You are a Hero in the Making, and Your story starts now

Hello, I am so glad you’re here!

I am Jemarc, and I am so honored to know you. Well there are a lot of titles I could use to describe myself and my role, I’d like to see myself as a hero trainer. You can consider me the mentor here to guide you as you work to overcome all of the obstacles in your way, and as a dear friend here to listen to you with an open heart. Most of all, if you are having difficulty believing in yourself, then I would encourage you to believe in the me that believes in you.

In the Vedic practice, our life’s purpose is called our “Dharma.” My Dharma is to be here to support you on your healing journey. I utilize a perspective that takes the historic teachings of the Historical Gautama Buddha and translates them through a modern lens. Spirituality isn’t about placing 100% of your faith in an external force, or in denying your human experiences and existence for the sake of “getting to the next life.” To me, spirituality is about guiding yourself back home, back to the innately good hero within who strives to be better and make the world better every day.

I have had the pleasure of working with people from all walks and life, and - most importantly - I have seen these people find themselves back home from the darkest parts of their journeys. When we heal ourselves we contribute to the healing of the collective world. I connect with people all around the world to teach my flavor of spirituality with a huge dose of geeky authenticity in the mix. Through my teachings my students have been able to recognize that wellness isn’t about buying all the books, traveling overseas, purchasing endless crystals, or praying to specific deities. Ultimately, it is about recognizing that we are more than our thoughts, traumas, and self-destructive patterns, and with the right guidance and support anyone can access their inner hero.

“You are a Gift and the World is Waiting for you to open.”

The day I woke up, is the day I told my wife I didn’t want to live anymore and they told me they wanted a divorce.

Since high school I've been very good at making friends with others. While in public spaces I was an absolute social butterfly, able to find ways to connect with anyone I met in some shape or form. This continued on into my college years where one of my friends used my name "Jemarc" as a verb to mean: stopping every five seconds from point A to point B to talk to someone. The truth of the matter is that I became very good at being whoever the person I spoke to needed me to be so they would like me. I was excellent at matching energies and interests. A master of Disguise. And yet I was so immensely miserable inside.

I had all of these friends. Yet spent a majority of my days in college and after college alone and locked in my room. No one ever really invited me out because everyone assumed I had somewhere to be. And I didn't have the self confidence to ask to hang out with anyone. Or to ask to be considered for any kind of social activity.

To suppress this immense discomfort and insecurity I threw myself into my work as a creative and artistic person. From high school to college I learned how to act, dance, choreograph, write and perform spoken word poetry, and shoot, direct and film short movies, and started multiple start up companies. I told myself that I could be happy as long as I "made it big" and I transformed all of my pain into relentless ambition. If no one would hang out with me I would spend weekends at dance workshops three hours away and week nights at rehearsals for my university's Productions. As long as I kept busy I wouldn't have to think about how I was feeling. And as long as I kept busy I would one day be happy and wouldn't feel so alone.

“You are present when you are in love with the world, and you are in love in the world when you are present”

Growing up a child of immigrants. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere. And my parents high expectations of me translated into being extremely studious, and very hard working, while going through an extended period of repressing my pain so that I wouldn't have to burden anyone. My pain felt so burdensome to me I couldn't even imagine placing that on someone else. I didn't want to be a burden, as I generally did as the youngest who my parents and older brother always treated with a combination of babying and helicopter parenting. So imagine how lucky I felt when the person I would one day marry suddenly had to deal with intensely damaging chronic conditions like Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome all stemming from PTSD and C-PTSD.

Finally here was someone in my life who would need me and rely on me. If I had this person and if I could be there caregiver then that meant I deserved love and deserved to be loved. For the first three years of our relationship every waking moment that wasn't spent trying to define myself outside of the role of caregiver I ironically clutched on to that identity as a means of validation. "Maybe I'll never make it as a famous actor, but my fiancé needs me" or "Maybe I'm not working right now but my fiancé needs me" I had the perfect excuse and scapegoat for all of my fears and insecurities and I could convince myself I was happy and finally in a good place.

