That’s my problem. My love moves fast. And I’m learning the reality of that and working to be kind to myself and not focus on the bruises or broken bones from all the trees I climbed too high in without a plan on how to get back down. 📸 @x.keilan.x 💡I almost split myself after feeling inspired to do this photo. No warm up, just plopped into it. I supposed that’s how I mess things up - by running full force into them, blindly. With my entire heart. I feel like a kid who ran head first full speed one to many times into a sliding glass door. Bloody, but ready and focused to never make the same mistake again. 🔥
The heartbreak will always be equal to the love you make. Do it anyways. Don’t pride yourself in no scars and little stories of risks and bravery with your heart tucked safely in your pocket. Clenching it in fear with two hands, still wrapped in plastic like it’s brand new. Like it shouldn’t ever get dirty. I know you’ve scraped your knees and fallen on your face but that will not always be the story my love. Be wild. Be reckless with sharing your feelings. Just keep it honest and ride the waves. On your last deep breath, you won’t regret having swung the bat all the way and missing, but rather having been too afraid to ever try. 🤍 This moment captured by the one and only @christopher.james 📸
My sweet love. I feel your pain. You went out on the limb fear told you not to and it broke. But what you don’t see, is there is no way to understand that when you say no to one thing, you are saying yes to another.
Every no is also a yes.
You absolutely have the choice to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and accept this literally less than a crumb of existence out of love, but I think there are far better things coming. The truth: It still might be him, but not if you teach him that you matter less than he does. 🤍 Wrote this text message out to a friend of mine going through it with love and heartbreak and my stance holds clear as day and does not waiver - you can still be absolutely in love with them, and walk away. Because giving them your back, means giving yourself the front. Grab your own face in the mirror. You are everything you dream of in a lover and MORE. That heart of yours doesn’t just work to serve others. It’s beating in YOUR chest. Stop trying to beg others to play your drum. It’s dancing in your rib cage for YOU. 🔥 One of the deepest most magical moments of my life is literally being in a heart out to the piercing sun backbend out over a fall of death in Zion. This is not photoshopped placement, it’s actually where and how I was standing and that’s what makes it so special. To see the behind the scenes, check my reels. 💀🙈 @christopher.james is an absolute artist and to take this shot, he looked me in the eyes and said calmly, “This is your last breath on earth and we are capturing that moment when it all ends.” This is the result of the end of the death meditation: Peace. Love. And a heart burst wide open in all the places it claimed it had been broken forever. Don’t wait till that moment my loves. Start now. ☀️✨🤍🥳
Why do we always examine the victim and never the abuser?
This clip is from one of my Patreon-only rants, and fair warning: I don’t hold back in there. It’s where I process what I’m discovering in real time, think out loud about the projects I’m working on, and occasionally lose my mind a little. It’s a different beast from the podcast episodes.
If you want behind the scenes of active investigations, the messy thinking, the frustrations, the breakthroughs, and yes, the rants, that’s where it lives.
After years of watching journalists ask the same questions, I finally started pushing back. “Why were you vulnerable? Why didn’t you see it? What was wrong with you?”
Nobody trained us to spot these people. Nobody taught us psychopathy in high school. Nobody sent us to the CIA for a crash course in dark personalities.
But somehow, the people who got manipulated are the ones expected to have a PhD in predator recognition, and the predator walks away clean.
Who benefits from that framing? The abuser does. Every single time.
/markvicente
#InstaGuru #Patreon #Cult #NXIVM #Whistleblower
What a day! Just finished shooting the launch of investigative journalist @ivo_van_woerden ‘s book ‘In de Greep van de Goeroe’ (In the Grip of the Guru) about Bentinho Massaro. Amazing people in attendance including my warrior wife @bonniempiesse and our brave trio @jadealectra@jacq.aly.graham@keilan.mcneil
Ivo has created a phenomenal piece of work that speaks to what cult survivors have been through in a way that is deeply emotional and sensitive. I could not imagine a better person to have written this book.
Meanwhile, I’m heading into year 5 of documenting this story. Also today Keilan Part 2 dropped on the Inst@Guru : Bentinho Massaro podcast. Available on YouTube and all podcasts platforms!
