How and Why?

It all started with a dream...

It has been my dream as long as I can remember to have more people in the world experience life and love in the most amazing, if not magical, ways possible.  What I realized many years ago, however, is that creating a world with healthier, happier people begins with each one of us, as individuals, dreaming as big as we possibly can, moving toward those dreams, and being open to seeing new Truths about what it really takes to be healthy in the mind, the body, the emotions, and the spirit. Today I am living my dream through a clear purpose of nurturing wholeness of the human condition and assisting others in achieving their dreams.

I have been passionate about and in awe of the human condition since I was a little girl. Growing up in a cross-cultural military family being relocated all over the world came with big challenges and even bigger lessons. I learned how cultures can be vastly different yet people are universally the same. I learned that words don’t get me very far when it comes to real communication. I learned that a smile goes further than most people can imagine. I learned that life sometimes can be really, really hard and I learned how miraculously resilient human beings can be. I learned that no matter where we are in the world, when people come together to sing and dance, something incredibly powerful and magical happens. By the time I was 18, I knew a huge part of my purpose was to keep learning about the human condition to help others heal, live, and love.

For the next 10 years, I pursued learning everything I could about what makes us breathe, feel, and think. I spent most of those years studying and researching how stress affects behaviors such as drug addiction, motivation, and learning. The two biggest insights I took with me from that part of my journey are 1) nurture can override nature, and 2) since nearly all neural networks can be re-wired, that means nearly all thought patterns and behaviors can also be transformed.

While I learned so much during those years, there was something missing.

What was missing in the biomedical field of neuroscience for me was a connection to the human spirit, to the soul, to the essence of what it means to heal and to be whole. Then, through a series of life events, I began to realize there was wisdom and truth beyond textbooks that can bring about far more powerful solutions for some of the worst human conditions than prescribing a pill. It was clear to me that to achieve wholeness on this planet, we needed to begin harmonizing science with spirituality, and our heads with our hearts.

Immediately after earning my doctorate, I embarked on a spiritual journey through Peru. While there, I heard a Peruvian Amazonian Shaman say, “When people in the modern world want to know about something they go and read books, take classes, dissect its parts, and do research. They study everything they can about it and in the end . . . .  they still never ‘know It’, they only know ‘about’ it because they studied it.” In hearing those words, something began to crack open in my heart and my own path to personal healing and transformation began.

For the next 3 years, my curiosity about matters of the heart began to grow and eventually, there was one question that became the center of my attention. That question was, “What is this thing called Love?” With a burning desire to know love and a knowing that love may be the most important and powerful force of humanity, I started a documentary film and community art project exploring the dynamic nature of love and relationships in the modern world. The project is called 22 Ways 2 Love You and has been one of my greatest teachers on one of my favorite subjects.

As my heart began to guide my way, I also found myself being drawn to the universal act of dance and began to see dance as a powerful metaphor for love and relationships. I had always intuitively known there was something about dancing that heals, connects, and transcends. With this in my heart, the next milestone of my journey was finding a life coach training program. I knew I found the perfect program when I read the words, “If you’re not willing to learn how to dance, then this program is not for you!”

It was in this program, through Newfield Network, under the guidance and inspiration of master coach and philosopher, Julio Olalla, that I got to witness (and remember) what healing is really all about. Tenderness… gratitude… connecting with our bodies… learning to dance… and learning to move in new ways. It was there that I began experiencing the truth of  the idea that when we move in new ways, we literally create new neural pathways and we begin to feel and think in new ways.

The next significant piece of my journey was being called to work with two related organizations, ONE Freedom and Magis Group, to learn and teach a model designed to help people not only navigate lives impacted by trauma and stress, but more importantly, how to discover the strength within to move through challenges with ease and grace. I still work with both these organizations with a shared vision of bringing new paradigms of education and training into the world with a much needed balance of science and ancient wisdom.

The next few milestones of my journey had to do with falling in love.

It had been a long road of soul-searching and healing for me. I struggled for much of my life with anxiety and depression. It fascinates me to this day that, with all my formal training and education, what would eventually become one of the most powerful tools in my personal healing and transformation is the art and practice of poi and fire dancing - dancing being the key word.

After discovering the art at a Burning Man Festival, I began practicing on my own nearly every day and it didn’t take long before I not only fell in love, but it became my sanctuary. This unique form of movement meditation and dance became a vehicle for creative expression, learning to move in new ways, stress relief, play, and connecting to the element of Fire in a sacred way.

Shortly after falling in love with poi – dancing, I fell in love with my soulmate, Nova Dasalla, who has been my greatest teacher and inspiration for transforming fears into fuel and embracing life, love, and gratitude. My husband is also my partner in a shared purpose and vision to help others heal, transform, and achieve their dreams in life and in love through Soul Flow Alchemy. Formerly North America’s # 1 ranked Acrobatic Paraglider and survivor of a near-death flying accident, his message of what it takes to engage extraordinary resiliency and not give up on one’s dreams after learning how to walk again, is truly powerful.

I leave you with one final love story which completes “my journey” and a very important message. It is the story of falling in love with myself, of the miracle that I, you, and each and every one of us truly are… separate from our identity, separate from our egos, but the raw life force that pulses through and connects each and every one of us. It is the primal wisdom that is within, in this body and soul, separate from thoughts, speaking a whole different language, a language connected and felt through a universal dance and rhythm, pulsing through our hearts . . . .  a message that self-healing is possible through movement, music, and the magic that unfolds with love, compassion, and simply by believing in miracles.

Today, the journey continues with great joy, curiosity, gratitude, and trust in the Divine.

Blessings, 

Jinju Dasalla, PhD, Director and Co-Founder, NaiAsa Institute