monyetboy.pdf - Tareq Nassri

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Introduction I, Tareq Nassri a.k.a MonyetBoy, was born and raised in Malaysia. Monyet is the Malaysian word for monkey, and why I call myself MonyetBoy will be more apparent as you read this book. I have been using alternative healing modalities, such as reiki tarot and shamanism, in my life since I began my journey of self-discovery in 2016. I was diagnosed with HIV in 2013 and this was what catapulted me into my healing journey. A journey where I was extremely blessed to have met individuals who assisted me to reach a point in my life where I was no longer in pain and suffering. After battling depression, drug abuse and suicide attempts in the first 3 years of my diagnosis, I managed to slowly turn my life around. 3 years ago, I had been approached by a local publishing house to write a book about my story of being someone living with HIV. Writing a book has always been a dream of mine, yet at the time when I was given the opportunity, the feeling of excitement to have this dream come true didn’t last for too long. This was because I felt like I had nothing to really write about. I had already done numerous interviews and even a TedX Talk about my experience, mostly about the discrimination I had faced and the depression that came with it. I no longer felt that repeating the same story would in any way benefit others or myself​. Coming to Palawan a year ago in 2019, I had no inkling or thought of writing a book till recently. The idea had only come to me once I had encouragement from friends and family, and strangers who enjoyed reading my Facebook post every now and then. I reflected on my first 9 months in Palawan and the things that I had learned and experienced through the modality of InnerDance and realized I had enough material to share. Material that I believed could help readers. My back story may be different from what others have experienced in their lives, but emotions are universal. Emotions are the same. I ask, that when you read this book, without just focusing on me as a character, I invite you to reflect on your own life journey and take what lessons you find you can resonate with. In no way am I saying that the realizations or advice that I have written in this book are the ultimate universal truth, but they are of my own views, beliefs and understanding of life. I in no way condemn any other teachings or beliefs that differ from mine, and neither am I saying that you need to follow my practices and beliefs. I am merely sharing my own journey in trust that it brings you a sense of clarity, peace, comfort and love with your own self. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This book is my love letter to my mother. For without her blessings and support, I would have never had the chance to experience the healing that I so desperately needed. I love you MOM. THE DREAM As I played with bright colourful orbs against the star-filled night sky, I could feel so much love and life filling my entire body. I thought this was the most magical thing I’ve ever experienced. The orbs were in the colours of the rainbow. Chakra energy I had thought to myself. Maybe this was a symbolic reference to me doing self-healing work all this time. My attention was brought to the side where I saw a bunch of people dancing around a fire. Each and every one of them was smiling and laughing. My “soul family” I thought to myself. Because I didn’t recognize any of them, but it felt like I did. The scene changed to me being at a beach. I was looking at someone, a male figure from behind, sitting on the sand next to what seemed like the clearest and beautiful waters I had ever seen. Instantly I wondered if this was the soulmate I had been longing for all this time. I decided to get a closer look. As I moved closer to this stranger, he began to turn his head towards me. I was surprised to see my own face, with a bright and happy smile, staring gently right back at me. I woke up from this lucid dream state feeling extremely confused. Where was this place? Did I just imagine all this? Was this even real? And this was the first time I had ever seen my own face in a dream. This was something I had hated about going into deep meditation and dream states. Waking up from it. Because in my 4 or 5 years of meditating and experiencing lucid dreaming since my initiation into Munay Ki, I would constantly find myself being transported into magical lands that brought so much happiness and joy or seeing versions of my life that were completely different from my current state. As much as I would be happy in those visions, the reality of my current state would make me sad. Why did this happiness only seem to exist in my altered state of consciousness? Why couldn't it be my reality? When would I actually start living my dreams? Stage 0. The Fool New Beginnings. Free Spirit. "Was I making the right decision?" I asked myself. I had just been offered a raise at my current job, working as an assistant manager in one of the top bars in Kuala Lumpur. A job which helped me get my footing back in the real world, and a job that helped me pay off most of my debts. Debts that had been accumulated over a span of 4 years from being jobless and being addicted to drugs. Before working at the bar, I had been volunteering at a nursing home and rehab centre just outside the city. I originally had gone there to be a patient, to get sober and to deal with my depression and suicidal mental state. It worked, just not in the way I had imagined it to be, but it worked. Nothing seems to happen the way I imagine things to be and normally the reality of things is always much better than what I anticipated. Reflecting back on the past 6 years, I felt a sense of relief about where I had started to where I am now. It all seemed so gloomy and dark in the beginning, without a single hope of light insight. I had moved to 12 different homes in the span of a year, had been fired from a job because of my medical condition, kept surviving on whatever money I could make in a day, I felt like I was at the lowest of lows in life. But thanks to a great support system of friends, things did start to get lighter. It started to get better. I had made new improvements in my life, my mind was no longer filled with thoughts of suicide, I had money to eat, I had a roof over my head and I was actually enjoying myself more. So was going to Palawan really necessary? Was I just throwing away this new sense of comfort really the smartest thing to do? The idea of moving to Palawan had come to me when I met Pi, the founder of InnerDance, for the first time in May in Kuala Lumpur where he was holding sessions over the weekend. I had participated in InnerDance a couple of times before and could never really understand the depths of the modality at the time. All I knew about InnerDance was that you laid down, music would be played, and your body would start to move without you actually being in control. I enjoyed it. It felt light and fun, and I was always interested to see what my body would end up doing during the session. This session with Pi, however, my movements became more of a performance, where else before I would either just stand up and walk around looking for something. It felt like I was playing 2 characters in this session. One of a sultry belly dancer, and the other of poised Sheikh enjoying the bellydancers performance. My middle eastern roots coming to the surface I figured. When the session was done, Pi began to talk about Maia. An eco-village he owned located in Palawan, Philippines. He explained how there were mud houses spread across the land, representing each colour of the chakras, and how most nights after each InnerDance session people would gather around a bonfire exchanging wisdom and dancing under the night sky. And how the eco-village was just a walking distance to one of the nicest beaches in Palawan. I sat there stunned. He literally just described a place I had seen in my dreams a month ago. I knew I had to ask him more, as something I've learned in my life is that there is no such thing as a coincidence. I emailed Pi a few weeks later, telling him about my dream and how it matched his explanation of Maia, and how I felt like I needed to go to Maia without really knowing the reason but that I just needed to. He agreed saying he remembered me from that InnerDance session. I asked if a month visit would suffice, to which he replied, "Make it 6 months. You are in need of deep rest." Speaking to some family and friends about this interaction with Pi, I was met with different