I Didn’t Choose This Path—It Chose Me
It didn’t happen in a yoga studio.
It didn’t happen on a meditation pillow.
It happened in the fog on Christmas Eve.
In a quiet moment when I was finally still enough to hear what was next.
I walked into my apartment that night and saw what looked like a cloudy white mist floating in the air. I didn’t panic. I didn’t question it.
I just said, out loud: “Heart-center martial arts.”
I had no idea where it came from—or what it meant. But I typed it into Google like my life depended on it. And just like that, the first result that popped up was: USA Shaolin Temple — downtown on Delancey Street.
I had no idea who Shifu Shi Yan Ming was—didn’t even know what “Shifu” meant. I wasn’t some lifelong martial arts fangirl. I was just a woo-woo, American yoga girl who had stumbled into something ancient, sacred, and completely life-altering.
I didn’t know about the Wu-Tang Clan connection, either.
I knew Wu-Tang, of course—who doesn’t?
But I had no idea this was where they trained. No idea about the lineage, the legacy, the depth of what I was stepping into.
All I knew was that something had called me—
and for the first time in a long time...
I was listening.
I didn’t choose this path. The path chose me. And it dragged me through the fire first, just to make sure I was serious.
Before Shaolin, I had already spent over a decade working in the trenches of healing. Four of those years were inside a mental health practice in New Jersey, where I served as a Certified Holistic Practitioner—
but the real work happened off the grid.
I had built a private practice supporting people who had fallen through the cracks— those navigating complex PTSD, spiritual crises, and emotional aftershocks the clinical system couldn’t name, let alone treat.
The head doctor at the practice would often pause in awe, watching as I helped clients overcome stuttering issues, unravel trauma responses, and design real exit strategies for survivors of domestic violence.
What I was doing didn’t fit neatly into a box. It wasn’t textbook. It was lived. Learned in the field.
Intuitive.
Radical.
And effective.
Over time, though, that same admiration began to shift— subtly, but undeniably.
As my results spoke for themselves and clients began seeking out my approach directly, the atmosphere changed.
Let’s just say… not everyone celebrates what they can’t control.
I was eight when I sang Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” Fifteen when I created my own superhero alter ego named Frequency—who vibrates more with love (now forever inked on my bicep). At nineteen, when I became known as DJ Tava Luv, all of my mixes were produced with pop/R&B/house spun on vinyl turntables before switching over to digital. And at thirty, I started Choose Love Music before it disappeared like a mandala ritual.
Now, as I approach forty, I can finally say: I’m exactly where I’m meant to be—because it took this long to learn. To remember. To become.
I was like a soldier away at war—fighting battles most people never see. But I’m back now. And as Shifu says, “Train harder.” That phrase has a whole new meaning for me now. I understand…I understand.
I always say I’m living until one hundred thirty-three—so that gives me about ninety more years to keep learning, to keep creating impact, to keep the promise I made to my fifteen-year-old heart...
…and maybe—just maybe—to fall in love.
I’ve always been obsessed with the heart. No matter how much darkness has tried to drag me under, tried to convince me to dim my light—it just won’t. I can’t, and one day the darkness will also understand that it too needs to, train harder.
