After searching endlessly over two years for tools and resources to address the "emotional weakness" I learned I had from the Kurdish tour guide from Istanbul, I finally bit the bullet and signed up for a retreat.

But not just any retreat. It was a four day immersion centered around desire, intimacy, relationship, and connection in the UK.

I had never been to a personal development course before, let alone traveled to a foreign country to attend one, and that first step of paying 600 GBP for one which was intentionally designed to shine a light on my relationship to intimacy was incredibly edgy for me.

I remember telling my lover at the time, a man who was affiliated with the retreat facilitators, that I would much prefer to be dropped into the middle of the Sahara desert with no map or access to water.

And I was dead serious.

Being hardcore and surviving despite all odds was easy for me.
Being vulnerable was not.

But I was leaning into trying new things after exhausting my own known resources for two straight years; coming up empty with how to address this emotional weakness I began to feel burdened by. And I knew a desert in Africa was not going to offer me the solution I was looking for.

So I flew to the UK.

Over the course of the four day experience, I was faced with countless opportunities to embark into new territory. I tried things I had never tried before, opened in ways I didn't know were possible, and deliberately took myself out of the prison of my own thoughts and immersed myself fully into the experience.

I had a wonderful time, and made beautiful connections with men and women I am still connected to. I was utterly surprised by how delicious and natural it felt to be soft, sensual, and open, once I dove in.

And, come the end of the weekend when it was time to fly home, I began to reflect on the onslaught of new experiences I had had and the new depths I had reached and all the personal things about myself I had shared, and, well, I felt totally out of control and proceeded to freak out.

At which point I began to cry.

But this wasn't just your typical shedding of a tear or two.

I was wailing.

And I physically couldn't stop.

I was humiliated and had no idea what to do. I had to fly home to Denmark, and after changing my flight once to give myself room to, I don't know, run out of water in my eyes, I eventually had to face the reality that I was going to need to be in public in this state in order to get home.

I have no doubt that the people on my flight must've thought that I had just lost a child or a parent or a beloved. Surely it was a tragedy.

And while it most certainly was a flavor of tragic grief, the thing I was letting go of wasn't other: I was grieving my perception of myself.

The flood gates of my fortress had literally been released.

In the interest of brevity, I want you to know that I cried more over the course of the following 18 months than I had ever cried in my entire life, collectively.

I learned so much from that experience, but two major key takeaways for me were:

1. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying, being sad, moving slow, feeling raw, or grieving, and our attempts to squash those profound emotional experiences only makes them worse on the other end, while simultaneously perpetuating a self-protected emotional sensitivity that does not, ultimately, serve us, and

2. I probably didn't need to spend that long crying so uncontrollably. :)

I knew how to launch myself off the cliff and did so regularly for much of my life, but I spent the next several years figuring out what sort of resources I needed in order to ensure a soft landing.

The HeartCore Collective is chock-full of those resources. Because the third thing I learned is that all experiences are worth it when you are willing to generously share the wisdom you've gained on the other side with those who need it.

So that when you decide to feel the fear and do it anyway, like I did, you can trust that you have everything you need to efficiently and thoroughly move through the things you've spent a lifetime running away from, with as little disturbance as possible.

Let's call it emotional biohacking. ;)

While the content for our first month begins to drop on February 1st, we are having our pre-launch kick-off party group call tomorrow night at 6pm CET for those who are ready to launch. If you want to join us for that call, you have 3.5 hours to sign up. You can also sign up literally any other time, if you can’t make it tomorrow anyway.

Here are the terms, so you're clear on what you're saying yes to: The HeartCore Collective is a monthly membership program designed to help you cultivate your emotional intelligence. Throughout each month I will share valuable content, exercises & practices, and journal prompts addressing a dimension of EQ which will serve your spiritual evolution. I've planned content which is supported by the astrological climate at the time its released. On the last Monday of each month, we'll have a group call to integrate and wrap it all up.

There is no time limit to this membership. Content will disappear after 30 days to incentivize you to keep up and not become complacent, and although it's designed to offer you multiple dimensions of resources the longer you stick around, and my hope is that this membership will compliment all of the other ways you choose to invest in yourself on a monthly basis over time, you are under no obligation to stay for any set period. If you aren't happy after a month, you simply need to cancel your membership. You don't even have to tell me about it (although I would be grateful for your feedback if you think there's something I can improve). If you miss us and want to come back, you just sign up again. Easy peasy!

I genuinely hope to see you there.