opinions. Friends who were into the spiritual life path said I should definitely take up the offer, where else my other friends and family said I was crazy. I kept going back and forth with my decision. I had to ask myself why I needed to go. Yes, I had a stable job and money in my pocket, but was I really happy? If I was happy, why were my days mostly filled with anxiety and fear? And when these emotions got intense, I would find myself holding a meth bong just to feel at ease again. It wasn't till one day at work where I had a full-blown panic attack, losing control of my saliva, that I knew these were signs of me slowly falling back into dark times. I was 34. I couldn't keep losing control like this every time the pressure of the real world started to get the best of me. So I handed in my resignation letter, made necessary arrangements and booked my flight. I was taking a leap of faith and as scary as it felt, something inside of me knew this was necessary. And now here I was the night before my departure, asking myself if what I was doing was right. "It is the right decision," I said to myself. Years of doing meditation and trying other alternative healing modalities just weren't enough, so why not give it one more try by fully immersing myself into InnerDance in a foreign place. Plus I already saw myself being happy there in my dreams, so why not trust the vision and all the signs from the universe leading up to this moment. Most of all, what did I really have to lose? Nothing. I could always come back and pick up where I left off. I went to bed excited about this new chapter in my life that was about to begin. Stage 1. The Magician The Expression of Self. The Divine Masculine. As I settled down into my new life in Palawan, Philippines, I first started to become aware of my surroundings and what was available to me. There were people from different nationalities who practiced different alternative healing modalities, but all mainly were there to immerse themselves in the modality of InnerDance. InnerDance, I further learned, is a modality that uses different types of music and sound frequencies that plays with the circadian rhythms of the brain, thus unlocking suppressed emotions and memories via uncontrollable body movements. Pairing this with other modalities that I had learned, I now had a wider library of self-help tools. There wasn't a strict schedule or a set of rules to follow, so I was free to just go at my own pace, exploring the area around me and to take a time out when I felt like it. A much needed deep rest as Pi had mentioned. It was all about me myself and I. In between getting to know people, and exploring the city, I dove straight into doing InnerDance every week, and before each session, I kept asking the question, Who Am I. During one particular session, I had a vision of a purple flower with a white glow around. The odd thing was it had what looked like thorns piercing inwards. I woke from the session thinking how strange for a flower to have thorns instead of petals. I shared this vision with the new friends I had made here, explaining how I felt it was a metaphor of me protecting myself. By building up a defence wall but not realizing I was actually hurting myself. I'd been told in the recent past, that I had a lot of anger in me and that at most times I came off as defensive and stubborn. I never felt this to be true. And this brought up the question. Who was I really? Yes, I was a 34-year-old guy who held several jobs since I was 19. I was an outgoing funny person who had the tendency to fall in love quickly. The company of friends and family were always important to me. And of course, I was someone who was living with HIV. Someone who for the past years had found himself speaking publicly about HIV, helping to counsel others who were living with HIV and thus creating an entire image surrounding the disease. It dawned on me that all I really knew about myself was HIV. About how I went through a turbulent childhood, with mother and father issues, a teenager who suffered from self-image issues, and finally a young adult who went through life constantly searching for true love without any care about self-worthiness and instead chose to self medicate with the help of drugs and alcohol. All those events leading to the dreaded diagnosis, which further pushed me into depression and a state of absolute chaos. For the past couple of years, I had been speaking publicly about my diagnosis, doing interviews and sitting on discussion panels. And it was always the same story of how I was mistreated and battling depression. This was just how people viewed me, or maybe this was just how I viewed myself. Even when people would say I was brave and courageous for sharing my story, I still felt like I was taken pity on and that I was a fraud because I was still feeling down on myself most of the time. How did this story that I was telling benefit anyone? This story wasn’t even helping me? I did not like this story about myself as it just didn't feel like who I really was. I was stuck in an image that I had created unconsciously. An image that I no longer wanted to be, nor felt associated with. The past 5 years I had been treating HIV as something that was separate from me. A disease that I had contracted from being reckless in my life and something I wanted so desperately to push out of my being. I was resisting this part of myself. Maybe this was why even though I had practiced so many different modalities of alternative healing, I still didn’t fully heal myself or find the peace that I needed. Maybe I needed to fully embrace the diagnosis and accept it as part of who I was now. So I did not ask myself, how do I get rid of the disease, because I needed to embrace it, nor did I ask the question “Who am I”, because I didn’t know who I was anymore. But instead, I asked, who is HIV? I had to be brutally honest with myself. What parts of my personality were part of this moulding that created this character, HIV? What were the emotions that I had carried with me throughout my whole life? Lonely. Judgmental. Ugly. Angry. Sad. Manipulative. Stubborn. Vindictive. Unforgiving. Afraid. As I wrote these words, I just kept looking at the paper in disbelief. How did I get to this point? Was this really who I was? I never once saw myself as any of these words, but the reality was exactly this. I was disheartened at first, but I remembered that just like everything in this world, change was possible. It was solely up to me to really want to make this change. The one word that stood out the most was lonely. It makes sense doesn't it when you think about the virus. It starts alone. Lonely. Wanting to spread. Wanting to convert others. Regardless of how much damage it causes to itself and its surrounding. It just wanted to feel like it belonged. Much like a human being. That's the downside of being a human being I guess. We get so caught up with life, wanting and needing to be loved, that we forget to just love and want ourselves first. I asked myself, why did I want to be wanted? Was it really important? Because even when I was with someone, why did I always end up being alone? I was always surrounded by amazing people in my life, but I still felt lonely. Why? And during an InnerDance session, I asked this question again. During the session, in my vision, I saw a young boy standing on top of a hill looking out at the night sky filled with stars. I thought to myself, this boy must be so happy. The boy turned to look at me. I wasn’t expecting him to look so sad. “I’ve lived many lives, and seen many wonders, but always on my own," he said to me. I felt the pain he had in his heart, so much so that it felt like my own. “Of course you feel my pain, for we are the same person". In an instant, the boy disappeared and I was left staring at a blank space. Until a vision of an eye appeared. It was brown, beautiful and had so much sense of power coming from it. I wonder who this eye belonged to. I heard this voice say, "Don't worry. The one is coming. But first, tend to yourself." Look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Who am I?". Reflect on your entire life journey and ask these questions: DoI like the story I'm telling about myself? Do I love and recognize the image that I see? Do I really know who I am? Be brutally honest. Stage 2. The High Priestess The Inner voice. The Divine Feminine One of the worst things said to me after I was diagnosed with HIV was, "What makes you think you know any better or that you're able to make decisions? All the decisions you have ever made have led you to being sick." These