“You aren’t a Good person because you help others, you help others because you are an innately Good person”

Fast forward to the Winter of 2018. My wife woke up in the ICU and started on a journey of self discovery and healing her limbic system impairment. She engaged heavily with the works of Eckharte Tolle, Tara Brach, Deepak Chopra and mindfulness and meditation and she healed all of her conditions. We even did a lot of the presence and mindfulness work together, granted for me it was a very intellectualized experience and I figured I had therapy and that was enough.

Suddenly I had more time to pursue my passions! I could start my film company and balance a full time job at the same time. By the end of 2020 I had successfully built an international audience for my podcast, and was doing very well at my day job to the extent that I was exceeding the metrics and expectations for what my boss wanted from me. My wife was immensely supportive and handling the housework and by all accounts I should have been happy.

And yet, six years into our relationship, on May 17th, 2021 I told my wife I wanted to end my life and she told me that we should get a divorce.

Since before we were married all of our friends told us that we were so solid and such an inspiration to them and their relationship aspirations. But the truth is that I played a large role in how much our relationship had deteriorated.

Since they started their healing journey I had become more irritable, and extremely destructive. Hacking away at the good things Ezra had done with their healing because it made me feel less than. If I wasn't Ezra's caregiver maybe I could rely on my art. But my creative endeavors were eating away at me for every time I out so much work into it and didn't get immediate validation for all of the work I was putting in. This began impacting my day job too as I put in extra hours to prove I was good at that. I was constantly seeking external validation from everyone around me because I didn't believe I was a good person. In a lot of ways I blamed myself for my wife's attempt

“When we choose NOW we stop delaying our happiness.”

The day I realized I was dealing with ideation and Ezra told me they wanted a divorce is a day I will always be grateful for. Because it finally brought everything crashing down around me. I had been so lost and destructive and caused so much pain to the most important person in the world to me as well as to myself. I couldn't live my life like that anymore. Until I found the capacity for self love within myself I would never be happy. And one of the most painful truths I had to come to terms with is that my life up to that point had constantly been defined by external validation. I wanted my parents to be proud of me, I wanted people to like me, I wanted people to like my art. I wanted my partner to love me. And yet more often than not I could have someone tell me to my face that they loved me and I wouldn't believe believe because I didn't love myself.

“When we love ourselves, we can feel the love of the world even in an empty room.”

I took three months away from all of my obligations when I had my wake-up call. I told my job that I needed time to focus on myself, and I stopped working on any and all creative endeavors that fueled by neurotic need for external validation. It was in this process that I was finally able to embody all of the teachings I had engaged in for years. I traveled to Ibiza for a retreat with my partner to meet our teacher, the iconic and Spiritually Sassy Sah D’Simone and through the experience I was able to fully access and embody my full, authentic self. In fact, a large component of why I am working now as a Wellness and Wellbeing Coach is because of Sah’s encouragement and my feelings of alignment with this path.

”My teacher’s belief in me helped me believe in myself, and I want to do the same for you.”

Since returning from Ibiza, I have furthered by study in Tantrica Buddhism, Zen Buddhism and engaged in the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and a great many more teachers. I’ve been mentored by some of the most incredible modern day thought leaders like Amanda Gilbert and Benjamin Decker. I am also a fully certified Meditation Teacher, Ayurvedic Health Coach and Total Well-being Coach through Deepak Chopra’s Organization. Finally, I have made the earnest effort to master my understanding of the Neuroplasticity of the brain and fully healing trauma and preventing future trauma responses via Limbic System Retraining, and Neurolinguistic Programming. Most of all though, I have been making time to zero in on and prioritize my health and wellness above all else. I am no longer putting others before me in a way that is detrimental to my overall wellbeing and am able to show up in the world as my most authentic self.

My healing journey is, just that, a journey. I am walking this path both as student and as teacher. Both as hero in training and as mentor to others. I am alchemizing my authenticity everyday and I would love to help you do the same. Only by realizing and actualizing our true selves can we truly make a different in our own lives and the lives of others.

“The more you heal, the more you'll feel how deeply love flows through the entire world.”