Healing Is a Gateway Drug to Awakening
I wasn’t looking for a spiritual awakening. I just wanted to lose weight. But as I began working through childhood beliefs and the grief I had carried since losing my son, Connor, something unexpected happened. The physical weight stayed, but I began to feel lighter—and experience life in ways I never could have imagined.
How Did I End Up in a Documentary About Consciousness?
I wasn't searching for spiritual experiences. I was trying to heal.
What began as a journey through grief, loss, and unresolved pain slowly evolved into something I never expected. Strange messages arrived in dreams. Unfamiliar words appeared in my mind and turned out to be real. A warning about a motorcycle accident arrived weeks before the event itself.
For years, I searched for rational explanations. Some experiences could be explained away. Others couldn't.
This chapter explores the unexpected experiences that emerged as I healed—and the questions that forced me to reconsider what might be possible.
How Did I End Up in a Documentary About Consciousness?
Four years ago, I had everything I thought I was supposed to want: a successful career, a beautiful home, a loving family and a life that looked good from the outside. Yet beneath it all was a persistent feeling that something was missing.
What began as a healing journey eventually led me down a path I never could have imagined—one filled with experiences that challenged my assumptions about consciousness, reality and what may be possible. In a few weeks, I'll be heading to The Monroe Institute to participate in a documentary called Instructions for Leaving.
This is the story of how I got here.
The Hardest Thing I've Ever Tried to Heal
For most of my life, I believed self-love was waiting for me in a smaller body.
I spent years dieting, tracking macros, counting calories, and chasing a version of myself that always seemed just out of reach. When I eventually gained nearly sixty pounds despite doing everything "right," I was forced to confront a painful truth: I hadn't loved myself when I was thin either.
This isn't a story about weight gain.
It's a story about self-worth.
About the beliefs we inherit, the standards we spend a lifetime chasing, and what happens when we finally stop waiting to love ourselves.
Healing the Ties That Bind
I thought I had worked through my childhood wounds. Then a family crisis left me screaming into a couch pillow. What surfaced was older than the situation in front of me—and led me to question the belief I had built my life around: that no one was coming, so I had to handle everything alone.