words were uttered to me by a family member, someone who I loved dearly, all because I had spoken up about how I felt she was being unfair in her business dealings. Did I no longer have the rights to speak up because I was diagnosed with HIV? Was I now completely worthless as a human being? This interaction affected me in ways I would have had no understanding about till now. I do know that at the time, I took that hurt and changed it into anger. My every action after this interaction was fueled with anger to prove my family member wrong. Actions that would affect all those in my path, disregarding their own rights or safety. And if I was being honest, this is exactly how I would act when I was in my late teens and young adult age. Its human nature isn't it when we are told who we are is wrong or when we are told not to do something, we react in the totally opposite way. We have this urge to prove we know better. I was constantly blaming the outside for my behaviour. People, environment and religion, but not realizing I was merely acting out. And this wasn't my inner voice. I didn't have an inner voice. All my beliefs and thoughts were in some ways a product of brainwashing by society, peer pressure from friends and most damaging, was inherited from family. Not having our own inner voice, we also tend to not stand up for ourselves or we feel unable to say no in a situation, even when we don’t feel safe and comfortable. Most of us, from a young age, are told what is right and what is wrong. We are told how we should act, who we should be friends with, what we should aspire to be in life, who we should pray to and what we should or shouldn't believe in. And most of the time we follow as we are told. Even when we don’t necessarily agree, we follow suit because of this fear of being unaccepted, rejected and most of all being judged. And thus start this unhealthy cycle of judging others and judging ourselves. Judgement blocks the intuition. Because we are constantly stuck in this duality concept of good and bad, we no longer are able to see ourselves or others in a clear light. We end up constantly seeking validation from the outside world, without really doing what we feel like doing. To make matters worse, I also had made my pain and hurt of the past, as my main focus point in life. By doing so I wasn’t able to see beyond the pain and hurt, and was unable to see or imagine a future that was any different than what I was used to. I struggled with this for a very long time. By the time I was 15, after running away from home for the second time, I decided I was no longer going to listen to what anyone said. I had spent the last 8 years doing everything that was asked of me only to endure more abuse and ridicule. I decided I was done listening and that from now on, I was just going to do whatever I wanted. But here comes the trap. I was doing things not because my soul wanted to. I was doing things just to rebel and go against people who tried to "control" me, without caring if things were good or bad for me. I became extremely stubborn and never wanted to heed advice even from people who truly loved and cared for me. All that mattered was that it was the opposite of what was said to or asked of me. And this always led me to experience less than favourable outcomes. But I was too deep in this unconscious angry victim mode to realize how I was actually self-sabotaging my own self, my own life. It was always someone else's fault, never my own. I had given away all my control and power rendering myself helpless and hopeless. This really had to change if I wanted my life to get better. How would I figure out what my true beliefs about myself and the world were? How would I undo years of mental programming that were charged with pain, hurt and abuse? I could not constantly seek validation from the outside. I could not call out every person in my life and get into an argument about who was right or wrong. It would be pointless and mindless. You can’t change someone else or force someone else to believe in something that they don’t. People need to see and decide for themselves if they are wanting to change. The answer was made clear. I had to go deep within myself. Deep within my being and figure out where these emotions and "bad" stuff were held inside my body. How they came to be. I had to start reliving the past. Going back to as far as my childhood. Remembering incidents that I so desperately wanted to forget ever happened, trauma's that I tried so hard to suppress. Having to remember why I had certain beliefs that I followed and believed in, even though I no longer resonated with. I needed to do this to find my own inner voice. A voice that wasn't tainted with outside influences. I had to figure out who I truly was. But where would I start? I got my answer during an InnerDance session here in Maia Earth Village, the place I was living at. At the beginning of the session, a conversation about my mother was brought up, about how it began with me loving and longing for her and ended with me disliking and feeling hurt by her. As we laid down and the music began to play, my mind began to fill itself with so many thoughts of anger and hatred towards her. I told myself I was never going back to her and that I wanted nothing to do with her. If she didn't love me, why should I love her? I then curled up into a ball and began to cry, feeling so much pain, sadness and fear. These feelings started to intensify as the session went on. It took a few seconds for me to realize that this wasn't my feelings any longer, but it was that of my mothers. I understood that I was feeling what she was probably going through during her pregnancy with me and during the time she was raising me. Once this realization occurred, an image of Quan Yin, the goddess of love, mercy and compassion, came to me. She held me in her arms and asked me if I now believed that my mother truly loved me. I said yes, and instantly my entire being was filled with what I can only describe as unconditional love. Listen to the stories you tell yourself... What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about the world? Do you stand up for your own beliefs or are you merely following things that have been forced upon you? Listen to yourself clearly. Are you speaking your truth or are you speaking someone else's truth? Stage 3. The Empress. The Mother. The Emotional Feminine. From a young age, I always felt like I was this huge disappointment for my mother. She wasn’t really around till I was 9, leaving me to be taken care of with either my grandmother or my aunt, as she was busy being a single working mother trying to provide for me. And when I did finally live with her I felt like no matter what I did, it would always be met with disapproval and comparison. This involved being compared to my cousins, neighbours children, and schoolmates. Why wasn't I smart enough, why I didn't do my chores well enough, why couldn't I get an A on subjects at school, or even why I wasn't as talented or determined enough as others. It seemed like no matter what I did there was always someone better. This played out onto my young adult life. The friends I had, the jobs I took, the people I dated. It always seemed to be met with disapproval. As time went on, it was almost like I started going out of my way just to get this disapproval from her. The disapproval that I had mistaken for love. Which when I think about it made no sense as I felt like my mother never loved me, so how did I think disapproval meant to love? One thing I was sure of from the disapproval was that it meant I was ugly. Because who would approve of ugly? Growing up I was constantly made fun of regarding my weight, my hair, my skin, my facial features, my voice and even the way I dressed. It seemed like everything about me was wrong and ugly. And this wasn't solely just from my mother. It was from family, friends and acquaintances. But not having that reassurance from my mother that I was anything but ugly, and having to live through a period of time when she was broken, angry and going through her own struggles, I had unknowingly put all the blame on her. I remember when I was 15, and I had just opened up to some close friends that I was gay, they introduced me to a former senior from our highschool. By introduction, I meant by giving me his phone number. This was the time where mobile phones didn't have cameras or WhatsApp. We purely connected over SMS and phone calls. We talked daily for over 2 months before deciding on our first meet up. I was excited and nervous. It was my first date and first time