Celibacy, Heartbreak, and a Dreadlocked Pixie: A Journey Back to God

How saying no to sex, yes to truth, and getting lost in California led me back to the Divine.

I lay on the bed beside a beautiful, dreadlocked, pixie woman. Things were headed in one direction, and we both knew it. I sat up, looked in her eyes, and said, “You are so beautiful, and I’d love to take this where it’s going…but I can’t.”

This is a longer share. It’s a story of shame, surrender, synchronicity, and sacred re-connection. It’s also a moment of trust - sharing a longer story I’ve held close for a long time. I’m learning to open again. Thank you for meeting me here..

When I discovered sex, ten years earlier, it was horrible. I was an unprepared teenager carrying crippling insecurity, low self-esteem, and -most importantly- a severe dose of mommy abandonment trauma. It was a cocktail bomb ready to explode.

And it did.

When my first girlfriend broke up with me after three weeks (haha), at some deep nervous system level I decided I would never be left again. Once by mom. Then again by Sarah. Never again!

I would always be the one in control.

Always the one with the power to stay or go.

Cue years of ‘player’ energy. Using women, then leaving them. No relationship longer than a few months. Causing so much hurt. To others and myself.

Some lowlights from this time:

• Writing a love song that turned into a cruel leaving song halfway through and playing it in front of women I had drawn in, then left (crazily, at the time, I didn’t do this intentionally. That’s how switched off and numbed out I was).

• Having sex for the first time ever, with one of my best friends…then pretending nothing had happened, and allowing our friendship to fade awkwardly.

• Speaking so highly of sex that my young girlfriend decided to have sex with me for the first time, and then felt inadequate because it wasn’t like I had described.

• Seducing a woman in a nightclub even though I didn’t feel attracted to her. Just because I wanted to have sex. Then cruelly ignoring her beside me in bed the next morning until she left.

  Unfortunately, many, many more…

As I write these, I’m not sure if they’ll end up in the final version (they did). They still bring up embarrassment and guilt for me. I hope they don’t for the women my actions impacted.

I remember one woman, who I had drawn in and was now leaving, said to me, “You know, Nathan, you’re not a very nice person.” And I simply could not understand what she could possibly mean. Sigh…

I maintained playing the part of the player for years.

But inside it was getting worse.

My body protested more loudly. Premature ejaculation. Erectile dysfunction (which, in my case, is not an accurate term. My body was functioning perfectly, trying to tell me to slow down, to stop getting into bed with women I didn’t know, didn’t like…or both).

As the years added up, my insecurities and lack of authentic expression began to weigh more heavily on me.

When the pain of staying the same became bigger than the pain of changing, I changed.

Sidenote: I’ve since learned in my coaching that one can accelerate this process with support. So instead of hiding from pain for years (ostrich head, meet sand), one can face it and make the change it’s inviting before reaching collapse! This blew my mind when I realised it was a choice 🤯. If you’re feelin’ it, reach out, I’d love to chat further. Ok, on with the show!

At the end of 2009, I sat with the medicine of Mama Ayahuasca for the first time.

In a vision, I saw myself: naked and curled into a foetal position. Alone in an infinite darkness, crying out for my mother. I saw my deepest wound.

And so the healing could begin.

Then I sat with the frog medicine of Kambo. I thought I was going to die. I lay down, fighting every step of the way. Eventually, I surrendered to my death. And in surrendering, I was reborn.

Finally, in Feb of 2010, I sat for a 10-day silent meditation retreat called Vipassana. 11 hours of meditation a day. And I had never managed more than 10 minutes in the past!

That retreat took me straight to hell.

Hell of my making.

The first 4 days were an unrelenting visual replay of every sexual encounter I’d ever had. “Oh,” you might be thinking, “that doesn’t sound too bad!”

Well, allow me to add this: all illusion had been stripped away. I viewed each encounter from the position of Truth. My insecurities. My abuse of others’ energy. My deep internal pain. My lack of responsibility… It was all there, laid bare. No fluffy pink highlights. This was brutal evisceration via uncompromisingly honest reflection.

The mirror was polished.

And in its clear reflection, I saw my ugliness.

I came away from that experience with two primary decisions:

1. to never meditate again (more of that in another story)

   to become more responsible with my sexuality and commit to a reset

So I went out and immediately slept with someone.

I’m laughing at this now. But it was the final straw. The feeling of dis-ease, the impotence, the premature ejaculation, the pain of feeling so raw and wounded inside…

Everything I experienced was so overwhelming that I swore myself to celibacy.

Two Weeks Later… I fell in love.

It’s so fun telling this story…

Looking back on my attempts at making sense of it all. Stumbling, time and time and time again. Getting up one more time than I fell. Every time. I know now, that’s all it takes (hmmm, perhaps that’s why I can remain so calm when my clients are stumbling 🤔…anyway).

Have you ever cycled naked through a busy city?

What? You haven’t!?

Neither had I until, a few weeks into my celibacy, I decided to do the 2010 London Naked Bike Ride (so yes, I’ve cycled past Big Ben with my Little Ben waving in the ‘fresh’ London air).

