When I was 17, I faced death for the first time. On the day of my high school graduation, my first boyfriend, my first love was tragically struck by a car. It was one thing to read about the rituals and beliefs surrounding death in various cultures, but to see the lifeless body of someone I loved was an entirely different experience. I was completely disoriented, as if a heavy weight had crushed me, leaving me with impaired vision and hearing.
I cried incessantly, unable to eat or drink, and struggled with the relentless onslaught of suicidal thoughts, exacerbated by the towering windows of my 23rd floor apartment. It felt like there was only one way out. However, there was a huge bookcase near those windows, and in a moment of overwhelming emptiness and intrusive melancholic memories, my eyes fell on the "Encyclopedia of World Religions" with a bookmark in the "History of Buddhism" chapter. As I delved into the pages of the book, I discovered insights into the rebirth of souls, the concept of the bardo, and the thread that connects the soul to the body, it provided me with solace and a sense of comfort.
However, death is an experienced and profound teacher. It introduced me to a new lesson, assigned me homework, and returned to evaluate the completed assignments. The following year, around the same time, my grandmother, with whom I shared a close relationship, passed away. The grief was overwhelming, the pain just as sharp, but this time, those suicidal thoughts no longer surfaced.
Over the next three years, I attended the funerals of three more loved ones and began to associate spring with death. For some reason, the people I was close to died in the spring when nature was reborn, and their souls underwent a similar transformation. In these moments, my mind often traveled to Lhasa, to the mountains where countless bodies were laid to rest, where death was embraced as a joyful transition, and where the body was seen not more than as a vessel for the soul. In these mountains, people played the Tibetan game of liberation.
Through a series of coincidences and unusual encounters that life provided me, I began to immerse myself in the study of my psyche through this ancient game. More about this game I tell in my book, which will be published by Inner Traditions in late 2024 to early 2025. I spent entire days playing the game, attempting to grasp its intricate concepts. Sometimes, the reasons why I kept landing on the same squares eluded me, and the connections between them were not always obvious. As a result, I began to explore all the states proposed by the game through various philosophical and psychological paradigms. In order to dissect my own psyche based on these theories, I developed exercises and questions for myself, many of which I have been including for more than 10 years now while holding ceremonies of this spiritual game for other people. Thus, each practice I use in my sessions or ceremonies was created as a result of my personal, internal quest for truth, providing me with both relief and understanding of various processes.
While exploring the intricacies of my own psyche, I graduated with a Master's degree in International Relations, a field that may seem far removed from the human soul. However, now working with people, I understand that many programs and beliefs are indeed connected to the social-political context, to disturbances that occurred in the history of a particular culture. Not to mention religion, even as atheists, human psyches are steeped in the religious discourse that dominates society. Thanks to this milestone in my life, I can now work with people who grew up at the intersection of different religions and contexts, can work on a deep level with programs that surpass a person's personal biography and intersect with the history of a country. Often, these are beliefs related to social achievements and finances.
At that time, I was interested not in human consciousness itself, but in what exactly shapes it, what external factors. And I chose to fully immerse myself in the world of art as a shared reservoir of human experiences, legends, recurring themes, symbols, narratives, universal patterns, and myths. The latter serve as cultural blueprints for understanding the human condition, and often during sessions, I find that a person very literally, albeit unconsciously, lives out some mythological plot and several intricate plots at once. Our task at that moment is to track how this plot unfolds and what outcome we want to avoid and where we strive to turn the person's life, so that it does not unconsciously develop along an already written scenario.
Throughout this period, I engaged extensively with diverse groups: teaching students, strategizing with entrepreneurs as a business development director in a PR agency, founding and directing a foreign language school, and curating exhibitions as well as leading a contemporary art gallery with artists. It was during this time that I realized my desire to develop a system or method to assist individuals in understanding their life experiences. I aimed to help them identify dominant archetypes, make necessary adjustments to avoid undesirable outcomes, and become more conscious of their psyche's core drivers influencing decision-making. Consequently, this led to the creation of a book for independent exploration of Hindu spiritual game “The Map of your destiny” and sessions of psychoarchetypal therapy. Through these endeavors, we not only address and resolve current psychological, genealogical, and karmic challenges but also equip individuals with practical tools to navigate internal dilemmas effectively.