The Wound Beneath the Dream: On Leaving a Spiritual Path and Finding My Own
A spiritual memoir of finding bliss, losing it, and learning to trust myself again
There was a time when I was deeply embedded in spiritual communities, the kind that gather in eco-villages, host conscious festivals, and speak of tantra, sacred living, and soul-aligned love. I once found refuge in those spaces. Inspiration. A sense of purpose. It all felt so vibrant, so full of promise.
But something has shifted.
Since stepping away from that world, I’ve noticed an unexpected tension arise especially when I come across social media posts from those communities. Blissful retreats. Ecstatic dances. Glowing words about divine love and conscious connection. Where I once felt resonance, I now feel discomfort. A quiet recoil in my body.
It’s not about any one person or post. It’s something deeper — a subtle but profound dissonance between what is portrayed and what I’ve come to see behind the scenes.
At first, I couldn’t quite place it. But with time, I began to understand: it’s not that the community changed. It’s that I changed.
The Island That Saved Me
In 2018, I arrived on a small island in Thailand, carrying heartbreak, confusion, and the disorientation of a collapsing identity. I had lost a relationship, felt unaligned with my work, and was terrified of not having income or a defined place in the world. I was a woman unraveling.
The island felt like sanctuary. I had always dreamed of living near the sea, but imagined it would come later after success, after wealth, after building a business and retiring to a villa. Instead, I arrived at that dream empty-handed, barefoot, and broken.
My home was a tiny wooden bungalow no air conditioning, no hot water but I had the sea. And for the first time, I felt joy. Not the joy of achievement, but the joy of simply being. I surrendered. I gave up the chase. I let life happen. I felt held by something I call God.
The more I let go, the more I flowed. Life became full of story and meaning. I stopped planning and started trusting. And in this state of openness, I stumbled into a spiritual school.
The School That Changed Me
I came upon a yoga school that offered free classes for Thai citizens like me. It felt like a guide, so I said yes. I immersed myself in all-day yoga practice, lectures, and a community that celebrated embodiment and connection.
Little did I know that this was not any ordinary school, but one of the biggest tantra schools in Thailand. When I realized this, I faced an internal resistance. Their practices felt counter to my Buddhist upbringing. Love without possession? Sacred sexuality? Polyamory? It was all too much.
And yet, they were freer than me. Happier.
Eventually, curiosity got the best of me. I joined.
And what I found cracked me open: I realized my love had always been conditional. That my pain came not from heartbreak, but from my own tightly held beliefs. That what I called love was often control.
This was more than healing. It was a full identity shift. I stopped needing certainty. I embraced flow. I felt reborn.
I didn’t just study there I belonged. I knew the island, the people, the rhythm. Despite being one of the few Thai people in a mostly foreign community, I felt at home.
The Collapse
Then came the scandal.
Accusations surfaced — rape, abuse, misconduct. The founder of the school. Then more stories. More women. The community fractured. Trust shattered.
What had been my spiritual home dissolved almost overnight. Friends left. Classes disappeared. A dream turned to dust.
I didn’t choose sides. I saw the nuance — the trauma, the lack of care, the way sacred practices became dangerous when used without awareness. But the grief hit hard.
And just as the school collapsed, I fell in love with a man and left the island.
Two losses at once. One chosen. One forced.
Trying to Go Back
I couldn’t let go.
I traveled the world but compared every place to the island. I told my partner we should live there. When we returned a year later, I was heartbroken. The island had changed. My people were gone. I had forgotten they were tourists, not permanent fixtures.
I returned again, and again. Each time, I hoped for the magic to return. And each time, I was reminded: we had both changed.
Yet I found new joys — new communities, new practices. I started to rebuild a different kind of relationship with the island. But nothing ever felt like that school.
The Medicine Journey
Years later, in a time of personal crisis, I returned to the island and began working with plant medicine. The medicine showed me things I hadn’t wanted to see: the shadow behind the light, subtle hierarchies masked as freedom. Rules hidden under the guise of “flow.” Fear of the outside world cloaked in spiritual language. Communities that were “light-filled” on the surface but carried a quiet undercurrent of isolation, control, and spiritual bypassing.
I saw how the school had given me a container — but also taken something. I saw how the community’s beliefs, though never forced, had subtly shaped me. I had judged ambition, rejected technology, suppressed my voice in the name of harmony. I thought I was spiritual, but I was just edited.
So when I see those communities now, or people still immersed in them, it’s not the beautiful photos or poetic captions that bother me. It’s the mirror they hold up. They still embody a dream I once gave myself to completely — the same dream I’ve worked so hard to disentangle from.
When I met old friends still in the school, I saw them with new eyes. Not with hate, but with clarity. I saw their superiority, their fixed identities. I saw who I had once been.
And I felt disgust. Not to punish. But to detach.
The Deeper Wound
But the real pain goes deeper.
It’s not just about spiritual communities, or tantra, or workshops. It’s about trust. It’s about the ache of having believed in something so fully, only to discover it wasn’t what it claimed to be.
It’s the same wound that was first carved by my parents, by society.
I was told: Be good. Work hard. Do the right thing. And you’ll be loved. You’ll be safe. You’ll be whole.
And I believed them — because they were my world. I gave my youth, my effort, my heart. But when I arrived, I found not wholeness, but exhaustion. Emptiness. A self I didn’t recognize, a life I didn’t love.
So when I hear the voices of the spiritual world — “This is the way. This is love. This is freedom.” — I hear more than just their words. I hear the echo of every promise that didn’t deliver. I feel the sting of every dream I once followed blindly.
And I realize: it’s not that they meant to deceive. It’s that they believed it too, with the same lack of awareness I’ve now outgrown.
From Grief to Ground
For a long time, I carried grief. Grief for the years I gave to dreams that weren’t mine. Grief for the self I tried to mold into someone lovable, acceptable, “spiritual.” Grief for the youth I could have spent doing what I actually loved, instead of what looked good on the outside.
But something has softened in me.
The grief isn’t gone, but it’s composted. The years I once saw as wasted now feel like soil — rich, painful, and alive. Without them, I wouldn’t have the depth or clarity I carry now. I wouldn’t be writing this.
And yet, I hold a subtle truth, too: it could have been otherwise. If I hadn’t believed those lies, I might have walked a different path — maybe one just as beautiful, maybe even more free.
But this is the one I’m on. This is the one I get to speak from.
Reclaiming My Voice
What’s shifted most of all is that I no longer outsource truth. Not to parents, not to gurus, not to glowing social media posts or dreamy retreats. I’ve stopped searching for the “right” path. Instead, I’ve started listening to the quiet wisdom inside — one that doesn’t speak in absolutes, but in honesty.
The story I’m living now is not as shiny. It doesn’t photograph as well. But it’s mine.
And I know now that I was never truly betrayed by the communities, or the people, or even my parents. The deeper betrayal was abandoning my own inner knowing to follow someone else’s version of the truth.
But that’s over now.
I’m writing my own story — with roots in the grief, clarity in the compost, and a voice that no longer needs to convince anyone of the way.
And still despite the disillusionment, despite the awareness I now hold I feel deep gratitude for my parents, for society, for the beloved communities I once called home. They were part of my story. They held me when I could not hold myself. They gave me dreams to live inside of, even if I would one day outgrow them.
And even now, when I think back to those memories — the circles, the music, the sunsets, the laughter I still feel a tingle in my heart. Sometimes it lifts a quiet smile. Not because I want to return, but because something beautiful did exist there too. Something real. Something that touched me.
I know there is light and shadow in all of them as there is in me. And I hope that one day, I can look into both and love them all.