​A couple of months ago Frankie spilled liquid on my laptop.  You can just imagine my gut reaction when I found out four-hours later.  Anger and frustration slowly turned to pure rage.  I verbally lashed out at my son with such intensity, that I even scared myself.  As his little eyes blurred up with tears and his mouth turned downwards, I felt the deep pain of regret, shame and guilt that comes from being in my reactivity.  Gratefully, I had enough love for my son that I recognized how much my reactive response hurt him.  Clearly the message I had just sent him was that, “making mistakes leads to severe and intense rage.”  Was this the type of behavior I wanted to see from him the next time anyone around him broke, borrowed or changed something without him knowing?  The incident left me questioning who I was being as a person anytime someone broke, borrowed or changed something of mine.  Having experienced my own degrees of child hood abuse through verbal lashings, I knew this was not in integrity with the example I wanted for my son’s upbringing.  It was enough to make me realize that a drastic transformation had to happen in my way of being towards my son’s ignorance of life and the consequences that occur from thoughless actions. 

Since 2015, I have taken a deep journey of self-inquiry and self-discovery.  This all began after I had experienced being severely hurt in a fight at a strip club I had been working at during that time in my life.  The fight had physically left me with staples on my head and a bloody gash on the left side of my eye (basically I got clocked on the head with a stiletto and one of the other girls punched me with a sharp item on the side of the face) I remember being in the emergency room with the police and the nurse answering questions and thinking to myself, “Oh, my God what the hell am I doing with my life?”  Sadly, this was not the first time I had asked myself this question.  What was different this time was that the incident made me more determined to change and continue on my path towards growth. 

On my journey of self-discovery I have learned great understandings about conditioned neurological pathways of thinking.  Meaning, we all have thoughts that run through our mind which are inherited from a long lineage of other thoughts.  Consider that your parents or caretakers have left behind a beautiful subliminal gift for you of conditioned thoughts that have been handed down through generations and NOW they are yours.   I know that my own conditioned beliefs and thoughts have been created by some very dysfunctional adults.  Fast forward to present moment with Frankie and here I am screaming through a rage filled network of neurological connections that are very clearly setting off chemicals to ignite feelings and sensations of: rage, hate, intense frustration and ultimately self-hatred.

I had to step on the brakes.  I had to make some very harsh but firm decisions if my circumstances where to change for the sake of my son and our happiness.  I had to give up parenting to someone else who was more capable and able to take on such a responsibility, my sister.  My sister and I have a very delicate relationship.  When I say delicate, I mean, we work at being a family with great levels of PATIENCE.  Basically, if it wasn’t because she is family, I probably would not be her friend or as close to her as we are now. 
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One thing my sister has always been is a loyal sibling and caretaker.  Put it this way, she sacrificed a six-figure corporate career to become a Spanish teacher at her daughter’s Catholic school.  That’s my sister.  And when I called her up and told her that I did not know what to do but that I did know that it wasn’t healthy for Frank to be around me anymore she stepped in without question. 

What had to happened in order for this shift to occur?  I had to put aside my pride in order to serve something bigger than myself, my son.  I had to step away from the feelings of shame and blame and be in the moment of what my son needed.  For many parents having gut wrenching reactions to something the kids are doing is an-every moment event.  Because they are children and they are growing, learning, experimenting and just doing.  It’s our job as adults to understand the difference between teaching and reacting.  Teaching leads to growth.  Reacting leads to pain.
Namaste- Sandra xoxo

I began my journey of healing August 2015. At the time, I was living in between chaos and sanity. These two worlds waged a battle inside my head. The chaos was the drinking, the belief that I was worthless, self-sabotaging acts, and hating my life. The sanity was my family, the unconditional love I have for my son, friends, caring people and my yogi community. Fast forward to present time and my life has drastically changed, as I have incorporated healthy habits, a loving environment, therapy and meds, as well as a continuous daily practice of yoga and meditation. In the interim I managed to land several jobs as a yoga teacher and bookkeeper that give me the ability to provide for Frankie and myself. All was in a state of rhythmic positivity. A shift towards a healthy and stable life finally seemed attainable. What I did not know, was that chaos was patiently waiting for the right set of circumstances to return, with a vengeance!

I was abandoned, you might say, by my Mother at the age of three. She left me in the care of a second cousin who lived with her family on a coffee plantation field in a small city named Marsella in Colombia. The woman, Esperansa (translated Hope), abused me mercilessly. I developed coping skills of running away, hiding and being as quiet as I could be so as not to be heard or seen. The deep seated belief that was created in my subconscious around this trauma was that I was worthless and undeserving of love. As an adult these coping skills and beliefs translated into deep seated anger, sadness and the feeling that I would never be happy. Therefore, when anything happens in my life that is remotely negative it lands like a demolition ball hitting concrete.