#cult #coercivecontrol #freedom #bentinhomassaro
Never thought I would unearth a gem even brighter than the Death Meditation, but lo and behold, I guess rock bottom had something I made into a gift. I don’t think everything happens for a reason - tell that to some of the most tragic, abusive and traumatic situations with no good ending; but I do know artists cannot help it but choose to make meaning. And that’s exactly what I did. They say “Throw me to the wolves and I’ll come back leading the pack.” I didn’t do that but rather traveled a deeply isolating and lonely path back to myself where this 44 minute cinematic masterpiece was slowly handed to me - years at a time. It is guaranteed to make you feel something because it doesn’t come from me - it comes from the Forest. From the Queen of transformation herself: Nature - the original gangster. You see, I never became a yoga teacher because of the yoga - it was the glimpse I caught of the rare chance to connect someone’s spirit back to their heart. If you want to know who I am and what matters to me most after my hardest resurrection, it lies within this wild and brave journey - down into the middle of yourself. But first, let’s take a walk in the Redwoods together. *Please note this is not a normal meditation. It is a visual journey at times and a story at others, and the ending will most likely leave you in a puddle and another something I cannot share but will be waiting for you to say yes. If you have ever felt something from my classes or the Death Med, this is the very best thing to gift yourself or someone you love. Last week to get the discount before she goes up to $149 on the website. DM me to save $100. Shoutout to the man of my dreams @keilan.mcneil for snapping so hard on this creation. I believe it is my Magnum Opus and have only him to thank for the 4K visuals of the Redwoods and Forest as well as not thinking I’m crazy when he saw the music I picked out but instead wove it like never before and allowed me to ask him to turn the dial of Magic all the way up. 🌲🔥🌬️
5 years ago I boarded a plane even though on the lay over in Texas, I felt my intuition spike with fear, and 5 months later, I came home a shell of myself. This felt like the end of my story. I didn’t have hope. I didn’t believe I could come back at all. I lost my teaching. And then my practice. It was a long isolating few years of muddling around through the mud, always searching for that spark of life. And then Big Sur pulled me in to the trees, and just like when I entered that plane, I was never the same again. Somehow, I would emerge even better than before.😮💨This is the story of how one girl planted a seed of hope in the dark soil of my pleading heart and the forest taught me to water it. What I learned each time I wandered in, took some of the darkness that had closed in around my spirit and composted it back into the earth. The redwoods were the alchemists - I was fully broken open and they resurrected me. Now for the first time ever, I bring you the same journey I took back to the light, only condensed into a 44 minute Cinematic audio and 4K visuals experience of some of the most beautiful rare phenomena in Big Sur Redwoods. Together, I will lead you into the “woods” and will share the stories that sparked my wildfires while we visit these sacred spots and breathe ourselves back to life. Let me hold your hand, in the exact way I wish I had when my boat first returned to the shores, a ship wreck of myself and a long way from home. Thank you for all those who took this experience and shared their vulnerable stories with us. Thank you to the best man I’ve ever known for being the greatest artist I’ve ever met. Your heart is so alive in every thing we make together. DM me for your last chance to experience THE LIFE MEDITATION at its lowest price this week of $49 before the website is live and it climbs to its regular price. Xo I’ll be waiting in the forest for you. 🔥🌲🌬️
If you could go back and visit your 8 year old self, what would you say? What would they want to share with you? Can you imagine giving them a big hug and looking them right in their little eyes? This is just one excerpt from the thing I am most proud to share with you that I have been teaching in Big Sur for the past 2 years. It is called The Life Meditation and it walks you empathetically down the experience that has been your life in a way that allows you to reclaim the spaces that were never meant to be taken away. This can be a highly emotional and psychedelic experience and all it requires is your breath and a curiosity to see where your mind body and soul will lead you when it enters the mystical forest of the Life Med. Held by the sacred Redwood Trees, you will learn about one of the most powerful moments of my life that helped me see how healing worked in my body, and in turn it will shift the way you look at trees, plants and animals and your relationship to healing in the coming years of your life. If you have taken my Death Meditation before, this is its newest equivalent. This premiere launch will have both audio and visual components and is the first of its kind in a new level of bringing nature into your home. Created by me and designed by @keilan.mcneil , this will contain both of our hearts and souls. For more details, send me a dm and I’ll send you a voice note about it. Thank you to my bf Kei for working so hard to accurately illustrate a microcosm of this experience in this preview. I hope you will join us. Your 8 year old self and beyond might be waiting. #healing #redwoods #bigsur
