MY STORY
For the first part of my life sports was all I knew. It was my love language. It was my truth. It was my identity. The feeling of using my body, my breath, and my mind in synchronicity to achieve a goal was magic to me. I never felt more present then when I was on the soccer field.
The crazy part is I didn’t realize this until I was no longer playing. While I was aware of the meditative state I would enter and the euphoria I would feel after practice and games, I never knew this was so deeply intertwined with being an athlete. I never could have imagined the heartbreak, loss, and complete lack of purpose I would experience when it was gone.
Flash forward to my post-soccer era and the beginning of my journey home to myself…I remember sitting at a client at my old consulting job and feeling so empty. Feeling so disconnected from my body, from my essence, from myself, and from what it as like to “feel good.” I was pushing myself hard - as if my corporate job was an elite soccer match. Working myself to the bone, going the extra mile, fighting my way to feel “successful” and thinking all the while “why does success have to be so hard.” Questions like, “Is this really it?” “Am I really going to feel this purpose-less for the rest of my life?” “Why am I so tired all the time?” “Why am I always thinking about what’s going to happen next?" “Why does being happy feel so inaccessible?” were constantly spinning in my mind….
Little did I know that these questions would lead to the most challenging, soul-cracking, magnificent, and deep 5-years of my life.
I got to a point where I knew something needed to change. And, the people closest to me knew it too. I started working with a therapist and quickly things started to unravel. I began to explore all of the thoughts / stories / loops playing in my mind keeping me feeling so incredibly stuck, anxious and purpose-less. I started to realize the massive identity shift from ‘Tori the athlete’ to just ‘Tori.’ I started to face even deeper questions than before…Questions like “Who am I when I strip away all of my ‘identifiers?” “What do I truly love to do?” “What lights me up?” And, I began to realize that my self-worth was completely tied up in what I did not who I was at my core.
Shortly after I started therapy I became obsessed with understanding more about myself. I read 20-30 personal development books, I became infatuated with Gabby Bernstein’s work - listening to her meditations, doing her journal prompts and going to one of her live talks. I was listening to podcasts and audio-books daily learning more and more about the human condition. And, how these potent spiritual personal development gurus built such dynamic careers. I started to realize that the world of personal development and self-exploration was the place I would actualize the mission of my heart.
In addition to therapy and my own self-study, I began working with spiritual teachers and somatic healers. I knew that I had to get deeper than just the level of my mind. It was through this work that the real magic started to happen.
I began witnessing deep parts of myself that ached for love and yearned for safety. Witnessing these parts and loving them unconditionally was my path back to wholeness. It was through this work that I reconnected with my soul essence - that deep, potent feeling of unwavering presence. For the first time since I left sports, I felt that meditative euphoric feeling of just BEING. I was finally home.
My journey of coming home to myself was the catalyst for me becoming a somatic healer and life coach. Through self-study, lived experience, and learning from masterful teachers I created a business and practice rooted in the mission of my heart: to help you embody your most vibrant self.
It is my greatest honor to witness you as you embark on your own deep, soul-opening, and absolutely awe-striking journey of infinite ascension.
Big love, Tor