How Surviving My Worst Nightmare Led Me to the Life of My Dreams

Prefer to listen? Audio below.

One year ago, on July 19th, my life changed forever.

Just days after my 43rd birthday, I was robbed and violently assaulted the night of my party in Los Angeles.

For a long time, I wasn’t ready to tell this story.

Not because I was ashamed.

Not because I wanted to forget.

But because I was still living it.

I was angry and I was in pain.

Because I’ve spent my entire life experiencing the world through my body. And after that night, I couldn’t.

I grew up an athlete. I was a cheerleader. A dancer. I built a 20 year career as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor. So I’ve always taught, traveled, connected and healed through movement. So my body has never simply been something I lived in. It has been my compass and my anchor.

It’s how I’ve understood myself.

It’s how I’ve understood the world.

So when someone else’s violence changed my relationship with my body, it felt as though I had lost the very thing that had always guided me.

There’s a unique grief in healing from something that wasn’t yours to create.

Accidents happen.

Bodies get injured.

But there is something profoundly different about waking up every day inside a body that carries the consequences of another person’s choices.

The physical injuries have been significant. The doctor’s appointments, countless.

Nerve damage.

A misaligned hip.

A shoulder that now has limited range of motion.

A collapsed diaphragm that transformed something as ordinary as breathing into something I suddenly have to think about.

But the invisible wounds were just as difficult.

The anger.

The fear.

The feeling that the body I had trusted my entire life no longer felt like home.

After the assault, I told only a few people. However, from the detective to close friends, people constantly told me how strong I was.

I know they meant well.

At first, I appreciated hearing it. Because I was grateful I survived to even talk about it.

But then eventually, those words became heavy.

Because if I’m honest, I would rather live in a world where I don’t have to be strong.

I wanted my birthday to remain a celebration.

I wanted my body to remain the place where I felt most free.

Strength wasn’t something I chose.

It was simply what remained after survival.

But life goes on.

And while I couldn’t imagine life with this new normal, I certainly couldn’t imagine what celebrating my next birthday, 44, would look like…

So trust me when I say, I would have never believed you if you told me I would be celebrating in Spain.

Even though, ever since I turned 17 here in Barcelona, I have dreamed of living here.

This dream was buried deep inside of me, so when I realized I didn’t know what to do next after this life altering moment at 43, my soul stopped lingering on “why this?” to “now what?”

The fact that I would have to rebuild my life was inevitable. But how and where I rebuilt it, was totally up to me. So for the first time in my life, I began the journey of leaving a place that no longer served me and opened my heart to the day by day journey known as the unknown.

My plan wasn’t to move to Spain. My plan was to go see about Spain, to see if just maybe, I could rebuild my life and be better supported there.

And here I am.

Still healing.

Still rebuilding.

Still carrying injuries.

But also living the life I once only imagined.

For 44 I celebrated my birthday in Costa Brava.

And when I got to my hotel, I ordered an espresso martini at the rooftop pool, while I waited for my room to be ready. I was scrolling through photos from this time last year, something I often do on the days leading up to my solar return, and the first photo I landed on was almost identical to the moment I was currently having. At the pool, waiting, having an espresso martini. I hadn’t looked at the photos from July 2025 since July 19th, so in this moment I got chills as my soul whispered, “You did it. You’re still here, your’re still celebrating.”

I began writing this post in that moment as the gratefulness of the memory was finally on top of the anger and the fear.

But then something else happened. When my room was ready, the receptionist told me that on Wednesday there would be a yoga class. Wednesday would be my actual birthday, July 15th. So as soon as I was feeling hopeful, I immediately felt the anger that has accompanied any thoughts around movement for a year now. I wanted to tell her, “Lady, not only do I not enjoy yoga, I can’t imagine doing downward dog with my misaligned hip and immobile shoulder. And I also can’t take a deep breath without pain.”

But instead, I said, “Okay. We’ll see.”

And to be honest, that is what I have been saying to myself and my body for a year now. Day by day. Step by step. We’ll see.

I took the yoga class.

The space was beautiful and the instructor was both incredibly kind and beyond gifted. It was just me and another girl in class and the class was taught entirely in Spanish.

I planned on following the flow by sight, but it turned out I understood every word.

And I also understood every breath.

This made me emotional, because in lying on that mat, listening to my inhale and exhale, I realized something I hadn’t fully felt in an entire year.

My body had never stopped trying to lead me, to heal me, or to protect me.

Even through the trauma.

Even through the pain.

Even through the anger.

It had been adapting.

Patiently waiting for me to trust it again.

In that quiet room, thousands of miles away from where my nightmare began, I realized that my body never betrayed me.

It was the thing that had carried me through.

Surviving my worst nightmare didn’t lead me to the life of my dreams because suffering is somehow beautiful. It is not.

It led me here because it reminded me that life can change overnight.

And if everything could change in one moment, then I can trust myself to change with life. Not against it.

Today, when I tell people my story, they don’t first see someone who survived violence.

They see a woman creating a life in Spain.

A woman speaking and understanding another language.

A woman rebuilding.

A woman dreaming again.

That may be the greatest gift this past year has given me.

Not that I discovered how strong I am.

But that I discovered my deep connection with my body continues to radically transform.

It is still my compass, my guide, my greatest teacher.

And even after everything we’ve been through together, it is still leading me toward a life beyond anything I could have imagined.

Has there ever been a moment that completely changed the direction of your life? Looking back, what did that experience ultimately teach you?

Have you ever had to rebuild trust in yourself, your body, or your life after something unexpected? What helped you begin again?

What dream have you been postponing because you’re waiting for the “right time”?

When have you mistaken survival for strength? What would it look like to pursue peace instead of simply proving you’re resilient?