experiencing the gay world. We planned for him to come pick me and my friends up from home and we would go watch a movie. By the time we got to the mall, he told us to go get the movie tickets while he parked the car. He never returned. And my messages and phone calls went unanswered for 2 weeks after that day. When he did finally answer, all he had to say was, "Sorry. But you're just too ugly for me." I believed even more now that I truly was unlovable. This broke me far beyond I would have imagined. It led to me having self-esteem issues that would lead to me experimenting with drugs and not having any sense of self-worth. I constantly battled with self-image issues and all for the sake of not wanting to look like how I did, as I desperately wanted to be accepted and loved by anybody who crossed paths with me. I was trying to be an image of someone I was not. And as the image of myself became worse, my resentment towards my mother grew even more. The uglier I felt, the uglier she was to me. When I was diagnosed with HIV, I was secretly hoping that it would bring me and my mother closer. I was hoping that she would finally just embrace me and tell me that she loved and approved of me. This of course did not happen. In fact, the total opposite happened. We grew further apart, and my resentment had now turned into full-blown hate and anger. I blamed her for everything that had happened to me and for how ugly I felt. Only after that InnerDance session of feeling her pain and sadness, did my view of my mother truly begin to change. And so did my view on our relationship and myself change. I now understood why things got worse between us and why she didn't embrace me when I told her about having HIV. I wasn't who I really was anymore. And my mother could see this. The sickly looking 28-year old that was standing in front of her was not the same person she gave birth to. How could she embrace me? How could I expect her to embrace a false image of myself that I had created? And it was during this moment that I realized I had been holding a false image of her my whole life. My mother did her best to support me while growing up, in the best way she knew how. Yes, she was strict and at times abusive, as this was how she was raised, and she was merely acting the only way she knew how. I was the one who was constantly disapproving of her, always comparing her to other mothers. Wanting her to be like the mothers I saw on TV and movies, or even being like my aunts and mothers of my friends. I wanted her to be somebody she was not. And even when she did show me love I would shut it down because it wasn't the sort of love I wanted from her. And by doing this, I was creating a double-edged sword. I was feeding that energy of disapproval for the both of us unconsciously. I realize it wasn't my mother that was the problem. It was me. It was what I believed about myself and what I believed about her that made things so toxic. I had kept the image of her being this angry ugly person even when she wasn't, and all because she was not what I imagined a perfect mother to be. Worst, by trying to change her, I had changed myself. Things have been good between us now after that InnerDance session. And all because I decided to stop forcing a made-up image of what I thought a mother should be like on her. Once I had learned to accept and love her unconditionally, and to stop seeing her as ugly, the relationship between us finally began to heal. And I began to see myself as beautiful. Look to your mother... What is your relationship with your mother like? Do you feel and see beauty inside and outside of you? What is your understanding about love? The way you view and feel about your mother plays an important role in your understanding of love and about self-love. Stage 4. The Emperor. The Father. The Emotional Masculine When I think of a father figure, I think of someone who is a child's hero. A figure of authority to look up to. A source of protection, structure and love. The house provider. Growing up without my own father, and seeing how most around me had easy contact with theirs, made me an extremely jealous person. For a short time, I grew very close to my stepfather. I thought of him as my own but was told by many that I was just an outsider and reminded constantly that he wasn't my real father. Feeling embarrassed and confused, I started to pull away as I grew up not wanting to be reminded that I wasn’t his real son. I remember looking at the relationship my cousins and friends had with their father's, with extreme longing and jealousy. How they always had their fathers' to buy them stuff and to take them out, and to teach them things about life. This slowly made me wonder what was wrong with me. Why was I undeserving of having such treatment as well? I mean yes my 2 stepfathers did treat me well when they were still married to my mom, but when the relationship ended, I was left fatherless once again. My real father did stay in touch through the random phone calls and by sending me letters on my birthday's. But as I got into my teen years, my feelings of longing for him turned into hatred. Partly because when my mom would discipline me she would always say "You're just like your father" which I felt was weird as I didn't even know the man, but this was enough to make me dislike him. The other part of my hatred was when he would send me pictures of him and his new family. Just looking at pictures of him and his three children from his new marriage all happy and smiling made me extremely jealous and hurt. Why wasn't he here with me? When I was 16, a year after running away from home, he had called numerous times to check up on me but I constantly avoided the calls. I was afraid and angry at the time. When I finally did gather the courage to speak to him, I told him to stop trying to contact me because I no longer wanted anything to do with him. I said this was because I felt during the times I was terribly unhappy and lost, he was never around to provide the support and comfort that I needed. But yet he was always there for his other kids. And as such to please just leave me alone. I told myself that he just didn't really care about me. And I believe this to be true for a very long time. When I was 24, my father reached out again and asked me to visit him and his family in Syria, as my grandmother was ill and she wanted to see me before she passed. After much contemplation, I decided to make the trip. Part of me was still angry at him where I thought I would punch him upon meeting him, and the other part was extremely happy that I would finally be able to meet my father. The person I had been longing for since I was 4. Of course, I didn't punch him as I thought I would have when we met in front of his house. My vent up anger faded as he hugged me and cried uncontrollably. It was true what a stranger had told me on the flight to Syria. After listening to my story about why I was making this journey and about how angry I was towards my father, he had explained how my father definitely felt towards himself. I had not believed him up to that point I was holding my father in my arms. The 10 days I spent in Syria gave me a sense of fulfilment more than I could have imagined. I grew fond of my new family and felt like I belonged. I actually saw myself living and working there. I told my father of this plan I had, with full excitement that he would accept me and say yes. "No, you need to go home because your mother needs you." I was dumbfounded. This was exactly what my stepfather had said to me when I asked if he would take me in as a teenager when I had run away from my mother's home. My feelings of anger and jealousy slowly started to return as I left Syria feeling rejected and thinking that my father just didn't really care for me. This further fueled a belief I had about male figures in my life. That they just didn't really care about me. Even when they said they loved and cared for me, it was all just words. Empty words. Now, regardless if it was my stepfather, a friend, an employer or a lover, I just saw my father in them. Someone I could never fully trust. I became extremely clingy towards my lovers, in fear that I would eventually be abandoned by them. And I had a hard time feeling comfortable or speaking to men in fear I would be rejected by them. Am still learning how to deal with the fear and the pain and emotional trauma that developed in me because of this relationship with my father. However, one thing I have learned is how not to be jealous of other people's happiness and instead came to the understanding that their