While on that ride, I saw a very rad looking bearded gentlemen cycle past. I only remember because he had an extra long bike, on the back seat of which was perched a gorgeous woman. Shirtless, furry armpits, wild dark hair waving in the wind. I nearly crashed my bike (can you imagine a naked hippie after a bike crash, being cared for my medics on the streets of London?).

Fast-forward to that afternoon. I arrived at the top of Primrose Hill. It was a blessedly sunny London afternoon and we were gathering for the Naked Bike Ride afterparty (we did all have our clothes back on at this point, for those wondering).

Who should I see walking towards me but the wild woman from earlier. We gazed at one another, and I’ll never forget the words she said, “Brother, you’ve got some wildness in your eyes.”

And then I met her boyfriend.

They were a travelling band of gypsies from Northern California, on a European music bicycle tour. We had a lovely afternoon and I bid them farewell, my mind filled with dreams of leaving it all behind to chase them (her) across the world.

Two weeks later, while I was standing in a line at Inspiral, my local Camden hangout, I turned to my left and there she was, right beside me, in line. Turns out she had left the tour (oh no) and her boyfriend (oh yes). She in London for a few days before flying back to California.

We spent 80% of that time together. Bonding over our shared decision to go celibate. Bonding over our desire for a more authentic depth of living. Bonding over my desire to bond with her. Hah.

Over the following months, we spoke nearly every day on Skype, sometimes for hours. Nothing sexual, cos of course we were celibate…ha. Ha. Cue foreshadowing (though not how you might expect).

In one of our chats, I was bemoaning my life in London. “I’m broke, sad, lonely, and the weather here sucks.”

“Why don’t you come to Cali? I could find you a job here trimming weed.”

Sidenote: did you know about this? There are (or were, it may have changed) people all over the world who head to Cali every year to trim and prepare marijuana for sale. They work HARD for a month or two then spend the rest of the year in places like Costa Rica, Indonesia, etc, living cheap. I had no idea. Until she told me.

I didn’t have to think long. “Sure thing, I’m in.”

I purchased a one-way ticket to San Diego (to start my trip with a visit to Gran), leaving me with about $100 to my name.

How they let me in to the country I will never know. Other than my silver tongue 🩶.

This story has so many layers. I’m omitting some smaller things which unfolded. Please let me know if you’re interested in even more detail… Perhaps I’ll do a filled-out follow-up, or more in-depth podcast version some day.

Landing and Loss in California

About 3 days after I arrived to visit my gran, before heading up to begin work and reunite with the lady, two important things happened.

The woman I had travelled across the world to see got in touch to tell me two things:

1. My job had fallen through.

   She was now in a relationship with another woman (the sex of her partner isn’t relevant, but somehow it hit harder, hah). #sosueme

Well, what the fuck was I going to do now? I had $100, and nowhere to go.

I decided to go to San Francisco anyway, and trust to Lady Luck.

A combination of hitchhiking, train riding, and coach hopping ended me up in San Fran for the first time ever, at midnight, on a Sunday…with $100 to my name. But I had my guitar. I figured I’d be fine.

Another Sidenote: At this time, I was suffering with heavy metal toxicity, resulting in symptoms of chronic fatigue, depression, and other weird symptoms. It was only a year later that I worked out what was going on. The fact that I managed to do all of this is nothing short of a miracle.

God, there are so many stories I want to tell you here. But I’ll save those for another time.

Through a series of unbelievable synchronicities, I ended up sleeping on a new friend’s couch in the Mission District.

About a week later, the lady… Wait, I realise I haven’t named her… Let’s call her Stacey. Stacey emailed me to say that she had found me another job. I just had to get to her part of Cali, which was only a couple of hours drive from San Fran!

Thanks for staying with me, we’re getting to the point!

Remember that, at this time, I was still celibate! I was a few months in. And, fuck it, I was being TESTED!

Now that Stacey was unavailable, I wasted no time in falling for another emotionally unavailable woman (noticing a pattern here?). My newly healing heart was being battered from all sides. I was writing broken-hearted love songs, sitting in naked saunas with the object of my desires, and finding many unique and interesting ways of making life harder for myself.

I was a wreck.

I was also house-sitting a room in a conscious community where Stacey lived, in the mountains near a beautiful old mining town called Nevada City. Lighting the wood burning stove every day as the winter frosts arrived. Burning holes in my heart with the ache of unrequited love (ahhhh, the passions of youth).

But life was sending me messages of hope, too.

One day, as I put my trousers on, I felt something in the pocket. I pulled it out to see a stone I’d never seen before. An oval shape, with a mix of light and dark. I thought maybe Stacey (who I was on good, though aching, terms with) had put it there as a surprise for me.

I showed it to her, and she had never seen it before. But she did know what it was. She opened up a book on the spiritual meaning of precious stones. And there, before my eyes, was the Shiva Lingam.

