SMOKE AND MIRRORS

*A blog about illusion, clarity, and the cost of false light*

On the morning of my birthday—rich in my own practices—I rose slowly. I meditated. I moved my body in a free-flow practice. I sipped lemon water and gave thanks to the heavens. It felt like one of those crystalline mornings where truth breathes through everything. But when I opened my laptop to check my schedule, I saw Deepak Chopra’s name in the headlines—tied to Jeffrey Epstein. And in that moment, the world felt... small. Not just small in the way that pain tightens us, but small in that uncanny web of human connections, revealing itself through one strange, messy mandala. We are *all* connected in Earth School, whether we want to be or not.

My own upbringing was a cocktail of religions. My grandmother was Pentecostal. My grandfather, Latter-day Saint. My father had a Baptist foundation. Most of my friends were Catholic. And yet—I didn’t feel truly connected to any of it. I was the girl always in the library in high school, devouring metaphysics and Eastern wisdom. It was there I found Deepak Chopra. His writings opened the door to a path I’ve never fully stepped off of. His book *Perfect Digestion* is still a required read in my yoga school today. And so, when these headlines flash across the screen, I don’t rush to throw the entirety of someone away. I don’t believe in spiritual cancellation.

> "Don’t throw the sacred out with the shadow."

We live in shocking times. Not just because of what people have done—but because of the speed with which we strip away their humanity. We forget: people are broken. People make mistakes. And we, too, have sins and wreckage we pray no one ever magnifies.

I tell my students often: **You are the guru.** Not them. Not me. Not Deepak. We look to others not for worship—but for inspiration, for glimpses of how someone might live with integrity, with non-attachment, with genuine kindness. But we don’t idolize. And we sure as hell don’t pretend.

Because **honesty and truth are not the path to fame.** They are the underground spring. The hidden mineral vein. The sacred unmonetized frequency. Most people living lives worth revering are the ones we’ll never read about: raising good humans, loving animals, being kind without cameras.

And *that* is the kind of reverence I want to build my world around.

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### The Energetic Toll of Pretending

There’s a price to false light. To performance. To noise. To curated illusion. It disconnects us not only from each other—but from our own soul. That’s the smoke. That’s the mirror.

We must unhook from the idea that humans must be *flawless* to be worthy. We must stop expecting leaders to be infallible. We must stop dressing up our wounds in filters and hashtags. Instead—we get quiet. We tend our own flame. We own the story.

> We have only walked in our own shoes—and there are *millions* of shoes out there. Millions of souls.

Each of us is walking with different karma, culture, wounds, privileges, initiations, and timelines. What we call “choice” is often a soul contract. Not chance. Not random. A deck of cards dealt by Spirit. And in a world obsessed with black-and-white, we forget the Earth was always made of gray and gold and shifting color. Even yoga evolves. Even nature recalibrates.

From the Tao Te Ching:

> “When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.”

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### My Storyline

As a child, I was always seeking someone to look up to. Someone to *see* me. That craving, unchecked, birthed a people-pleaser who spent decades learning how to say no. In my twenties, I idolized celebrities. I hosted Oscar parties. I devoured the dream. But in my forties and fifties, I threw all that out with the trash. Because the dream was hollow.

Why would we worship those who pretend for a living? I wouldn’t say all—but *many* of those in the spotlight are skilled at illusion. The deeper I looked, the more I saw the same group, the same spotlight, the same curated myth. And I recognized something:

I had done the same.

I had once been narcissistic, driven by validation, obsessed with what others thought. In my twenties, I was burning alive in my own fire—eating disorders, diet pills, alcohol, rage buried so deep it only emerged in my drinking. That persona took *years* to dissolve.

We cannot judge someone *in their wound*. We must hold space for who they are becoming.

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### Healing the Eye

What I love most about Ayurveda is that Mother Nature teaches us how to heal *softly*. Winter doesn’t leave in one day. She threads herself out slowly as Spring threads herself in. We heal by seeing deeper into the root cause. Not by crash diets or shame spirals.

I tell my clients: Don’t chase skinny. Chase health. Chase love. Lose five pounds this year—not in a month. Let your healing *catch.*

> “Soft and slow healing... this catches. This stays.”

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### Mirror as Tool, Not Trap

Want to see the truth? Look at yourself. Don’t turn away. Make the mirror *sacred again.*

Call yourself out with love. Make different choices. And change the atmosphere by changing *you.*

We don’t change the world by performing perfection. We change it by being *honest.*

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### Spiritual Propaganda & Cultural Smoke Screens

Have you noticed something? The greatest divide we’re shown over and over again… is politics.

**Politics (n.):** the activities associated with governance, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

Does that sound sacred to you? Does that sound *real*?

Why are we wearing shirts with politicians’ names on them—people who do not know us, live like us, or hold our soul values? Why do we let their puppetry shape our relationships?

This is the greatest show on Earth: the media, the outrage cycles, the constant baiting of one another. It’s not new. And it’s never ended with peace.

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### Closing Invocation

**Come back.**

To nuance.

To the slow truth.

To sacred discernment.

Return to the part of you that watches the smoke—and does not inhale.

Return to the mirror—and sees *not shame*, but soul.

Return to the rhythm—not of black and white, but of breath.

You are the guru.

Now live like you remember.