Times are weird and heavy and strange. Needed this. Started my period. Cutting out caffeine. Cutting sugar. To put it lightly, it was a clouds in the head day and cramps all over. I didn’t want to move my body, but something told me to go visit one of my favorite spots. I found this flat smooth rock, and Kei and I took turns lowering ourselves in there for 30 minutes straight. When we finished, we stood there side by side with our sweatshirts wet down the front and our faces still dripping and Keilan said it’s wild how nature has a medicine like dunking our faces in icy cold water that makes you feel alive and happy and clear headed. I wondered out loud if any one has ever studied the parts of the brain that light up from nature and then sent their antidepressant to blink in the same spot. Even if you have just a small corner of weeds, or a house plant, or if you have access to a park or a tree, please go visit them. It will make a difference. I promise you. Deep breaths. Put the phone down.🌲🌊🐿️
If you’ve taken my Death Meditation, welcome to my newest baby I’ve worked on for a year and a half inspired by the ancient redwoods of Big Sur - The Life Meditation. The other end of the spectrum from the Death med - and it’s birthing on Valentine’s Day coming to an email inbox near you. When I first began carving this meditation out, it was wild to watch people’s experiences get more and more intensely beautiful and potent. It was like I was following their feelings, closer and closer into their heart and lives. I teach many kinds of yoga classes and meditations but there was nothing that compared to the universal depth that literally anyone who experienced the death med felt - until now. I am so so proud of this creation and you can be the first to experience it in its debut form online at the only time it will live at this introductory price as this will be its rawest version before it gets cinematically perfected and elevates to a higher price point. For reference, normal meditations that I would teach would be priced at $5 - 20ish. This is another level and a true spiritual experience of walking through your life in the most unexpected ways with the trees to guide your balance and safe guard your heart. You will not leave the same way you walked in to that forest.🌲🌬️If you want more info or are ready to join the 32 of us already committed, shoot me a DM and we will chat.☺️ Thank you to the redwoods for all that you have healed in me. All that you have taught me. And all that you continue to show me. I am so very grateful to be here.😮💨😭🤍#deathmeditation #lifemeditation #bigsur
5 years ago on January 7th 2021, I tried to make a decision to better my life. I took a leap to try to get over a relationship stuck in a bad cycle in which I had to constantly give up all of myself to make it work, and despite doing so, never got over the same painful hump. It all came to a head, and at the same time, I got an invitation to travel to Ecuador to meet a group of people working and living together seemingly doing the same work I was. But instead of mental clarity, peace and happiness, I ended up abused by the leader of a cult for 5.5 months. When I first escaped, @markvicente who is a fellow cult surviver (HBO - The Vow) told me at one of my hardest points, “The bad news is, it’s going to get much harder. But what comes after that, will be unbreakable. Fight for this.” And a fight it’s been but the legs under me now are forged through fire and can never be taken from me again. If you are working through some type of recovery, throw out the notion of how long it ‘should’ take. The body remembers. Give her time and the right soil to heal, and never stop watering, even when it seems hopeless. Light might be just around the corner.♥️📸 by my love and favorite artist @keilan.mcneil on the first shoot we ever did when I first got to Ecuador.
Drove an hour past the closure today just to convince ourselves it was real. Saw some of the most amazing views that I’ve never gotten to experience before. The highway has been closed since I first moved to Big Sur in 2023 just south of where we live. Now it connects all the way down the coast! Praying it stays this way for awhile. Every time I drive this highway it feels like a miracle that it even exists. #bigsur #california #highway1 #pacificcoast #nature
