You don’t need to live my story to transform — you need to say yes to your own.

If I’m being honest, my story wasn’t some sudden awakening — it’s been a lifelong dance of becoming, unlearning, and beginning again.

I grew up in New York, where I learned how to hustle before I learned how to rest. I was more afraid of standing out than fitting in, and anxiety was the soundtrack playing underneath it all — constant, like city traffic. I thought if I just did more, achieved more, found the “right” guy, I’d finally feel enough.

I found yoga in my senior year of college — right around the time panic attacks entered my life. It wasn’t in a fancy studio or  on a mountaintop; it was in an acting class. The first six weeks were all about embodiment — being in your body, feeling your body — something I’d never really done. I’ll never win an Oscar (though my shampoo bottle might disagree), but that class changed everything. I discovered yoga and began to find myself.

Years later, I left the busiest city in the world for a town literally called SLO — you can’t make that up. And that’s where my pilgrimage truly began. I didn’t know it then, but slowing down would become my greatest teacher.

During COVID, I found myself back on my mat. Every time anxiety crept in, I came back to my breath. Over and over again. One day, mid–downward dog, I thought, If we ever get through this, I’m doing it. I’m going to teacher training.

So I did. I moved to San Diego and signed up for my first yoga teacher training. I finished, threw my yoga strap in the air like a graduation tassel… and didn’t teach a single class.

For a while, I thought I’d missed my moment — like the world had moved on and I’d somehow fallen behind. But what I’ve learned is that the universe is never late. It was never that I’d missed anything — it was that life was preparing me for what was next—slowing me down so I could finally listen.

I know now I wasn’t meant to be a teacher then, because first, I had to become my own student. Yoga was never about touching my toes or nailing a pose; it was about learning how to meet myself exactly where I was.

I chose to devote myself fully to the practice — not out of discipline, but out of love. I had to learn how to sit in my own light and shadows, even when it felt uncomfortable. How to accept myself in every phase of becoming. How to grow into the woman I was meant to be — one breath, one choice, and every wobbly tree pose along the way.

Then came the Reiki session that changed everything — a vivid vision of me living in Cambodia. I tried to ignore it, but eventually I sold everything, packed, and boarded a 35-hour flight that would transform my life.

What was meant to be three months became two years of deep healing. I began teaching yoga full-time and, at Somaya Retreats, guided trauma-informed plant medicine retreats alongside my sister and a circle of medicine women — all across Cambodia’s breathtaking landscapes.

It was there, held by nature and community, that I experienced what true healing really is. Because healing isn’t always Eat, Pray, Love — sometimes it’s can’t eat, can’t pray, can’t feel loved. It’s messy, raw, and honest. It’s crying into a pillow, shaking with emotions you don’t yet have words for, whispering, Who am I now? But it’s also where I found my truth — under the moon, in ceremony, releasing what I had carried for years, or past lives, and remembering that even in the darkest nights, my light was never lost — only waiting to be seen again.

It was in that sacred space — between the mess and the magic — that Yule Glow was born. The name came to me during my birthday ceremony, a gift from something greater.

Yule represents the return of light — the turning of the season and the cycle of rebirth. Glow is the light we cultivate within and reflect into the world. The name also draws from the Khmer word យី (pronounced yule) — meaning “understanding.” When we truly understand ourselves, we can finally understand each other.

I’ve since come back to the States — back to my roots, back to where it all began. But this time, it feels different. I’ve learned to honor rest in a city that never sleeps — to see the skyline with awe, to hear the morning trains like the hum of my crystal bowls, grounding me in the rhythm of life itself.

I didn’t just come home to New York — I came home to myself.

Now, I share that homecoming with others — as a 500-hour RYT yoga teacher, sound healer, Reiki practitioner, and intuitive healing and meditation guide. My work is about creating spaces where people can soften back into themselves — into their bodies, their emotions, and the quiet light that’s been waiting beneath it all.