In the weeks that followed my surgery, I focused primarily on gentle yoga, self-reiki, and meditation.

I could feel my fear of dying as tension in my body, and I knew the only way forward was to face it.

One day, as I was meditating, I heard a voice in my head say “If you died tomorrow, what would you regret?”

So I sat with it.

I loved my life. I loved my family. I loved our homestead and the land we cared for. I loved teaching yoga and the people who trusted me to guide them.

There was only one thing.

I wanted to sing, and I wasn’t.

I had always loved singing, but I carried the belief that I wasn’t good enough, that no one would want to hear me. And there it was again. Fear.

I was so tired of being afraid. So tired of holding back from the fullness of my own life.

If I wanted to save my own life, I knew I had to start singing.

At first I didn’t know where to start. I loved singing along to the radio, and singing along to recorded mantras and kirtans, call and response chants that moved something deep inside me. But singing alone wasn’t going to cut it any longer. If I was going to live fully, I had to be brave.

So I chose a chant and committed it to memory. Mantras are repetitive, just a handful of words carried on melody. With focused attention, I learned one by heart.

The next step was harder.

I had to sing in front of other people.

Who was I going to sing in front of? The idea of singing in front of a crowd was definitely out of the question. Then I realized I already had people in front of me every week in yoga. What if, when they’re laying down in Savasana (with their eyes closed, which really helped) for those last 5 minutes of class, I just tried singing a mantra then?

So I did.

It was scary, and I did it anyway.

Pretty soon people were thanking me for singing; for keeping them out of their heads for a few minutes longer, and that they enjoyed it.
So I began to learn more and more mantras, and kept singing in Savasana.

And once I got over myself, I could actually enjoy it. So I kept doing it until I knew so many chants and was chanting in every single class, that the challenge wasn’t a challenge any longer.

I couldn’t stop there. Once that became comfortable, I needed a new singing challenge.

Enter Krishna Das.

A couple girlfriends and I took a road trip to Maine in the spring of 2018 to chant with him in a big amphitheatre. The place was packed, and the power of chanting heart-opening mantras with hundreds of other people was incredible. Peaceful and expansive all at the same time.
I immediately felt that intuitive nudge: “this is your next step”.

So in the fall of 2018 I began offering kirtans where I live.

As I began to get more and more comfortable with singing in front of people, I realized something:

I never would have started singing if I hadn’t been diagnosed with breast cancer.

The unexpected gift of breast cancer was that I faced my fears and did something I’d wanted to do for a very long time. Sing.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that by facing that fear and giving my voice space to come through, I was healing something inside myself.

I was filling a space that had been empty for years… a space I didn’t even know was there.

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Stay tuned for Part 6.

Video: I’m leading a mantra sound healing session, where students are in Savasana receiving the vibrations.