“I’m definitely not coming home the same woman.  Seriously, there’s nothing left!  I thought this quarter life crisis was well and truly over. Fuck! This is that double whammy Saturn Return my astrologer spoke of.  Ahhhhhh….this soul journey better be worth the ride coz I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

These were my parting words to my best friend before I boarded the plane to America.

I literally felt like I boarded that plane with nothing. Just me and my bags.  I felt naked. And raw. And totally clueless as to why I was even going back to America seeing I had been there only six months earlier.  This trip felt greedy and selfish, at least from my ego’s point of view.

Deep down though, I knew I had no choice.  My Soul led me here.

So what really happened during my trip to America?
What really happened when I returned home?
And what’s really been happening ever since?

The reason I’m sharing this with you now is because, well, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m not the kind of the person to share my stuff for the sake of being “vulnerable”.  If I don’t deem my stories and lived experiences useful, you’ll never hear about it.

But this, my journey into my 8th chakra and how it’s impacted my life…now this is useful. Especially for those who wonder if it’s really true that you can connect/access/download your life purpose direct from your 8th chakra.

In short, my answer is yes.

If you were to also ask if I believe this is the only way, my answer would be no. I know lot of people living their purpose who didn’t do this work. But for me, this is my path, my journey, my story.  I  chose to walk this path long before I was given the opportunity. Now, I’m here living it.

So lets wind the clock back six months ago, to where things really started to shift. 

October 2013:

• After 12 months of working solidly on my first 7 chakras, venturing into my 8th chakra and meeting my 12 soul essences with Belinda as my mentor, I begin phase II of the 8th chakra journey where my 12 soul essences show me their world.  First up is the hummingbird, the bird that takes my breath away and instantly brings me so much joy! (If only they lived here in Australia!).

• I fly to America for Emerging Women Live in Boulder, Colorado. I’m surrounded by 300 other incredible women, many who I already know, thanks to the internet. I’m even rooming with one of these beautiful souls, Laurie, a fellow Enneagram Coach I met 3 years ago.

• Whilst in Boulder, I make no “concrete” plans to meet anyone and instead I’m trusting in divine guidance and being in the flow. I recite my core desire feelings every morning and every night, along with this prayer:

“May this conference be exactly what I need. May I meet the people I need to meet. May the connections I make here be genuine and real. May this be the weekend that changes it all.”

(Be careful what you wish for, hey!?)

• On the third day, I find myself in the hotel bar with 3 other divine women. One of those women is Sera Beak. As she finishes telling us something deep and profound about Her Red Lady, the crowd erupts into a wild cheer and we look over to see all the TV screens showing a sea of people wearing red shirts. We all burst out laughing.

• The final night of Emerging Women Live calls for a dance party. I’m captivated by a woman on the dancefloor. I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s radiating pure joy. Turns out she teaches ecstatic dance and invites me to her class first thing Monday morning. I go and we end up having a coffee date immediately after to talk life, love and business.

• My last night at the hotel includes dinner by the fire in the lobby with a small group of beautiful women sharing their stories. There are tears. There is laughter. Most importantly, there is love. The night finishes with me and this beauty chillin’ in the spa talking Soul truth. We’ve known of each other for 3 years and only NOW in this moment do our worlds collide.  No coincidence.

• I land in Phoenix. The energy shifts dramatically. I’m here for only 48hrs. There’s no time to sleep or rest. I’m here to play! And I do. I feel at home here. I’m surrounded by hot women who love women, and gay men who make me laugh so hard my cheeks hurt. There’s poetry, music, dancing, magic, red wine, cocktails, dark chocolate and raspberries.  And the desert. Something about this desert makes my soul come alive.

• While in Phoenix, I receive a facebook message from my friend back home cc’ing someone else saying:

Hi girls…you know when you think “shit yeah, similar stories, awesome women, these two should totally meet?” That’s what I’m thinking here.

Turns out this gorgeous soul is a sexologist & sex educator and our stories are so similar that it’s no coincidence I receive this email while I’m in Phoenix with Jeanette LeBlanc, the very woman who reached out to me after I wrote this post.

• The moment I land in Los Angeles, I soak in a bath and catch up on sleep as I feel into the energy shift I experienced in Phoenix. I feel called to meditate and journey up into my 8th chakra. It’s confirmed. I’m in a new soul essence.

• Before jumping on a plane back to Australia, I attend a birthday party in Malibu in one of the most stunning homes. I find myself observing the sexual energy rising in me and in others and how it’s being exchanged (intentionally or not). It trips me out and I wonder if I’m making this all up in my head. My plane ride is spent contemplating this energy and what it all means.

• I turn 29. I’m reminded that the body never lies.

• I have a session with Belinda. Our conversation revolves heavily around sexual energies and what I’m learning and how this is related to my soul purpose. For some reason, I’m so resistant to fully receiving this message.

• 48 hours later I receive this email:

“Hi Susana. Hope you are well! Loved following your pics while you were in the States – looked like an amazing trip! So, I had a dream last night which told me I needed to email you and ask if you had any book/resource recommendations on female sexuality/sexual awakenings.  Thanks so much!”

I burst out laughing. The synchronicity’s are providing me with great amusement.

