In October 2016 Eric and I left our home of almost a decade, San Francisco, for New York City. Lets just say it wasn’t the cupcake and rainbow experience we were expecting. It was dark. Very dark…

In New York, sleeping dragons awoke;  monstrous sides of my personality, that in sunny San Francisco had lain latent so long I foolishly though had disappeared, came to haunt me. There was hateful Alana. So angry I could kill Alana. Struggles with depression Alana. There was also a wake-up call to the perils of ignorance — my batty blinding guide who I so trustingly, unquestioningly, followed to a new NY life that has brought me tremendous suffering.

But, as Mae Yo has said again and again, suffering is good for the Dharma practitioner. It is motivational, reminding us that this world entails tremendous suffering and that dharma is our only escape hatch. It is also a chance to face our demons, the wrong views that sow the seeds of our continual rebirth (and all the suffering that comes along with it). It is good, as long as we don’t “suffer for free”, but instead learn and grow, contemplate and consider, take accountability and prepare so that we don’t continually make the same mistakes. New York has been a ton of suffering, but I absolutely refuse to have it be for free.

So here it is Dear Reader — the tales of my dark days in Gotham…