happiness is my happiness. As for whether a male figure could truly love and care for me, and if I could fully trust them, I have yet to discover. But I know I will, as I have my spiritual father, Hanuman, teaching and showing me how to. Hanuman, the monkey god in Hindu belief, for me represents a figure of love, courage and strength. Things I didn’t know I so desperately needed when he first came to me. One of the first modalities I had discovered during my spiritual journey was the ancient Peruvian practice of Munay Ki. Munay Ki meaning Love Energy. And after my initiation, I had to do a shamanic journey of the higher realms, and this was when Hanuman showed himself to me and has had a strong presence in my life ever since. Showing up through signs and symbols whenever I was in distress to assure me I was safe and on the right path. After spending 3 months in Maia earth village, I was running out of money and I wasn't sure if I should stay and if I was even in the right place or right path. I was missing my family and friends, and the comfort of being in my homeland. During an InnerDance session, as the random songs began to play, these emotions I felt about my father were heightened and I found myself crying and drowning in confusion and worry. My heart and mind instantly thought of Hanuman. I asked in my heart, "Where are you Hanuman? Why have I not felt you for these past 3 months? Why have you abandoned me just like my father has?". As I asked this last question to myself in tears, Krishna Das - Baba Hanuman began to play from the speakers. I started to smile as the tears continued to flow. Was this just a coincidence or was this really a sign from Hanuman? How could I be sure? And in an instant, a calm breeze began to form around me, followed by a presence that felt like it was hugging me. "I am always here when you really need me. Learn to trust in yourself. You are learning to build stability in yourself" I felt the presence say. Hanuman, as always, was still around and was communicating with me through the wind, as he had done on a couple of occasions before I came to Palawan. My worries and confusion faded as the song came to an end. As the months have gone by since this InnerDance session, I've begun to heal what I am able to when it comes in regards to my father issues. Learning how to build trust and to speak from the heart with other male figures around me. Learning how to earn money on my own and to trust my own inner voice when it comes to making decisions and building a strong foundation for myself. There is still work that needs to be done in terms of healing the wounds of abandonment and rejection, even though they aren't as strong as they were previously. And I do have plans to visit my father when I am able. I feel that as he is still alive, it would be best to spend time with him and to really get to know the person, who even through his absence, has had such a deep impact on my life mentally and emotionally. Look to your father... What do you feel when you think of your father? Do you feel safe and secure in the world? Are you able to stand solid on your own two feet? Our relationship with our fathers plays an important role in regards to how we trust and interact with others. It also shows us how we accept love from others. Stage 5. The Hierophant. Organized Religion. The Social Belief Construct. Growing up in a country where religion outweighs your rights to just being yourself, I faced years of feeling guilty and ashamed about who I was. The fact that I was gay and Muslim wasn't really a winning combination in the eyes of family or society. Growing up surrounded by mostly women figures, my characteristics were more feminine than masculine. From the way I walked to the way I expressed myself. By age 9 I kinda knew I was more interested in men than women. I was too afraid to talk to anyone about how I was feeling, as I knew being gay was frowned upon by religion and by society. And even within my family and friend circles, gay slurs and jokes were made. So I kept this to myself until I was 15. The two closest people to me, who probably knew I was different, were my Grandmother and my cousin Shereen. I had comfort in knowing that they would always stand up for me and protect me no matter what others said about me. And I guess by having these two women as my safe space and place I would run to for comfort, I almost idolized everything they did. My grandmother, who was a faith healer, introduced me to the world of different religions and the joy of cooking. My cousin, who till today is the most "princess" acting person I know, showed me the world of music, fairytales and beauty. Combining what I learned from them I was living in a world of fantasy and imagination. Where else most boys enjoyed the outdoor activities and playing with race cars, I found happiness by staying at home with my cousin singing, dancing and playing with Care Bears and My Little Ponies. And where others only had an understanding about the race and religion they were born into, I was lucky to have a grandmother who was of mixed race and not once thought me to judge others based on their beliefs or the color of their skin. I never understood why during school years, we would be separated based on race and religion, and why religion was thought by a stranger who claimed to know better than anyone else. I find this concept of education very disturbing and harmful. As much as I did not agree with it, as a child, I had no choice but to follow the rules implemented. For 11 years I had to sit in classes where I was told that my grandmother and friends, who were of a different faith, would burn in hell for all eternity and that who I was, a gay person, would never smell the gates of heaven. One of the worst experiences I had, when it came to religion, was at the age of 10. I had just transferred to a new school and was still in the stages of making friends. During a religious class, the Ustaz called my name and asked me to list the steps of taking the mandatory ablution before praying. I honestly had no idea how to do so. With all eyes on me, instead of just saying I didn't know, I stood in the middle of class frozen. The Ustaz after asking for the third time, stood up holding a chair, threatening to throw it at me if I didn't answer him. In tears, I started to randomly list down steps that I remembered seeing other people do. When I finished, he said "If at this age that's how you take your ablution, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your prayers will never be accepted by Allah." Some of the boys in the class began to laugh at me, and it was after this day that I stopped caring about religion. As a child, I was filled with fear, and as a teen I started to just brush off these teachings, not realizing the damage these statements were doing to me mentally and how much guilt and shame it would cause me as I went through life. Every time I would be in a relationship with another man, I would unconsciously think I was committing a sin and wondered why I always felt guilty once I was alone. I guess this was why being high on drugs during sex was so much more appealing, as the voice of guilt would be shut off. Every time I walked into a different house of worship or ate at my non-muslim friend's homes, my mind would go into an argument about how I just added another year in hell. How did just being who I was, and being friends with people from another religion become such a grave act of sin? "I'm sorry" seemed to be a word that I uttered quite frequently during an InnerDance session. I wasn't really sure why but the words just seemed to flow. When I sat by myself and reflected on the possible reasons I felt the need to say "I'm sorry", my mind started to flashback to certain moments in my life, where I was told I should feel ashamed and guilty for doing things that seemed innocent to me. Were they really innocent actions though? If they were, why was I sick? Was me not following the teachings of religion and being gay the reason my life was in shambles and was all this a punishment from God? I decided at this point to revisit Islam, thinking maybe this would help rid me of my guilt and shame. I began to read the Quran and started to learn how to pray. I got into the habit of praying 5 times a day and reading a chapter of the Quran per day while studying materials online. I will admit, learning about Sufism helped soften my heart towards Islam, as I felt it didn't have the same force and strict views as the other sects of Islam. But there was something continuously bugging me as I developed my Islamic