November 2013:

• I teach a guided sacred dance session to 100+ women at the Earth Events Radical Self Love Party. It goes off! I receive stories and compliments all night and even up until this day such as:

Your guided dance reminded me of my goddess like tendency to dance which I have completely neglected for far too long. It’s time to dance more.

When are you starting classes? We’ll be your most devoted students. That was wild!
 
I’m married. And I’m straight. But I think I just fell in love with you. And every woman in here, including myself!

I just wanted to say a massive thank you for the guided sacred dance. It was amazing. I really needed that sort of movement and left the party feeling alive.

I was at your sacred dance party a month ago and I have seriously thought about it EVERYDAY since. It was radddd!!!

Got it! Host more dance parties. Bring women back to life. Help them turn back on.

• This high HIGH was met with a low LOW. Intense experiences of grief and loneliness mixed with a wild terror. A kind of terror I had never experienced before (definitely a dark night of the soul kind of moment). I knew what was happening, even though I was extremely confused. I knew I had to surrender but the terror took over.

• Two weeks passed and a “numbness” started to creep in. This was my red flag.  Pain is totally okay. For me, it means I’m alive. But numbness for me is a BIG danger zone.  So late one night, in the middle of an electrical storm, I reached out to the people I was most afraid of knowing what was really going on.  Hitting send felt like an epic lightning bolt jolted right through me .  Here’s a snippet of that email.

“It’s midnight. And it’s one of those nights where I don’t have my daughter and my life transforms into something else. The music is blaring. But only one song is playing. On repeat. The kind of song that hits me in the right spot on this particular night. My glass is full with wine. I so want to get drunk but my body doesn’t take more than a few sips. The creative juices are flowing.  But so are the tears.

I am in the strangest phase right now. I’ve been here since I returned from the States.  I thought it was just the settling back home thing, but this is something else…and I feel called to be really transparent with you girls because I can feel myself retracting with fear.

As I clean up the leaky love in my life (something my heart + throat chakra are craving right now), I am also experiencing intense feelings of loneliness and a lot of distrust.  I’m extremely sensitive to energies and to be honest it’s tripping me out.  I’m discovering things I would rather not know.  Take that back.  I’m just struggling with my body telling me things that are SO SPOT ON that I wish weren’t true.”

• The love came flooding in. One of my babes would send me random love texts simply asking “how are you today babe?” They always made me smile. Another would pull oracle cards for me and send them via text message. Another would call me and entertain me with her crazy 8th chakra journey.  There were crystal healings, hugs with soul sistas, yummy home cooked food, sleepovers, tears, bonfire ceremonies, wine and lots of good reading such as Wild Nights by David Deida and Sacred Sexual Union by Anaiya Sophia).  I was starting to feel like myself again. (Big Lesson: You can’t do this alone. You mustn’t do this alone!!)

• I find an old journal entry dated June 14th, 2011 declaring my life purpose and what I’m here to do in the world.  I laugh that a part of me needed to take this 2.5yr journey to come full circle. But thank god I did. Something tells me it would of been a false start with my ego leading the way.

• The 3 soul essences I journeyed with this month were wild. I’m glad I make it to the other side. That’s all I have to say.

December 2013.

• I post my interview with Belinda: S&M Conversations. Love, Sex and Attraction. The comments, the emails, the tweets, the thank you’s, the stories all came flooding in.  Turns out women really needed to hear that.

• Then men begin to enter my world.  The first is Mike Hrostoski. I’m not usually drawn to mens work but I feel like I’m getting sucked into a vortex reading his website and can’t leave no matter how hard I try.  I resonate deeply with so much of his work that I’m compelled to contact him. Turns out there’s only 1 degree separation between us thanks to my Boulder trip. At this point, all I can do is laugh at how the Universe is always working in mysterious ways.

• I feel like I’m finally starting to understand this whole Soul journey/8th chakra thing. I’m getting the messages loud and clear.

• Then BOOM! Apparently, before I can fully transition into my new world (and the new year), there is one last thing that exists from my old world that is yet to be destroyed: my relationship and involvement with an online community of 600+ women.  It was here I saw clearly where I was hiding and where I was playing it safe. It was here that I could truly feel the contrast between soul and ego, fear and love.  My beliefs about community, sisterhood, relating, change and leadership were taken to a whole new level of LOVE. And my stripper soul essence led the way. That’s what inspired this post about freedom.

• Fear creeps in. No one is on this path I am on. I ask for a sign, a miracle, something to assure me I’m exactly where I need to be. I visit the online School of the Modern Mystic and watch “Manifesting with the White Light”.  Less than 48hrs later I have the honour of meeting this divine soul in person and watching her perform LIVE. She reminds me “I am a girl on fire.”

• I unplug from social media, the internet and my phone. It’s time to come back to the real world and as I do I quickly notice my self-love tank is empty. My body craves water. I swim in oceans, fresh water creeks, swimming pools and take super long showers. My body craves the earth. I walk barefoot, I hug the trees, I fall asleep on the grass in the shade and I lay on the gigantic rocks as I soak in the sun. I crave mother earth, the sacred feminine. As I surrender to these cravings I experience ecstasy in every way my soul deeply desires. And I surround myself with love and ONLY love: my family and my spunky monkey’s from the 90’s.

• I experience 6 soul essences in one month. I’m spent! And relieved. Only one soul essence to go.

Read PART TWO here.