SR: I was 23-years-old at this time. I would just spend all my time just writing and writing and writing. Honestly, I just knew if I could get this on the shelves of Barnes and Nobles somehow, this would help so many people. If only I knew this stuff, I wouldn't be in this situation now. Slowly, I started to get a better digestive system and finally, I started menstruating again. I'm like, okay. This stuff works. Honestly, I thought in my head, if I just write the whole book, I didn't know what the next step would be, but then I knew I could get it into the shelves of Barnes and Nobles. Then that took me down a two-year plus journey of I had no direction. I had no table of contents. I've never met an author in my life. I just write this book and then have a different idea about how to write it and rewrite this book.
At this time, too, I left for Bali. I left India because living in India is quite challenging, especially as a single woman. There were times that I was definitely in danger there. I just knew that I didn't have the freedom that I wanted to have living in India. I left for Bali. being exposed to people in Bali, who were all these spiritual entrepreneurs and doing these, they're tantric life coaches. I'm like, “Do your parents know you're here? Is this allowed?” That really expose me to new ways of doing things.
[00:35:34] LW: You said, something told you to go to Bali. What was that that told you to go into Bali that you're aware of now? What do you think that something was?
SR: Honestly, I think I just watched Eat, Pray, Love at some point.
LW: It planted the seed.
[00:35:49] SR: Bali stopping off. I never met anyone that went to Bali in my life. Instagram hadn't even really started yet at this point. I just knew Bali was a place of spirituality. If I just got there, I'd figure something out. Also, I knew it was pretty cheap, so I could afford living there.
LW: I mean, it sounds like, you didn't have a job. You did bartering. You're staying with host families.
SR: Most of my income came from the health coaching that I would do. I mean, living in my hut was $2 a night. If I could make $300 this month, I'm good.
LW: You saved up some money. You got a ticket to Bali, one way ticket, of course. You ended up with another host family near a farm to table community. Talk a little bit about that experience and how it impacted you and your path.
SR: Yeah. I went on Airbnb, and I found this place. It was called Om Unity. I'm like, “That sounds amazing. I can only afford two nights here, but I'm here.” I went. Then I just stayed with that family. them around, help them in the village, help them cook, help their marriage and their relationship. Do what needed to be done. I loved it there, because it was a true Balinese village in the rice fields, no tourists.
Being in India, it's super crowded and convoluted, and just so much going on. Here in Bali, I could really have time to think and heal. Then I went to Ubud. That's when I really started to find this community of just people on a healing journey. Because I had studied Ashtanga Yoga in India. Very deep on a yogic path. That's when I discovered ecstatic dance and shamanism and a new way of doing things, which just unlocked an entirely new pathway for me.
LW: That sounds beautiful. Meanwhile, in the background, your parents are threatening to disown you. How are you balancing those two things?
SR: I'm ecstatic dancing, I get a text from my mom. It's a novel of like, “You ruined my life.” It would just take me off. That so much of being in Bali was just trying to figure out, am I selfish for being here? Am I selfish for choosing my own path? Maybe I should just sacrifice this one thing for my parents. Look at all they sacrificed for me. That one thing being my dharma, my purpose, my life. At this point, my aunts are calling me, my brother, everyone is begging me to come home, saying, I've basically destroyed my entire family.
One thing about me, I have always been honest. I would tell my mom, I went under a waterfall with a shaman. He held my head under the water for 30 years. I was seeing visions, and she's like, “What the fuck?” But I felt like, if I keep telling her these things, it's going to open her up to it more, which in some ways it did. In other ways, it just scared her, because she was afraid.
Also in India, there were times – I mean, I stayed at the Osho Ashram. I tried to go to the Sadhguru Ashram, but didn't end up working out. She would look up Sadhguru and be like, “This looks like a creepy old man. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if you go there.” By the way, my time with the Osho Ashram was amazing, I will say. They were very afraid of what can happen. It's true. There definitely are cults out in the world and people who take advantage. Honestly, I'm so grateful that I'm safe and I'm not telling anyone to do what I did.