practice. One, how could one religion claim superiority over another and condemn another to hell when we are all created from the same god? I could not for the life of me follow a teaching that says a non-muslim will burn in hell, as so many people who have helped me in my healing journey were of non-muslim backgrounds. It felt almost hypocritical to sit and smile in front of them, while at the back of my head I had this belief who they were was a sin. And furthermore, I refused to believe that hell is where my grandmother ended up. Secondly, if all other religions are wrong, how was it that two of my guides, Hanuman and Quan Yin, had helped me heal and grow throughout my journey. And if I really wanted to follow the teachings of Islam, I would need to renounce my belief in them. It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. And lastly, how could I change who I was? I was definitely gay and there was no doubt about that. I had tried to date women in the past, but the attraction was only at a very surface level. I loved women but I never felt like I wanted to get sexually intimate with them. So was who I was, a man who was attracted to another man, a man who dreamt of starting a family with another man, a man who wanted nothing more than to find another man that shared the same interest and would lay next to each other at night feeling safe, really such a horrible thing? What was the point in believing in a teaching that only added more shame and guilt on me? A teaching that said who I choose to love was wrong? It would be like trapping myself in a narcissistic relationship and loving it. Thinking back, there were a few relationships where I was involved with someone who was narcissistic, and I stayed because in a way I felt like this was what love was. A love where someone can make you feel shame and guilt, but as long as they were nice at times and forgave you for your mistakes, it was ok to stay in the relationship. Much like how my relationship with religion was. I know there are some who say not to take the teachings so directly, to take a more holistic approach, and I did try this but the damage to my psyche was so severe I would constantly be stuck in a "is this right is this wrong" mental state. As I kept on praying, my heart just wasn’t fully present. I decided that maybe I needed a break from all this religious studying and questioning. So I went for a walk. A walk that I was guided to do while reading a book 2 months ago but didn't because I thought it was a crazy idea. The book I was reading was about a writer who had decided to drive around India and in her journey found herself and some answers to questions she had about life. When both my feet had fully healed from an infection I had, I decided to walk from Maia Earth Village to Port Barton, as the family I was close to in Maia made plans to spend new years there. The distance between where I was and Port Barton was 138.5 km. Didn't sound too far I thought to myself. So I packed a bag and set off on foot, 4 days before New Years. The first day I managed to cover 10 hours of walking and was dead tired. The journey, although smooth and filled with beautiful scenery, was filled with constant worrying if this was really a good idea and if it was safe. So I set up a hammock on a beach that I was nearby and fell asleep by sunset. I was woken up sometime during night by a presence I felt in the wind. Hanuman I thought to myself. Looking around I didn't see anybody else, so I knew it was him. Wondering why he had woken me up, I looked up from the hammock to witness so many stars shining in the dark sky, a sight that even though I had gotten used to still brought me so much happiness. I felt Hanuman telling me to look down. As I looked down from the hammock, I had found that the tide had risen all the way to where I was sleeping. At first, I panicked thinking about my belongings getting wet. But Hanuman, through the wind, said not to worry and to just look. As I calmed down, I noticed something glittering in the water. I dipped my hand in, giving life to more glitters. Planktons. I felt like a little child at this moment. I was sleeping in between stars. I took this as an omen I was doing the right thing and that I was safe. The next day I continued to walk for another 8 hours before my body gave up on me and I decided I just couldn't continue. I had made it halfway. Not bad for someone who just recovered from a foot infection and wasn't really in the best of shape. I hitchhiked the remaining half of the journey. Arriving at Port Barton, I was sure by now that Palawan had to be the most beautiful and safest places I'd ever visited. It was on the 30th of December 2019, around midnight while sitting on the beach, after everybody else went to sleep, looking up at the night sky, that I had a conversation with God. I sat there, asking what I should do when it came to religion and how it fuelled society's belief in life. I asked, was being gay really a sin? Did I really need to renounce all other religions and beliefs to be loved by God? What was right and what was wrong? My mind went into an argument of back and forths, trying to make sense of all that I learned and experienced. And then finally I thought to myself, "Maybe "the devil" made up religion to separate us humans and cause hatred amongst one another". It was at this exact moment, the sky suddenly lit up with a hundred shooting stars and had a red hue around it. I sat there in disbelief and awe. There was nobody else on the beach for me to get confirmation on whether what I was seeing was actually happening. But a sense of calm took over my body and it was then that I knew I had received my answer. It was ok to do what I wanted as long as I was happy. To eat what I wanted as long as I knew what I was eating. To love who I wanted as long as it was consensual. As long as I respected and did not bring harm to others, I should just live life being happy. To trust that I would always be protected and guided. The rest was between me and the creator. Just like my grandmother had told me as a child. Understand the beliefs and social structures implemented on you... Do you believe everything that you are told? Are you made to feel who you are is a sin and if so, why are you still following the words of strangers? Are you able to question things without feeling guilty? Do you really understand the teachings presented to you? If you find yourself continuously having an inner struggle with the way things are, about what is right and what is wrong, you need to start questioning everything you've been made to believe as truth. You need to be able to do this without feeling guilty. Stage 6. The Lovers. The Duality of The Mind. The Angel and The Devil. As I dove deeper into the practice of Innerdance, doing a session every day for 5 months, I began to become aware of the stories I was telling myself. Stories of the past, present and future. The stories would jump from acceptance and joy and hope to dread and worry and dismay all within a second. I had always thought that was just my nature of talking to myself and how I'd make decisions about things. It was during one particular InnerDance session though, while both my feet were infected from doing so much heavy energy releasing, that I began to be aware of how different these voices were. During the session, I was crying and feeling confused about what was going on inside my head, that I wanted to just get up and dance. I tried to get myself up, but just standing on one foot I instantly fell back to the ground. And this was when all hell broke loose in my mind. These "voices'' began to argue with one another while I just laid there listening like a scared child. "Look! Look at what you are doing to us. Our feet are all bruised and filled with pus" one voice said. "It's ok. We can keep going. It will be alright" replied another. I now began to feel just how distinct and different these two voices were. Whereas one was more stern and manly, the other was more dreamy and soft. Were these still my own voices that I was hearing? "No. It's not going to be all ok. We've listened to you enough. We went off the medication, we left the comfort of home, and now all that's happened to us since being here is feeling more confused, sad and angry at ourselves. We're not going to listen to you anymore." Now I realized these voices if they weren't mine, must have been with me for a really long time, because I had gone off medication almost 2 years ago. "It's part of the process. We are healing things that have been suppressed for years. This needs to happen so that we can be truly happy. It's what we've wanted since we were 15. Why can't you just trust that we are going in the right direction." 