It began in December with an unfortunate event. At the time, I was working with five different employers, each was a stepping stone towards a carefully thought out positive and healthy future. Until, one of my employers told me he had to let me go for the month due to financial circumstances. That small shift in my environment caused panic inside my head. Let me explain, I have a long history of being unable to maintain jobs or a steady income and one of my biggest fears is that I will loose everything that I have worked so hard to attain. Innocently, another boss sends out a staff e-mail meant to be positive and encouraging but in my mind it translates into, “I'm going to loose this job as well.” What happens? A huge argument with my employer that leads to my own actions of quitting a job I loved. After that, “It all went down hill.” Depression began to rap its gnarled fingers around my mind and the suicidal thoughts start creeping in. On cue, the universe attunes to my energy and the next day I walk into another of my jobs only to find disarray. I am told we might be facing a police raid and to not open the door to anybody! It all feels like I'm a character in a really bad horror film meant to destroy the star of the show, ME. I leave work with only one thought, “I need a drink.” At this point everything I have worked so hard to create starts falling to the way side. All I can think about is, “what do I need to do to survive December?” I am now making choices based on fear. Instead of turning to the support network I have built, I land in the arms of my old friends that promise fast relief from this pain; alcohol and self-sabotaging acts that leave me feeling worthless and unloved. I am chaos.

There is a deeper problem, I am taking medication and now I am mixing it with alcohol. It begins with a minor eye twitch and escalades to feeling extremely uncomfortable of being in my own body, panic sets in. All I am able to do is creep back into bed and sleep it off. This becomes a week long routine of extreme agitation and fatigue. The suicidal thoughts become stronger. In that moment of pure darkness, I make a life-and-death decision, I begin to pray. I pray myself to sleep. My prayer is answered the next morning, through a phone call from my stepbrother who is also a practicing nurse. Almost as if the voice of God is speaking at me, I get his warning. “Sis, you need to stop drinking right now, do you know that mixing alcohol with the medicine you are taking is only negating the medicines' effect and you might as well not be taking anything.” Here it is, a small ray of light. Enough to allow me to see the green meadow that has always been on the other side.

I make a conscious decision that I want to live for my son, my family and myself. I start speaking openly to my friends and family about what is truly going on in my life. They respond with support, concern and love. My therapists begins to see me twice a week and I am given more medications. My support network is strong and I can breath hope into my life. Hope... is it a coincidence that the main perpetrator of my abuse as a child was named Hope?

                                               “My hope is in You, God
                                         I am steadfast, I will not be moved
                                    I'm anchored, never shaken
                                      All my hope is in You”     Hope's Anthem

December came and went. The moments of unfortunate events flowed into January, as I lost another job, due to unforeseen financial circumstances. This time, I take it like a soldier waging in battle ready for the next attack to come my way. On cue, the universe responds, another job opportunity. I realize that this change is meant to be a sign of growth. I am given a very special gift, that gift is faith. The faith to know that change is life guiding me on my journey.

As February slowly moves in, I am committed to a daily practice of yoga and meditation. To moving forth with Sandra's S.O.U.L. Path and reaching Level 2 of my Baptiste training. Most importantly I am committed to myself and the role I play as a Mom, a member of my community and an example to all those who have fallen into the darkness. I am HOPE.



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  As I finish this year feeling empowered with the beginning of my Baptiste training journey, I can't help but connect the dots and be in wonder of how I ended up on a journey that has transformed my entire being and lifestyle. 

It began with a small awareness as to how happy I felt every time I left the studio. This bit of happiness inspired me to reach out to my former school I.S. 49, in Stapleton.  A school that is teaching grounds for great potential in the benefits of having a trained mind and body. My wonder grows as the desire to introduce yoga and meditation to this school intensifies the deeper my understanding of the benefits of this training has on my way of being. I know that my desire resonates from my own experience having attended this school. I remember having had wonderful teachers who cared about me, all of them! To this day, I stay in touch with some of my classmates and we are still trying to have reunions. I remember benefiting from the art department, orchestra and falling in love with the Viola. The environment was tough but I believe the teachers and staff where tougher in their desire to leave us with the courage to take on what we were learning. Here laid the potential in my young mind to escape the oppressing surroundings of my life: the unsafe conditions outside of school and the worry that I inherited from parents that where barely making "ends-meat."  I know that I would have been saved years of suffering, if I had been empowered with the knowledge that I had a choice over my actions, reactions and thoughts. 

