Day 15: Invisible Strings: Healing, Trauma and the Stories We Carry

Samskaras

There are many things I didn’t share fully in my book Sober Yoga Girl. A lot of it had to do with the complexities of my position and the country I was living in. Some of the trauma I experienced between 2015-2017 stemmed from my relationship, but much of it arose from the environment I was in.

As a white woman living as a guest in a foreign country, I was mindful of the need to speak carefully when writing my book. I wanted to avoid perpetuating stereotypes or contributing to Islamophobia, especially given the ongoing misunderstandings surrounding the Middle East.

When I wrote the first draft of Sober Yoga Girl, I included many of these experiences in detail. However, my editor and I decided to remove much of it. At the time, I was running a company based in the UAE and still living in the Middle East. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing those stories.

I’ve now been living in Bali, Indonesia, for three years and have officially closed my company in the UAE. Although I still run annual retreats there, I feel less connected to the Middle East than I did when I was a resident. It feels like I can—and maybe for my own recovery journey— I should start to talk about this part of my story.

In September, I attended a bodywork session with a healer. I had been experiencing persistent pain in my left leg and hip for a long time, and had tried countless methods to resolve it. During the session, I was hypnotized. After almost 90 minutes of silence, a story surfaced—not something that had directly happened to me but something I had clearly carried since my time in Kuwait.

In February 2018, I stayed at my friend Atif’s villa in Kuwait for the weekend. Atif, a kind-hearted Palestinian man who became like a grandfather to me, took care of me during that time. In Sober Yoga Girl, I wrote about our weekend together, but I omitted the news we woke up to one morning whilst I was there.

A Filipino maid named Joanna Demafelis had been found dead in the freezer of an abandoned apartment that had been left vacant for over a year. Joanna’s death made international headlines, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Kuwait and the Philippines. Her story haunted me.

Joanna had gone overseas, like I had, as a single woman seeking work in Kuwait. But unlike me, her safety wasn’t guaranteed. As a Canadian woman, I held immense privilege. Joanna lost contact with her family in 2016, yet no one investigated until her body was discovered by chance in 2018. After her death, the president of the Philippines said that he would “sell his soul to the devil” to bring home workers who were being abused in Kuwait. He offered to fly as many Filipinos who wanted to leave back home even if they didn’t have a passport (their employers were legally allowed to take their passports). 11,000 Filipinos got on planes that weekend. He then implemented a ban for Filipino workers to be employed overseas in Kuwait.

What traumatized me most wasn’t just her death but the normalized violence around us. When Atif and I read the news over breakfast, we were very saddened by it, but we weren’t shocked. He simply asked, “Scrambled eggs or fried?” That moment underscored how deeply desensitized we’d become to stories of violence, because it was so normal to us.

Recently, someone at a retreat told me, after hearing my story, “A lot of adults who should have protected you failed you.” I replied, “But I wasn’t a child. I was 23.” She gently corrected me: “The prefrontal cortex doesn’t mature until 26. You didn’t have fully developed decision-making skills, impulse control, or long-term planning abilities. You were a child.”

That comment shifted something in me. I started viewing my former employers and colleagues as the adults who should have created a safer environment for all of us. While they couldn’t control everything happening in the public around us, it was their responsibility to provide some kind of support for what we experienced. Instead, all of us were left to navigate those experiences alone. I definitely did not have the coping skills for it.

This morning, I taught an advanced meditation and pranayama teacher training class. We discussed samskaras.

Samskaras (discussed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras) are subconscious imprints formed by past experiences, shaping how we perceive and interact with the world. Trauma often creates deeply entrenched samskaras, influencing our mental and emotional patterns in ways we aren’t always conscious of. Healing these imprints requires bringing them to the surface and consciously working to release them through practices like meditation, journaling, and self-reflection.

The experiences I had in Kuwait—and the stories I’ve carried from that time—are samskaras I’m still working through. Each time I think I’ve healed, a new layer reveals itself.

When I read my ex’s book about our time in Kuwait, memories I’d buried came flooding back. It was strange to see how many similar things we’d mentioned and been impacted by, including the above story about the domestic worker, Joanna Demafelis.

It’s strange how our healing journeys feel intertwined. Taylor Swift writes about lovers having an “invisible string” tying them together before they meet. My ex-husband and I have the same thing, but in reverse. Only those who lived in Mahboula, Kuwait at that time will understand the nature of what we experienced, but only he and I will fully grasp our shared story.

Even though we don’t speak anymore, I feel deeply connected to him. Today, I told my yoga philosophy teacher Anvita in India, “I feel like I’ve spent the last eight years trying to heal this trauma.” She responded, “It makes sense. What you experienced was not only traumatic but uniquely specific. It’s just not a common experience.”

I said, “I think only he will ever understand it. I wish we could meet again in this lifetime. But I don’t think we ever will.” And then I told her about the invisible string.

Anvita said, “If you feel that you have an invisible string tied to him, then you probably do. It’s probably true. In India, we believe that the whole experience of marriage is just meant to be, even if you later get divorced. The timing and circumstances of marriage, no matter what, are guided by destiny or kismat (fate). It’s often said that “Jodis upar se banti hain” which means pairs are made in heaven. They’re predestined. And also, marriage is sometimes viewed as the result of samskaras, or our imprints from past lives. It’s believed that two souls come together because they have shared a karmic bond in previous incarnations. So even though you divorced, I believe you were always meant to marry.”

This made me feel a lot better.

In Arabic weddings, they don’t say, “Till death do us part.” Instead, they say, “Fil Dunya Will Akra”—in this lifetime and the next. So if we’ve shared a karmic bond in previous incarnations that meant we were meant to meet in this lifetime - then doesn’t that mean we’ll meet in the next, too?

Perhaps I’ll never meet him again in this lifetime.

Perhaps we’ll only remain connected by invisible strings.

Or perhaps we’ll meet in the next.

For now, whenever he comes into my thoughts, and I feel guilt or regret, I try to meet the thoughts with the Metta prayer:
May he be happy. May he be healthy. May he be free.

In gratitude,
Alexandra