15 was the age I had decided to run away from home. Something I'm still amazed at how I managed to find the courage to do since I was always so scared about everything. Was this the voice that gave me the courage to do so? "You are always being so free and light. You decide to make all these decisions that go against the norm, and when things go bad, I end up having to step in and clean up the mess you get us into. We are tired of being hurt and disappointed all the time." "That's because you panic and don't allow things to flow. Every time you think we are losing control, just because you get scared, you force us back into old patterns. And then wonder why we constantly feel stuck in life." "It's the structure and patterns that keep us safe." "Says who? Definitely not us. We're 34 and still haven't figured out why we are so lonely and unhappy. And that's because we are trying to follow the path that others follow. We are doing things that have been forced upon us. We are blindly following teachings that we don't believe in. We are trying to be something we are not. When will this madness end?” As the two voices got louder with each argument, my head began to feel like it was breaking apart. I pushed the sides of my head with both hands as hard as I could, thinking I could prevent the pain. Only now, it felt like my body was about to split in half. I started to scream and cry. And finally deciding to just open my eyes to get out of the session, as I was unable to listen to the voices argue and to bear the pain any longer. A practice that is done during an InnerDance session, is a check-in circle. Where everyone, if they choose to, shares where they are at emotionally and mentally before the session, and what they experienced and what insights came to them after the session. As everyone in the circle began to share, I was lost deep in my own thoughts again. But it wasn't the two voices anymore. This was just me making sense of what had just happened. To whom did these two voices belong to? Were they really mine? Was I slowly losing my mind? And if they were my own voices, was this the reason I would forget why I did certain things or why I would find myself in situations that I didn't feel comfortable in. Is this why I constantly doubted every decision I made or regretted them later? Is this why I keep going back and forth between two decisions and most of all was this why I could never express how I was truly feeling verbally as I was confused all the time? It was my time to share. The words through tears, just flowed out of my mouth even though I was feeling afraid. I expressed how frustrated I was with myself. About how I felt I was never really allowed to be my true self because of the expectations and rules that were imposed on me from a young age. I expressed how confused I was about my journey so far. I wanted to heal myself, but not even being able to stand or to walk properly at that moment made me want to go back to Malaysia, to go back on the medication and just continue living a “normal” life, forgetting that any of this "spiritual" path had ever happened. As I was verbally expressing this to everyone in the circle, another voice, a calm one, was expressing itself to me. The voice was saying how I couldn't turn back now especially since I had come so far. How that in order to heal years of trauma that first there must be pain. Reminding me how I would just be repeating the same patterns if I gave in to this fear I was feeling and stopped my journey. The session ended with me feeling lost and drained. Come night time, as I sat on the balcony looking at the stars, I began to reflect on what had taken place during the InnerDance session. I took into consideration what the two voices had said and seen that both voices had valid arguments and reasoning. I tried to figure out a solution that would make, not just them, but all 3 of us happy. A middle path. We decided we no longer wanted to live a life based on fear. We wanted to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again. There was only 1 month left before returning to Malaysia, so why not just keep on going, and if by the end this trip, I still felt weak and lost, we would go back to being "normal". But for now, we had to trust this path that we were on. To not be afraid when things got scary. Another shed of light and clarity came to me at this moment. In the previous chapter, I had mentioned how I was studying Sufism. I liked how Sufism infused singing and dancing and colours in their practice and how the famous Rumi found so much love in his practice. One thing that stood out during my research was that my name was similar to the word, Tariqa. Which meant the spiritual path of individual Sufi mystics. Maybe I needed to start trusting that I was on the right path. Discovering this path day by day. Regardless of what others or society had to say or think about it. As long as I believed that my intentions were clear and that my guides were with me, I would always be ok. I just needed to keep the faith, to trust the signs from the universe and to trust that I was always being guided. Most of all I needed to trust in myself. The voices you hear when you are alone, are that of your own, or are they really? Are you aware of the conflicting voices in your mind? Do you normally find yourself stuck in a loop with no end? Are you unconsciously repeating the same patterns in your life? We are sometimes unaware of the way we make decisions in life because of old fears and limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and the world. We can clear old limiting beliefs, but only when we listen to our own minds clearly. Stage 7. The Chariot. Moving Forward. Creating and Staying on The Path. After deciding to trust in myself and my journey, I had to make a few conscious decisions. Decisions that would harmonize and make the two voices in my head happy. Firstly, I needed to be gentle with myself and to give myself time to really process what was going on inside of me. Pushing myself like I was in a race against time, was slowly taking a toll on my body. There was no point in healing if I was just going to end up sick and weak. Something I constantly did since I was a teen. This addictive energy of not knowing when to take a break and give things a breather. I also had to remind myself that I wasn't in a rush to achieve anything except my own peace of mind. Rushing would only mean I was putting an extra burden on myself for no good reason. And that I was doing this for myself and not anybody else. This wasn't a test and I wasn't going to be judged on my performance. I was on my own path. Creating it as I went on and being able to learn how to have fun and enjoy it. Taking comfort in the light and the dark, the highs and the lows. Finding a balance with my inner and outer world. There was a new sense of resilience and confidence arising within me. I took this month to start planning my return home to Malaysia. I promised myself that I would try not to get back into my old habits of being completely off balance and falling into depression again. I did this by revisiting the journal entries that I kept since coming to Palawan to remind myself of the things that I had experienced and learned. Which also in a way reminded me to be proud of the process I had made. I started learning how to cook and started selling food by the beach, to keep myself attached to the real-world operations. I continued doing InnerDance sessions but this time finding the courage to help facilitate instead of just laying down and wanting to heal. I had to understand that healing was a two-way process. You can heal by helping others and by allowing others to help you. I learned how to trust my inner voice and my speaking voice. That was another beauty of InnerDance, it helped to strengthen and to remind me of my natural and learnt talents. I was also much more aware of my emotions, picking up ways on how to manage them better, and not allowing them to get the best of me. My heart and my mind began to feel extremely light and open. Filled with a new sense of hope and rejuvenation I was ready to go home and start building a new life for myself. A life where I wasn't worried about what people said or thought about me. A life where I would be confident enough to speak from my mind and be able to receive feedback without going into a victim space/mentality. I started envisioning the people I would reach out to and share all that I learned spending 7 months here in Palawan. I was going back to my advocate work for people with HIV and mental health issues. One of the biggest struggles I had in my life was staying on my path. And this wasn’t because I didn’t feel the drive or want to move forward. It was because I took what my family’s views were very personal. And this included friends who I considered to be family. Their opinions always mattered to me. I remember when I first decided to go public about myself being diagnosed with HIV, certain family members weren’t too happy with this decision. One of them had said, “Who do you think you are? What makes you think you can make a difference when you are a nobody?”