Four days and four nights with no water, no food

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I shared this in my community, but I want to share also here, my second virtual home.

Exactly ten years ago, during holy days, I did my Vision Quest. A ceremony from northern Native American traditions with one purpose only: to have a vision.

For four days and four nights I was completely alone in a circle no bigger than six meters, with a sleeping bag and little else. Zero food, not a drop of water.

In the original tradition it's a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. For those of us doing it now, honoring the tradition as closely as we can, it's a rite of passage from a meaningless life to finding purpose. That thing that gives you direction.

Everyone asked me why. My simple answer was: why not?

But the truth is I needed something to push me to change my relationships, to break a cycle of scarcity I'd fallen into by circumstances beyond my control. I was depressed and didn't know what came next. I had a two-year-old daughter who arrived as a surprise, a shaky relationship, an emptiness.

So I went to the mountain to sleep under the moon and stars, between trees, protected by nothing but my bundles of tobacco marking the circle where I had to stay.

I understood so much. The main thing is that hunger hurts. It's not that exaggeration we say when we're starving and thirty minutes later we're sitting with an abundance of food. No, absolute hunger, an empty stomach, it hurts. After a few hours it passes. Your body understands nothing is coming and it activates survival mode, which feels more like resignation than anything else.

I cried for hours. For everyone living like that, eating sometimes. For the children. It was the hardest blow.

On the third day I danced, I felt joy like never before. I understood I was alive, that if I could do this I could do anything. That I would return to a beautiful home, that even though I wasn't thriving in that moment, I wasn't lacking. That I couldn't keep complaining, keep playing the victim. That only I could pull myself out.

With a tired body I had a vision. Or more than that, a divine mandate.

I have a sacred responsibility to help as many people as possible achieve what they believe is impossible. My gift for always finding a way, a solution, wasn't given to me for something trivial. It was given to serve others.

From that moment on I focused on taking my clients to the moon. I stopped having sporadic clients. I organized retreats, courses, online and in-person talks. I supported many in creating businesses that still exist today. I have students who've been with me all these years, who return when they're ready to scale to the next level or pivot. Who consult with me, who continue taking my courses and traveling the world to come see me.

I'm deeply fortunate. And even though I feel I'm beginning again now, in another language, in a new platform, it was time to help even more... so here I am.

I came down from the mountain on a Sunday, which happened to be resurrection Sunday, and for me that was exactly what happened. I was born again and my life changed completely.

And if you're thinking you couldn't do something like this, I challenge you to shift your mind. Physically you can, unless you have an illness. You can do this and more.

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