For some reason, I was divinely protected. I just kept meeting people. Specifically, I met this woman named Malika, who's this incredible 55-year-old just a centric shaman. She had this training called five elements shamanic dance activation. I went to some of her African dance workshops and different workshops. I was just so blown away by the earth elements, the Shakti, the groundedness, the reverence to nature. It was a whole level of soul that I had never felt in yoga, where it's very discipline and masculine. It's about holding back.
Whereas, this was about the feminine path. I knew I needed to do her training. I did just a work study trade for her that I would just go around Ubud and put up her billboards and help her with whatever she needed help with, so I could do this training. That really unlocked just a certainty within me. Because before that, I was not sure if – it's spiritual. Just going to be this hobby that I have on the side. Then I have to go back and get a normal job. Can this be me? All of you guys are white. Is this just for white people? I was not sure. I’ve never seen someone like me doing something like this.
I felt like, you guys are so lucky, because you have these American western parents that you guys can talk about sex on the Internet. I could never do that. I remember, I saw this girl. She wasn't even my friend at this time. Melissa Ambrosini, she wrote this book about sex. I'm like, maybe in the next lifetime, I could do something like that, but never in this. It was like this, I see it works for you guys, but it's never going to work for me.
Doing that training, healing through ecstatic dance, releasing so much of the generational trauma and pain. I was also dating this guy in India. That was also holding on to my old former self. All of that gave me that certainty in my path.
LW: Did you finish the book in Bali? Did you actually finish writing that book in Bali? Or did you not finish it until later?
SR: No. That first book was called Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type. Just for people listening to this, I suggest having a table of contents before writing a book, because I just kept going for two years. Never knew what it was. When it was done and the truth is, your book is never done. Then finally, after all of this, I came back to LA. I was living with my grandma at the time.
LW: No, you were in Boston first. You got to tell the Boston story first, because that's where you disconnected from your parents.
SR: Exactly. Basically, I was in Bali and in India. Finally, it was time. Maybe what I could have done is just stayed there, but I had so much guilt. I think, even a lot of my human rights stuff was fueled by guilt. Guilt is a huge part of, I think, many immigrant cultures. I just felt so bad for being there that I needed to fix whatever I could with my family. I went back to Boston, my childhood home where I grew up. It was just a collision.
LW: In the basement by yourself. No friends, because you've been traveling.
SR: No friends. The boyfriend that I had in India, I found out was cheating on me at the time.
LW: Cheated on you.
SR: I had no one to talk to you about this stuff. Totally, because the people in Bali is just you're there, you're there. If you're gone, it's like, bye. I came back. I was processing this breakup and trying to figure out, how do I get the fuck out of here? I would go outside. My parents lived in a suburb. I would just shake and do these practices. They just thought I was crazy. There were actual talks about sending me to a mental institute, not even joking. They were worried that something happened to my brain. That's why I'm like this.
At that point, I was just certain that I'm not going to get the job and take the path that they want. I again, didn't have a clue. I was just like, “I'm going to get this ayurveda book off the ground. It's going to happen.” Girl, you've been saying this for two years and it hasn't happened yet. I remember a specific fight with my dad and my dad, now I realize definitely has Asperger's. I didn't know this until recently. When people have Asperger's, they're very cut off sometimes from empathy. He says things that are super blunt and can be taken really mean. I was telling him this, and he's just starting – he also has really bad anger problems and is a narcissist, has OCD. All of the whole mixed bag and can be a loving person.
Because he was so afraid of me taking this pathway, that would potentially end me up in a mental asylum or homeless. He just said whatever he could. He would say, “You're a complete loser. You're a failure. You're the scum of the earth. You are not my daughter and I want nothing to do with you.” Saying all this not like I'm saying it. In yelling and shouting and yelling at my mom of, “Why did you raise such a disgusting daughter? Who does she think she is? She is not a reflection of our family. This is what we did this all for? It's your fault. You sent her traveling in the world. You're the one who exposed her to these hippies who gave her this idea. What a waste.”