Here is a quote regarding some of its meaning:

Shiva Lingams’ balancing effect can assist in your own sexual relationships. This representation of fertility and sexuality is a great totem to place within a bedroom to activate your sacral chakra. This area of the body contains our true identity and helps expand the understanding of who we are and how to transmute our energies towards the ones we love.

It’s difficult now to describe how much this impacted me at the time.

It was one of the perhaps 5 times in my life where I have felt The Hand of Something Greater in my life. Not only that, but it was the perfect thing at the perfect moment. And I had no idea how it came to me. Was it in the washing machine with my clothes? Did some stranger put it there? What happened!?

It was only a month or two later, when the woman whose room I was caring for returned, that I learned what MUST have happened! The stone was hers. I was drying clothes on a line in the room, above one of her desks. When I was taking my clothes down, my trousers dropped onto the surface. At that moment, somehow, that stone must have ‘rolled’ into my trousers’ pocket. To be found by me later when I put them on 🤯. So yes, still a frickin’ miracle.

Which brings us to the Psychedelic Halloween Party in a Mansion in The Forest (and your patience being rewarded)

I was standing on a heaving dance floor, filled with chemically altered humans dressed up in all kinds of ways, gyrating to loud music…and I was feeling overwhelmed. Sober and alone.

Across the dance floor, my eyes locked with a woman (there really is a pattern here). A dreadlocked gypsy with a clear gaze. We walked towards one another and shared a long, deep, beautiful hug. “Well, she must be high as a kite,” I thought, “but this is a lovely hug.”

We wandered together to the mansion’s tearoom to find some calm. We drank tea and chatted for hours. Turns out we’d both thought the other was high… And neither of us were.

So yes, dear reader, we finally meet our heroine of this story, the dreadlocked pixie woman from line one (remember her?).

At the end of the night, we exchanged numbers and parted ways.

She visited me a few days later, catching a ride to the community where I was staying. Things proceeded, as they tend to, to that point where she was lying beside me on the bed. Open. Inviting. And I sat up and said, “As much as I want to take this where it’s going, I can’t.”

I explained my decision to be celibate.

She was understanding. Sweet. Empathetic. We enjoyed one another’s company a little longer. And then, as a friend was heading into town, she caught a ride out with him.

When he returned, he had two small pieces of paper in his hands.

Little did I know that these simple pieces of paper would bring me back to God

On the paper, in small handwritten pencil lines, was this poem.

In many parts of this world, water is
Scarce and precious.

People sometimes have to walk
A great distance

Then carry heavy jugs upon their
Heads.

Because of our wisdom, we will travel
Far for love.

All movement is a sign of
Thirst.

Most speaking really says
"I am hungry to know you."

Every desire of your body is holy;
Every desire of your body is
Holy.

Dear one,
Why wait until you are dying
To discover that divine truth?

- Hafiz

I’m grinning now as I type this.

I will always remember the feeling of liberating joy as I read her handwritten note.

She was reminding me of something beautiful, teasing me with what I had chosen to say no to, and introducing me to Hafiz (specifically the book The Subject Tonight is Love, translated by Daniel Ladinsky)… All at once.

I looked up the poem and purchased the book immediately.

And suddenly, I came Home again.

There, in the midst of my pain, confusion, fire, and loss, I discovered transcendence.

All because I said no to a beautiful woman in my bed.

These poems. So short. Simple. Accessible. Overflowing with That Which I Had Always Known. Deep in my heart, the Yearning for You. And suddenly, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I could talk to God as a Barroom Friend. As a Gentle Companion. I could resonate with Divinity in the way I had always Known in my secret heart.

I will always be grateful to Selva. And Stacey.

And me. For finally saying No when I needed to. And Yes to what I needed.

Each new poem I read was a map to exactly the place I had always hoped (secretly) to return.

Poems like this:

I Follow Barefoot

I long for You so much
I follow barefoot Your frozen tracks

That are high in the mountains
That I know are years old.

I long for You so much
I have even begun to travel
Where I have never been before.

Hafiz, there is no one in this world
Who is not looking for Beloved.

Everyone is trudging along
With as much dignity, courage
And style

As they possibly
Can.

- Hafiz

I never opened the book to page one.

Always a ‘random’ page. Always, medicine found: Laughter. Tears. Gratitude. An opening to Something Greater.

And so, for the first time in my adult life, I began to speak with God. And to listen. To call The Friend into my life again.

That book is still with me, these 15 years later. Rat-eared, tattered, taped together. And still bringing me joy every time I open it. On a random page. Sometimes to find a poem I’ve never read before. My map Hom

What is your map Home?

I’d love to hear what opened the door back to the Divine for you. Feel free to comment or reply (even to share why you DON’T connect with Divinity at all. I’m here for all of it).

Until next time, thank you for reading 🙏.

Warmly, and with love
Nathan

PS: a final word from Hafiz, which I have taped to my computer, to remind me of my purpose in this life: “A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, then raise it to nourish your beautiful parched, holy mouth.” I hope that you feel satiated. That I have Poured Light into a cup for you, fellow traveller.