Ever since I was a kid I was always asking “Why?” I felt most comfortable with my head in the clouds, pondering the meaning of life, and wondering why people (in all their suffering) were not more honest about how they felt. Strangely, I always seemed to shine when those around me were at their darkest. It seemed obvious to me that honest connection was the cure.

Most of the time my talent and inner musings were covered up or minimized by those around me. I certainly never thought they would be of use in a practical career. But as I got older, my life began to change. Forces outside my control took the wheel, and placed me in circumstances where I could no longer hide that I was different.

My senior year of high school I was denied from every college I thought would impress my family and peers. Emotionally I felt depressed and alone and underneath that depression was a pool of anger. All my striving had been for nothing, and I found myself once again, completely invisible. But luckily with this anger came destruction. I no longer cared how other people saw me. There was no one left to impress.

So I decided to take a gap year. Luckily my family was wealthy enough that this was a possibility and my parents agreed to let me travel around South America. This took me far outside the comfortable bubble of the almost all-white, New England Suburb I’d called home. During this unique time of traveling and self-discovery, I noticed that freedom came not from trying harder to succeed within the All-American machine of success, but by escaping it.

I saw how other people around the world lived, which exposed massive social inequality that was created by this western illusion of happiness. But my freedom didn’t last for long. Of course I would soon be forced back into the western machine sooner or later. As it turns out, this happened faster than I could’ve ever anticipated with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this unprecedented experience, I found that the ground rules of college had been fundamentally changed — in many ways for the better. There seemed to be less of an emphasis on shallow partying because of strict rules which prohibiting such activities. Instead it was easier to build more intimate relationships with other students who had also been thrown into this a-typical college experience. '

As it turned out, the rag-tag cluster of friends I’d found all had something in common — histories of deep family trauma that had gone completely unnoticed by everyone around us (including ourselves). My identity began to permanently shift as I began to trust less and less in the dominant voices around me and more in the inner voice that was rapidly revealing a completely new layer of my reality.

With these new discoveries, it was as though something deep inside of me had begun to crack open as my fundamental perception of myself and the world around me began to shift. But somehow this new paradigm felt as familiar as breathing, as though deep down I’d always known it was there. It was as though all my life I’d come to believe that life functioned one way, only to realize it functioned completely the opposite.

But with this process wasn’t just about personal epiphanies and revelations. It seemed that when the things inside me cracked open, all the inner and outer monsters also poured out like the opening of Pandora’s box. No matter how much I tried or wanted to, I couldn’t shove them back in.

Throughout this time, I developed a fascination with intuition, self-healing, and anything of a spiritual or esoteric basis. I’ve spent hours combing through books in order to absorb their messages in the deepest layers of myself.

Although I can look back through the years and place these challenges into a meaningful context, living through the day-to-day of these experiences felt like hell. During much of this evolution I’d always believed that if I could heal myself, I could leave hell forever and enter into paradise. But what I actually found was very different from this. I realized time and time again that if I could understand hell and be okay there, then I could finally be at peace.

So while one part of me was experiencing the intense suffering of being lost in darkness, another part of me was holding up a lantern to the walls of my inner prison, fascinated by the ornate structures that held it together. What I’ve found is that it holds a strange beauty and that suffering is really love twisted beyond recognition.

What I’ve learned is that healing means listening to our suffering and honoring it. If we can do this then in a way we have already reached paradise.

S0 I coach not just to guide others out of hell, but to help them access the understanding that hell is also a part of paradise. If you ever need me, that’s where I’ll be.