Meet Geralyn

For nearly three decades, until the age of twenty-nine, I swam against a rising tide of fear and self-doubt. My friends, fellow students, co-workers, and colleagues all viewed me as super-smart and competent. I excelled in college, graduated with highest honors, and landed a great job. I’d followed the script handed to me by my family and looked happy enough on the outside, but on the inside…

Everything, including me, always felt “not enough.” My life held little in the way of deep fulfillment. 

I looked around for something meaningful to do and found it in martial arts. Working out at the dojo every day for three years, I worked my way up through the ranks to 3rd degree brown belt. By then my self-doubt had teamed up with perfectionism and morphed into self-criticism, often spilling over into outright self-hatred. I could still put on a happy face, still enjoyed an active social life, but nothing could touch the part of me that felt half-dead. That part of me simply could not, would not let me feel my natural joy for more than brief intervals.  

Then, when my black belt test was three months away, I decided to go on a vision quest.  

I hopped in the car with a friend and drove to Point Reyes National Seashore, 60 miles north of San Francisco. We hiked Bear Valley Trail to Arch Rock, made our way to a secluded beach, then settled in for a long afternoon of yoga, contemplation, and soul-deep listening. Several hours later, we started to pack up. Feeling a bit deflated (I’d had no visions) I decided to go for a quick swim and cool off before the long return hike to the car. Having bodysurfed throughout my life, I ran into the surf like I had hundreds of times in the past. 

That’s when I slammed head-first into a rogue wave. The impact crushed my third cervical vertebrae and fractured C2 and C4. “So that’s how it ends,” was my one and only thought.

Fifteen minutes later—after an ego-blasting, heart opening near death experience and dramatic rescue—I was dragged onto the beach semi-conscious and unable to move. The realization, “My God, I’m paralyzed,” hit me with tremendous force, throwing me into a non-ordinary realm wherein I became the first creature to emerge from the sea. From “squirming like a fishy thing” (my friend’s words), I moved to crawling, then creeping up the sand. A sentient intelligence—a living, breathing essential knowingness I can neither name nor describe—ushered me along the path of evolution through my spinal cord and brains. When I came up on all fours, an incredibly loving presence surrounded and embraced me, pressing into my body from all sides. Surrendering to its embrace, I lay down on the warm sand as the universe became an ocean of love. I felt like a newborn babe, just out of the womb. For the first time in my life, I felt completely loved, utterly safe, and totally at home in my own skin. 

A single thought blazed through my mind: 

“This is what I truly am!” 

The half-dead part of me was startled awake. Then came the obvious question: 

“Why haven’t I ever felt this way before?” 

Clearly, I’d been graced by a miracle. A divine intervention had just spared me the life of a wheelchair bound quadriplegic, so I brushed the question aside. 

My recovery took a solid year. I spent the first 16 weeks caged in a halo traction device that was bolted to my skull in four places. But I no longer felt imprisoned by my mind. I lived in a state of pure freedom. The anti-self feelings that had plagued me throughout my life were gone.

Then, a few days after the halo came off, my mind came back. I’ll never forget the morning I woke up, once again trapped by my own negative thoughts. But I had tasted sweet freedom for an entire summer, had seen my original face, and come to know my true self. It became imperative to get back to that essence of who — who we all are at our core. 

I turned to the source of all grace and asked: “Why are we made to suffer the mind?” The answer rang clear and true: “You are not alone. You must find your way back to the essence of who you are, and bring others along with you.” 

I think of the years that followed as climbing the stairway to heaven. One step and one crucial insight at a time, I’m making my way back to that place where I feel completely loved, utterly safe, and totally at home in my skin. I want you to find this feeling, this knowing, that lives deep within—that is, in fact, your birthright—and I am honored to invite you to discover this extraordinary, ordinary territory.