I remember going down to my childhood room where I saw my dolls and everything, and I just looked up at them and I'm like, “Was this bullshit? Did they tell me to follow my dreams and believe in myself. Here I am doing it and I'm dead to them. I'm a failure. I'm a loser. I'm the scum of the earth. What the fuck did I do this all for?” It made me realize how much I had been living for their stamp of approval. Even me trying to explain myself to them as like, will you approve of me now? If I just tell you enough times, will I be enough for you? Here I was, dead.
This wave came over me, this feeling of numbness of just, well, if I have no one to live for but myself, then I'm just going to live for me. I'm not going to make every decision around, okay, well, what would they think about this? Or how can I get them to understand, or what's the happy medium between what I want and what they want? Instead, I'm just going to decide for myself and pretend I don't exist to them. Because basically, that's where it's gotten. That was the level of rock bottom that I needed to reclaim my power.
I had met this girl in Bali on the shamanic training I had done. She was going to lead a retreat in India. She told me about it earlier. She's like, “Why don't you co-lead it with me? You could teach ayurveda stuff.” Before I was like, “My parents would never let me go back to India.” This time, I messaged her. I'm like, “I'm coming in India.” I let my parents know. Not ask. Let them know, I'm going back to India and that's what I did.
LW: They started calling you escapist and other names. You were just completely – tuned out at this point.
SR: An ongoing, "You’re an escapist. What are you looking for? What are you searching for? This truth you're searching for doesn't exist. The truth is, everyone doesn't like their job. The truth is, no one's really happy. You just have to make peace with that. you think you're going to live in this la-la land, that you're traveling and doing what you love. This, it doesn't exist. Get real." Part of me was like, well, I guess that's true, because that's what I've seen the experience of everyone else.
Then part of me had seen glimpses of this other reality, not that everyone living in Bali was happy. I saw a lot of the shadows in that community as well. Thy were living these other pathways that no guidance counselor could have told you to become a tantric life breathwork coach. I knew it existed. A lot of them did struggle with money, though. I made the choice of I would rather do what I love, and not make enough money to live in the US, but make enough to live a comfortable life in Bali and in India, then get a job – because the jobs I was applying for, work in makeup at L'Oreal and become a real estate agent. Things that if I had to do this day in and day out, no amount of money could even numb me for the level of pain I would have been existing. I still at that point of thought, you either do what you love where you make money as a choice. I just chose doing what I love.
LW: Talk about how you ended up getting that book deal.
SR: Yes. After being in India, I went back to India, host the retreat, stayed there for a few months. There was actually a situation that I was in that this man who – in Goa, there's no taxis. It's all motorcycles. This guy would take every single day on the motorcycle. Every day, I knew this guy, trusted him. It was one of my last days that I was planning to leave and come back and I had a performance, a dance, belly dance performance. I was wearing makeup. I was still completely covered up, but his interaction with me was a little bit different that day.
To get to this belly dance performance, we had to drive about 20 minutes through the jungle where there's no cellphone reception, or anything. I'm driving through the jungle and he puts his hand on my inner thigh. This man is 20 years older than me, a lot bigger than me. I removed his hand off my thigh. He puts his hand on my thigh again. I'm like, “What are you doing?” He's like, “How old do you think I am?” I'm like, “50.” He's like, “Oh, I'm 32.” I'm like, “What is he trying to go for?”
I had lied and I told him I had a husband in Delhi, just so they all thought I was married. He's like, “You don't have a husband do you?” I'm like, “I do. He lives in Delhi.” Then he kept putting his hand on my thigh again. I'm just like, “Holy fucking shit. He's probably going to stop the motorcycle and try to rape me.” I have no cellphone reception. I can't believe I fucking trusted this guy and have been going on his motorcycle every single day and here I fucking am.
