Aligned & Awake: I Went Looking for Peace. I Found a Monk With Better Jokes Than My Ex

This isn’t a guide to enlightenment. It’s a story about getting quiet enough to hear the woman I stopped trusting.

Aligned & Awake
My reflections on life through travel, human design, energy, astrology, and emotional clarity. Not as a guru. Just one person figuring it out in real time.

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Thailand was meant to be a reset.

But before it gave me anything resembling peace, it handed me a breakdown.

Not a glamorous one.

It was more of a slow-motion spiral featuring jet lag, existential dread, a violent encounter with the plague (at least it felt like it), and the tragic absence of anything resembling a familiar face, language, or functional immune system.

Twelve hours ahead of my family.
Fourteen ahead of my work.
I wasn’t in the East or the West.

Me at the Blue Temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand

I was in some mushy emotional middle, wide awake at 3 a.m., coughing up a lung and questioning every decision I’d ever made, including the flight and the extra spice on my khao soi.

In that strange nowhere space, everything I thought I could leave behind pulled up a chair and made itself comfortable.

Like the worst WhatsApp group you forgot to mute.

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The Self I Hadn’t Forgotten, Just Silenced

There’s a version of me that still haunts old rooms.

She’s well-behaved. Wife-shaped. Easy to digest.
Her emails are polished. Her tone is agreeable. Her grief is packed neatly under a filtered selfie and a caption about resilience.

People liked her.
She wasn’t false, but she wasn’t the whole truth either.
She was a character I learned to play. A version of me shaped for approval, polished for safety.
And still, I worry she’s the only version they’ll remember.

I’ve left the marriage.
Left the house. Left the town.
I left the life that dimmed me.

But grief clings. Not only for what I walked away from but for the parts of me I buried to keep everyone else comfortable.

I didn’t come to Thailand to find myself.
I wasn’t lost. And I don’t think anyone ever really is.

We go quiet. We get tired. We forget.

What I needed was silence. The kind of quiet that gets into your cells.
The kind that lets your nervous system breathe again.
The kind that hushes the internal committee of “shoulds.”
The kind that makes space for the version of you who hasn’t spoken in a very, very long time.

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Sickness, Scarves, and a Monk With Great Timing

After two weeks of coughing like I was auditioning for a Victorian period drama, I dragged myself to a temple.

Not for enlightenment.
I was mostly there for the shade, the silence, and the faint hope that I could drink some electrolytes without weeping…or puking!

Instead, I met a monk.
And this monk?
Was absolutely gas (Irish for hilarious).

There I was, wrapped in emotional exhaustion and a scarf I’d bought from a woman named Mook and here’s this saffron-robed spiritual teacher delivering punchlines like he moonlights at Thai comedy clubs.

He spoke better English than some people I’ve dated.

I spoke three Thai phrases:
Sawadee ka for hello,
Khop khun ka for thank you,
and “Can I please have khao soi with extra spice?”

That last one failed me every single time.

And still, we understood each other.

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The Wisdom of a Man Who Didn’t Float

This man didn’t float. He walked.

He didn’t try to impress me with quotes or metaphors or the illusion of detachment.

He told me he was orphaned at nine.
That he still wrestled with his ego.
He wasn’t pretending to be enlightened. He was present.

Everyone carries something.

Some people swing their pain like swords.
He held his like a flower. With gentleness. With a grin.
With a quiet wink that said, “Yeah, life’s hard. But you don’t have to make it heavier.”

We sat together.
We breathed. We meditated together.
We walked mindfully, one foot, one breath, one whispered, “What am I doing with my life?” at a time.

And then he said something I wrote down with shaking hands:

“The past is done. The future? No one knows.
But right now? This is the one you’re living. Don’t miss it.”

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No Performance. Just Presence.

That moment didn’t put me back together.
But it loosened something.

It unclenched the grip I had on needing to explain, needing to be understood, needing to look like I was okay.

I wasn’t there to reinvent myself.

I was there to stop performing long enough for the real me to come up for air.

Because here’s what I believe now:
You don’t need to find yourself.
You’re not missing.

You’re the laugh you toned down because someone said it was too loud.
The joy you’ve been postponing.
The rage you swallowed so it wouldn’t upset the room.
The creativity you locked away because someone else was the artist, not you.

You are not becoming someone new.
You are remembering someone true.

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And Just So You Know…

Even monks have childhood trauma and a wicked sense of humour.
Even spiritual paths involve noodle soup mishaps and full-body weeping.
Even the quietest moments can land like thunder.

This isn’t a story about becoming whole.

It’s a story about finally listening.

You are not broken.

You are waking up.

And no, you don’t need to chant at sunrise or surrender your coffee to do it.

You still get to come home to yourself.

Not because life is sorted.
Not because the timing makes sense.
But because you have a choice.

Even in the middle of the mess.
Even when your heart is worn thin, and your body is tired of holding it all.

You still get to choose.
And what you choose shapes everything.

You can stay loyal to the version of you who kept it all together.
Or you can take a step toward the one who already knows how to breathe again.
The one who laughs from her belly.
The one who remembers what joy feels like without permission.
The one who trusts herself, even when it’s shaky.

You are allowed to meet yourself here.
Not to fix anything.
Not to play a role.
But to remember the truth you didn’t forget, only quieted.

This is your way back.
Not to the version they wanted.
To the version who never left.

xo,

Tanya

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Tell me…

What version of you are you choosing to meet right now?

The loud one? The quiet one? The one who’s still figuring it out?

I’d love to hear. Leave a comment, reply to this, or whisper it to yourself in the mirror if that’s where you’re at. Every choice counts, especially the gentle ones.

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