It Happened in a Bathroom in Rome

Last week, I gathered with the women of The Curves Collective, and we began our time together with a reading from Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese. I could feel the atmosphere shift as his words soaked in, like rain on parched soil:

“When I allow myself to feel my body… I become who I am – energy and spirit…
I want to touch you deeply, beneath the surface where our real stories lie…
That is how I want to touch and be touched – through beingness – so that someday I might discover that even the skin remembers.”

That’s the kind of touch my soul longs for. That’s the touch we practice in The Curves Collective. The sacred exchange that happens when women come together, not to perform, but to be. To sit inside what’s true. To let our wisdom rise to the surface like breath.

THE ENCOUNTER THAT STILL ECHOS

And yet… spiritual truth isn’t always met with open arms.

In 2006, I was on a Mediterranean cruise with my husband, Bill. We docked in Rome and stepped off the ship to explore the Eternal City. During a quick bathroom break, I found myself washing my hands next to a woman who noticed my West Virginia University T-shirt.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, “You’re from West Virginia? So am I!”

She told me her husband was on the medical faculty at WVU.  I smiled and said, “So is mine. He’s a psychiatrist and medical director of the Sydney Banks Innate Health Institute.”

She froze. Took a step back. And then—eyes wide, arms in front of her as if to shield herself—she said,
“OH NO! You’re part of that cult!”
And she bolted from the bathroom.

I stood there, stunned. That moment, strange and painful as it was, never quite left me.

A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING

Back then, I didn’t fully understand the woman’s reaction had been so intense.
Why would an institute that supports human resilience and spiritual consciousness provoke such fear?

Now I do.

I’ve just read Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart. It’s a meticulously researched book that outlines how a movement, rooted in religious fundamentalism and fueled by dark money, has been working for decades to dismantle democratic institutions and impose a theocracy in the United States.

I found myself exhaling as I read. Not because it wasn’t horrifying—it was. But because I finally had words and context for something I had felt in my bones for years.

This movement doesn’t just oppose certain politics. It fears spiritual independence. It fears wisdom that doesn’t come from a pulpit or a creed. It fears, in some cases, the divine feminine, the sacred inner compass, and love not defined by doctrine.

It fears the very essence of what I teach.

WHY I KEEP GOING

This is why I share the importance of spiritual consciousness, to the truth that we are thought in motion, wisdom embodied, divine essence dancing in form.

It is the only antidote I know to grievance and hatred:
Forgiveness.
The flip side of love.

In The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times, Nahua and Toltec teacher Dr. Anita Sanchez recounts a prophecy shared by a circle of global Indigenous elders. They named four sacred gifts humanity would need for these turbulent times:

• To forgive the unforgivable
• To heal
• To unify
• To be hope in action

The Three Principles I teach offer a logic for the first—and most difficult—gift.

They help us see beyond ideology. Beyond fear.
They help us forgive what once seemed unforgivable.
They return us to the intelligence within.

HOPE IN ACTION

In The Curves Collective, we’re doing more than talking.
We’re remembering.
We’re awakening.
We’re choosing to go upstream, together.

I believe this work—quiet, intuitive, love-infused—is part of a global healing.

And the significance of it was revealed in a bathroom in Rome.

Are you a woman called to navigate life with spiritual clarity, intuitive strength, and rested well-being?

You’re warmly invited to learn more about The Curves Collective.

#SpiritualConsciousness #ThreePrinciples #TheCurvesCollective #HopeInAction #Intuition #FeminineWisdom #BuiltForMagic