern workplace offers more stress than ever before, and knowing how to reconnect with your breath at a moment’s notice sets you up to leave behind the fight and flight mode. This practice will boost your productivity and your creative output as you will not be bogged down by negative external events as strongly.
Cultivating Creativty
Key principles I keep in mind as I write code, newsletters, and short form content that allow me to feel peaceful at the end of the day after long bouts of effortless creativity.
If you are forcing creativity - as I often have - this can make it less attractive to jump back into the creative process. I will share how to cultivate creativity with time management practices that promote slow state. So you can bring your unique ability to the world.
How I Approach Plant Medicine Integration
My journal prompts and emotional release practices I use each day to integrate my work with Ayahuasca.
By preparing for a plant medicine ceremony, the deeper your healing in the ceremony. For the months after a ceremony where you will do the real work, having access to my tools to use as strong waves of emotion rise up will make you feel stronger.
Cultivating Spirituality In Everyday Living
How to approach the ups and downs of life through a lens of gratitude and learning rather than challenge and despair.
You can wire your brain for gratitude by creating moments of gratitude on a daily basis. When you’re able to see opportunity where before you would have only seen loss, your mind becomes more expansive, creative, and open to grow.
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Thank you for reading.
Namaste,
Evan