09/21/2025
Healing comes in waves and in layers, sometimes soft like ripples on a lake, sometimes powerful like the ocean’s tide. I am still here, still choosing to participate in this Earth game, because I am still healing, and because I still have more love to pour into the collective. I share this with you because, like you, I am deeply human. I have my struggles, my doubts, my moments of shedding and transforming. It is important to honor this humanity.
Recently my loving guides have been showing me something I have long mistaken for humility. In truth, it is not humility at all, but fear. It is the part of me that keeps making myself small and unassuming, as though that will somehow keep me safe.
Here is my honest confession. I often struggle to even read the kind five star reviews that you so lovingly give me. I skim them quickly, or even avoid them altogether. And why is that? Because somewhere deep inside, conditioning taught me that being invisible was the safest place to be. And in my childhood, it really was. I grew up in an environment where my soul had to prioritize survival over creation. Being seen often meant pain, whether in my household or at school. So I found ways to disappear. Because words said to me never equated to loving positivity.
I sometimes joke about it, but there is truth beneath the laughter. The reason I can move so quietly during sound baths is because I spent my entire childhood playing what felt like a real-life version of “Don’t Wake Daddy.” Do you remember that board game where you push the button and suddenly the dad shoots up out of bed, hat flying? That was my life. And just like the rattlesnake game “Don’t Get Rattled”, or the game of Operation with its jolting buzz, my nervous system lived in constant readiness. Pure sensory hell. I learned that if I stayed quiet, small, and unnoticed, I could make it through.
But here is the tender truth I am learning now. How can the collective truly benefit from what I am here to share if I refuse to see the full significance of it myself? When I skim over those reviews, I am not only pushing away love and gratitude, I am denying Rachel the very nourishment she needs. I become the parent who cannot let words of love land in the heart, where they belong.
Yesterday was my first day back at the studio after a week’s vacation in the mountains of Utah. When I walked through the door, I stopped. I looked around the meditation space as though I was seeing it for the first time. Tears filled my eyes. I realized how small I had been allowing myself to feel. I could not truly honor the beauty of the space, or the energy that flows through it, unless I was willing to honor and love myself. Not tomorrow. Not when I felt “more ready.” But right then, in that exact moment.
So I did.
I remembered that I am no longer that frightened child, tiptoeing through life to avoid setting off alarms. I do not need to live in a reality where being invisible is the only safe option. I remembered that I am a beacon of love, of acceptance, and that energy is meant to flow both inward and outward.
My clients that day reflected this back to me, whether they realized it or not. They offered love and praise freely. One of them even said, “I hope you realize how much you are truly doing for everyone, and how much of your love is being shared. I could feel it so strongly during the session.”
Last night I gave myself a challenge. I sat down, and without distracting myself, I read every single review. Word for word. I let them all sink in. I allowed the vibration of every message to settle into my heart. I cried. I laughed. And in that moment I remembered that this is all part of the great divine play, what Hindu philosophy calls the Lila. The version of me who could not bear to let herself shine was part of the old act. The Rachel who chooses to stand fully in her light is the one stepping forward now.
If you find yourself making your light smaller in order to feel safe, please know that you are not alone. Many of us learned in childhood that invisibility was a kind of protection, and for a time it truly was. But what once kept you safe may now be holding you back from the very expansion your soul is longing for. You deserve to be seen, to be celebrated, and to allow love to reach you without fear. The world is waiting for the medicine that only you can bring.
If you struggle with accepting praise or dismiss your own gifts, I invite you to pause the next time someone offers you kind words. Instead of brushing them off, take a breath and let their love land in your body. Feel it resonate in your chest, in your heart, in your whole being. Allow it to soften you. Allow it to remind you that you are worthy of love, recognition, and joy. In choosing to receive, you give others the gift of seeing their love reflected back, and you create a cycle of healing that touches more than just yourself.
Om So Hum