For me, these years where a transition between innocence and the harshness of life's realities. Growing up life threw at me; abuse, hunger, lack of resources and negative people. As a result I became a reactive victim of my circumstance. I reacted at everything and everyone in the most unpleasant way, with pure raw anger. I know now that this anger emerged from an underlying fear that vibrated constantly in my existence. Fear allowed me the luxury to play the victim. I became “the victim of my circumstances.” My fear was the bedrock that led me to make the choices that guided me down the rocky path of strip clubs, alcohol, meaningless acts of self-indulgence and short term gratifications. Hate granted me the power I needed to feel value in a valueless perception of worthlessness and despair. I lived through my hate. My hate allowed me the permission to hurt those I loved, destroy my career and my relationship with men. Baptiste yoga came at a time when I had become sick of being sick of being miserable. Something had to change! The biggest obstacle for my change has been my “poor minded” beliefs. The beliefs that; I'm not good enough, I'm worthless, I'm undeserving, I'm not capable and that I'm a burden. I have to take a moment now and smile at what I just wrote down, because I know NONE of these beliefs are true. How can I prove to myself that none of these beliefs are true? Because the facts are quite contradicting. Fact is I just finished a training that quite literally broke down every part of my lie into pieces and flushed it down the toilet. After my training I have come into the awareness that I have developed an Asana practice that has awoken my body and mind from a “trance-like” sleep that had me in a nightmare of fears and illusions about my potentiality. It has guided me to conscious thinking, essential acting and being from a place of organic grace. This organic grace is allowing my actions and way of being to naturally come from a place that quite literally tells me that my life is awesome. Yes, I'm organically trying easy not hard. Organically trying easy is letting go of the makeup caking my face and letting it be naked. It's trusting that EVERYTHING I am envisioning for myself is coming to fruition. This vision is letting “the winds of grace” support me and carry me somewhere new and spectacular.

At the beginning of my training we were told to write a letter to ourselves. A letter that we would get at the end of the training. I wrote to myself this: I am working on developing a yoga program that integrates letting go of anger from childhood traumas. I am developing my script “Alexa Silverio Del Oro” and sending it out for production. I have started working on my book, that speaks to women who have suffered from allowing themselves to have sexual traumas. I have started a fund for one young person from a juvenile home to begin their Baptiste training to change and grow their lives. I am making money and supporting myself through my writing and my being a leader in yoga, meditation and mindfulness. I have created a faithful following through my efforts with Sandra's Soul Path. I have my classes and community classes. I have a loving relationship with a man who loves me, believes in me and supports my son and my dreams. I am in the process of purchasing a home. Most importantly I am continuing to heal and live a healthy life of joy, happiness and forgiveness.

Now, does that sound like the dots are getting connected and a person is being trained to live in their greatness? I am a living testament to the power of this training. I AM READY NOW!       

After years of self inflicted abuse through mindless activities that only continued to reinforce the feelings that were instilled in me as a little girl, I finally began to heal through the active practice of mindfulness, meditation and yoga. The journey was long and on its road were left many low points, break-ups, potential jobs, relationships and most regretfully a fatherless child.  My biggest lesson was forgiveness.  I say forgiveness in the most unconventional way, because I had to learn to forgive myself for holding on to the blame, hate and accusations I held dear to my heart for everyone I ever thought hurt me or tried to hurt me.  Once I let go of the hate that was attached to self-loathing, shame and guilt, I found my self-value.  Self-value is so important for someone who has learned that the only true value there is to have in this world is sexuality. 

Through mindfulness, meditation and yoga I understood my entire life had been structured around this self-belief that I should give up on my dreams and aspirations because I would never be good enough to attain them.  So, out the window went my dreams of becoming a writer, producer or actress.  I had even given up on the idea that I could be deserving of marriage or a happy family. Most painful were the bouts of numbness I would go through when I would use alcohol and highly dangerous activities to numb the agony of my belief.

The truth I learned about my sexuality is that I was allowing my shame and guilt of the false belief that I had about myself keep me stuck in the story that I would never be good enough for anything better than what I could offer through sex and being sexy. Because many times I allowed my ego to lead me into the belief that I needed to continue working in the adult entertainment industry for money.  I know for a fact that many of my friends, associates and family members could easily label me as the struggling writer, actress, entrepreneur and single mother.  I was always broke and struggling except when I was really working in a strip club or some other adult entertainment endeavor.  And like my abuse as a child it was kept highly secret lest it bring shame to the family. Therefore, even though my family was fully aware of what I was doing they felt helpless to help.  How can you help something that is supposedly non-existent? Healing begins with acceptance of the truth.  The next step is forgiveness.  Begin with baby-steps.  Start by forgiving what you feel you can.  Gradually and with practice you will want to forgive everything and everyone that causes you anger or any emotional discomfort.  It takes patience and a great deal of perseverance but you will soon begin to see a change in yourself.  It will start with being calm when stressful situations arise.  Stick with it, I promise you will soon feel more joy in your life.  I wish you much healing.  With love, Sandra