"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step..."
-Chinese Proverb
I’ve always been a rebel since I remember back when I was growing up in Soviet Union. Even back then, when everything in my life was super rigid and dense, I had this innate curiosity and my favorite question was “why?”
Questioning the authority and the rules around me has been the key factor that shaped who I am today. I’ve constantly challenged the roles that have been assigned to me since my childhood as well as the choices and the paths I was supposed to follow as a student, a daughter, a girlfriend, a sister, and a citizen.
Being free of rigidity and the patriarchal system in Lithuania is what brought me to the United States in 2000. I left everyone and everything behind me and decided to re-write my story and build my life here on my own.
Re-writing my story over and over again has been the core theme of my life. Trying, building, growing, reaching a peak, and then realizing that the time is up for something new is how I experience the curve of life. I keep unraveling bits by bits what my truth is and what my Spirit is longing to express.
I left an exciting TV journalist career in Lithuania, applied to all women’s undergraduate program at Mills College in Oakland, and got a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics. My Central command that I was brought up with kicked in – Survival! How am I going to survive as an immigrant from Lithuania and find my American Dream that everyone on TV was talking about?
I was very good at running according to that Survival system. Get bigger titles, fatter salaries, less sleep, run my body to the ground, ignore any signals, and numb the gentle nudges that my Intuition has been sending all along. I followed the rules and made all the “right” moves that were supposed to bring me closer to that “happiness” peak.
I worked at prestigious global asset management companies and banks, including Morgan Stanley, Barclays Global Investors, iShares, Blackrock, Charles Schwab, PIMCO, MUFG Union and US Banks. I kept trying to find that happiness destination that I so deeply believed existed.
While pursuing the “happiness” destination, I also had the curiosity to follow the deep longing of my Spirit, to look for the truth and what may lay underneath the surface. My Intuition was guiding me to different spiritual places. I was looking for a teacher and my path led me to find her in 2010. I have been studying energy work in a private setting and completed the Personal Energetics Management Wellness Program in 2012 as well as the Advanced Skills Training Program in 2014. I also completed the additional 2 years of studying of the program in 2018. I continue attending Graduate classes and deepening my intuitive skills today.
It may seem contradictory going from a total Survival system to the realm of the Spirit. However bridging that gap between the Material and Spirit worlds is my unique path that led me to develop the skills to be in Service to those who are willing and interested to experience how we can live cultivating both.
I guide people to connect to the multi-dimensional parts of themselves: to their spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical selves. I am passionate about music, movement, and energy work and strongly believe that the only way to finding the inner peace and clarity is by connecting to the multi-faceted selves and getting out of our heads.
To me, the only true wealth in life is my life experience. Nobody can give it to me and nobody can take it away from me. I know in my bones what it feels like to walk and sit in the corporate office setting. I also know how it feels to be guided by my Higher Self and my Intuition.
My unique and diverse experience helps bridge the gap between the Material and Spirit realms. I believe that’s what’s truly needed right now in order to save our personal selves as well as our planet.
My early years were spent gazing at transparencies of human anatomy at one end of my living room. On the other end, I would gaze at the plants my father nurtured with such care as they framed the windowsill overlooking a graveyard spanning a 3 block diameter. This graveyard was also along my daily walk to and from school, as well as, the library that provided a safe oasis in East Orange, New Jersey.
I was shut away from the outside world for my protection, so I did not fall into the pitfalls of my neighborhood. One could not help contemplating life, death, and human existence, even if it was just happening on a subconscious level.
I spent my younger years trying to learn the system that I was born into in order to bring about prosperity to my family. This included investing and trusting in the "normal" trajectory provided by our institutionalized learning system. Small gems were given to me during this journey from even though I was already jaded by the authority figures at that time. "Learn by doing" was the slogan of a substitute teacher that rings true even to this day, an out of body experience as I pushed my body through a 12 mile run, a connection to nature as it energized me through daily runs, and meditation in martial arts classes started shaping a thought process not aligned with the "norm" by the time I was 16. Courses in chemistry, biology, and physics gave my mind an escape route to ponder the molecular current surrounding me. This was my way out!
Then another out of body experience occurred as I watched and felt the Two Towers fall in my fluid mechanics class in Hoboken, New Jersey. I wanted to help those around me, but was not equipped to do so. What was the point of this existence if not to help others and myself experience and achieve a higher purpose than materialistic egotism? A desire that has been gestating all these years to figure this out was given birth, and needed to be nurtured.
As a newfound hobby, I studied different schools of psychology, philosophy and religions just to find pieces to an unknown puzzle. My intuition was my only tool to decipher truth yet, it was a tool I was learning to understand and trust. Another issue was how to continue this search while surviving in our current system without abandoning those around me for a monastery? My intuition graciously yelled, "I was not meant to be shut away in a lab, a cubicle, a room, or a mountain top. I have to be amongst and work with the people". From then on I have tried to find ways to cultivate and stay true to this natural way to be of service and not a slave.
Currently, I apply my knowledge as a massage therapist / bodyworker and a prospective acupuncturist/Chinese medical doctor that practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have been practicing professionally for the last 8 years within different environments. This includes staff members, cancer patients, rehab patients, and patients going in or coming out of surgery, especially those that received hip and knee replacements the day before treatment at St. Helena Hospital in St. Helena, Ca. I’ve also used my Chinese medical background to assist the lead acupuncturist/my former instructor by providing cupping, gua sha and a chinese medical style of massage called Tui Na to his patients post treatment to support the embodiment of his treatments at Kokko Wellness in Berkeley, Ca. I’ve also worked at spas such as Massage Envy in Walnut Creek and Las Alcobas in St. Helena, as well as a wellness center called Rafiki Coalition that provides free acupuncture and massage therapy to low income families and marginalized groups of people. These environments were selected to hone my skills to give a therapeutic yet relaxing, well balanced service to the unique individuals that enter my space.