. You are a nobody pierced deep into my heart. Being in a fragile state back then, I fell back into depression and started having suicidal thoughts. And even as recently in early 2019, when I had given an interview with a local newspaper, speaking about how I decided to go off medication as I felt it was a better choice for me, a close friend of mine basically told me I was being irresponsible and causing damage to the community. My intentions have never been to hurt anyone, so hearing this from someone I loved, again knocked me off my path and made me question myself. I decided at that time I no longer wanted to be an advocate for HIV or Mental Health. Through InnerDance I found the understanding that, when you share a message or a personal truth, you will always get feedback. And this can either be positive or negative. What was important, was to not allow the feedback to affect you emotionally. Not everyone will understand the path you are on or agree with your decisions, and we need to learn to be ok with this reality. What truly mattered was that we have enough maturity to accept another person’s view and to not take it personally or to allow their views to make us feel like a victim and knock us off our path. This is something I truly feel the world lacks. Compassion and acceptance for one another. To be able to respect that everyone is different, and to reach a point that we can just listen to another without projecting our own emotions and beliefs on them. To accept that one person’s truth is their own, and just because we have a different concept of what the truth is, we can still live harmoniously together. Malaysia, to me personally, is a country that is so infused with a guilt and shame culture. Even though we are multiracial and seem to get along on the surface, many of us were brainwashed from young to think less of someone who isn't of the same race, religion or social background. We constantly make fun of one another regarding these things without realizing how much mental and emotional damage it can cause a person. What’s worse is that being made to feel guilty and ashamed about who we are, we are so quick to pass judgment and to spread the news of someone making a mistake or falling from grace. We feel the need to transfer this guilt and shame instilled on us onto another the minute a small window of opportunity opens, just so that we can feel better about ourselves temporarily. Most of us are unaware of the subtle strategies of brainwashing, not realizing that this is a method of control that is used to further oppress us. And for those of us who are aware, we are made to feel guilty for thinking or even wanting to speak out or do anything about it. So we remain stuck in a shame and guilt cycle, again because this is all we know. A reminder about living your own life. We are so pressured by society and religion telling us what is right and what is wrong. Telling us who we should be, what we should do. But here is where we need to remind ourselves, just because something works for someone else, it doesn't mean it will work for you. We were made perfect and unique in our way. So why compare ourselves to other people? Why try and imitate another person? Why strive to achieve other people's dreams? I strongly believe our parents played a big role in this mental conditioning we have in needing to compare ourselves with others. And they were conditioned by their parents. The cycle goes on. It is up to us, to make the conscious decision to break this cycle and to celebrate our differences with love and respect for each other. The week of my departure, I had to have an honest talk with myself. Was I really ready to go back? Did I learn and experience all that I needed to? I know one thing that didn't happen for me during this trip was something I sort of had an anticipation about. Before making the trip to Palawan, I had done a few tarot readings online and the readings said I would not only find some answers about life here in Palawan, but I would also find my true love. I wondered if the eye I saw in my first month here was the eye of this true love. I jokingly said to Pi, why with so many people coming for retreats in the recent months, there wasn't a single gay guy for me. I guess finding all these lessons so far was all I needed. But just to be sure, I looked up to the sky and said out loud, "God, is there anything else that I was supposed to learn while I was here? Was I not supposed to meet that special someone while I was here?". Hoping the sky would answer me as it did in Port Barton, I waited for a while for a sign. But nothing happened. I figured the time for me to return home had come. A week later, however, the coronavirus lockdown happened and my flight was cancelled. There was also a new group of people attending the last InnerDance retreat, who had made it to Maia before domestic travel was brought to a halt. And in that group, there was one person who stood out. Naga. The question I had asked God last week was finally answered. I remembered that sometimes the answers we seek will present themselves when the time is right. It's always about timing, isn’t it? Divine timing. We each have our own unique life purpose and journey. Are you doing things that bring you joy and happiness? Are you unconsciously following the path of another person? Do you feel secure and confident in your own journey? We tend to allow the words and actions of others to knock us off our path. Sometimes we even begin to doubt ourselves because we set ridiculous expectations on ourselves. We need to understand that there is no rush, and that life isn't a race. Take it easy, breathe and enjoy the journey. Stage 8. Strength. Bravery. Finding Love and Compassion. "Hi. I'm sure you know who I am” Naga said as he shook my hand. I found this to be a truly strange way for someone to introduce themselves. I instantly judged him as an arrogant and immature person. Someone I wouldn’t want to get close to, not realizing how wrong I would be later on. Even with this instant dislike towards him, for some reason, I couldn't stop looking at him. He seemed familiar in some sort of strange way. One of the voices in my head basically said this was just me being my old self and wanting to be attached to another gay person. The other voice said to keep looking as there was something there to get excited about. I decided to just brush the feeling and voices off. However being true to my addictive ways, I couldn't just brush it off. There seemed to be this intense attraction towards this young person standing in front of me. On a mental level, it didn’t make any sense at all. He just wasn't the type I normally find myself attracted to. And he had characteristics that just put me off. But my eyes kept going back to him. My body kept wanting to move closer to him. The best thing to do I decided was just to observe for the time being. Everyone you meet in your life is there for a reason, even when the reason isn't apparent at first. With no clear indicator of when the lockdown would end, I found myself back in the InnerDance sessions. At first, it felt like a refresher course. Revisiting the things I had already experienced and learned, which I truly appreciated. But after a while, it did start to get repetitive, and I was slowly getting bored and frustrated, had it not been for Naga. Every time he would come and work on me during a session, this huge surge of energy would fill my body, almost like a fire burning its way through my body. And my mind would be filled with images and sensations that were so foreign yet felt so familiar. Over time, my attraction to Naga grew stronger. I began to have deep meaningful conversations with him when there was time, and I caught myself constantly thinking and talking about him to the people I was close to in Maia. I wondered if this was the person the tarot readers were talking about. Was this the "eye" that spoke to me 7 months ago? I was