Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karen Chrappa. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Karen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’re complete cheeseballs and so we love asking folks to share the most heartwarming moment from their career – do you have a touching moment you can share with us?

I floundered through my early 20s with dead end jobs that took me from bars to department stores to typing in tiny offices. I remembered my inspiration to pursue physical therapy, based on the fact that my Aunt Lilyan had a friend who was one—and perhaps the impression my Aunt Tessie had left on me as a child, although I could not perceive it then.

Tessie was my grandfather’s sister, and had been born with cerebral palsy. I saw pictures of her when she was young and still able to stand. As her life progressed, she lost her ability to walk and was ultimately confined to a wheelchair. When I was a child, she was living in an institution since our family could no longer care for her at home.

We would go to visit her on Welfare Island, which is what it was called until it was renamed Roosevelt Island in 1973. We drove over the bridge from Queens to Bird S. Coler Hospital on the little island in the East River. There, I would hold my grandfather’s hand as we walked the dark halls to the room she lived in. The walls were bare except for the tiny windows covered in metal bars, making it feel more like a prison than a hospital.

What terrified me most on those visits were the people strewn through the hallways. Many were slumped in wheelchairs, held in place with belts, drool dripping from their open mouths. Others were lying on their backs strapped atop gurneys staring blankly at the ceiling. Indistinct groans bounced off the concrete walls and seemed to shout out the agony locked inside the twisted bodies, making it feel as if I was walking through halls of the living dead.

When we entered her stark room, with hospital beds lining the wall, my Aunt Tessie was the first sign of light. Her twisted smile and unintelligible grunts let us know how excited she was to see us. On top of the bedsheets was a worn piece of plywood no bigger than a modern day laptop with chipped and faded letters of the alphabet painted on one side. With spastic movements, she pointed her twisted fingers at the faded letters to spell out words to try to convey the thoughts and feelings locked inside her. At five years old, it was a game I delighted in playing with her. Although the contorted body she inhabited destined her to such bleak and dire circumstances, she emanated light. In that light I was bathed in hope.

excerpt from “Beyond Fear: A Woman’s Path to Enlightenment”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I had no idea when I began my first stumbling steps to physical therapy school that they would end up intertwining my work with my personal healing throughout my life. Little did I know that they were a calling to a better version of myself. Physical therapy has been more than my job but rather a mission that has provided countless opportunities for me to help uplift the world by uplifting others. I used to believe it was my job to fix someone and make them better. Meeting others at a time of crisis has taught me to hold an innate desire for them to be well and whole. For me, that has meant finding a spark, a quality each of us possesses, and amplifying that light in order for them to see the power of their own healing potential.

I graduated with my degree in physical therapy in 1988. I was always drawn to alternative healing methods and began studying the Earth based medicine practices, rituals and ceremonies of the shamans of Q’ero in Peru in 2000. I would ultimately travel to Peru for the purpose of awakening the Divine Feminine.. My life mission was discovered in a coca leaf reading during one of my trips there.

In 2009, about twenty women from all parts of the United States and Canada began making the trek to Peru as part of our commitment to the Earth and the Divine Feminine, rebalancing the masculine and feminine within us. We always spent a few days in Cusco to acclimate to the altitude before heading into the mountains. On my third trip there, I arranged for a coca leaf reading before we began our trek to the Andes.

As we sat across from each other, Don Andreas, one of the shamans we were traveling with, took a sip of floral-infused ceremonial water. He sprayed it from his mouth in each of the four directions to create sacred space, then took a number of coca leaves in his hands. He began blowing into the leaves—a sacred plant medicine that shamans in Peru use for healing, ceremony, and divination—while praying in Quechua, a language native to the Q’ero. He asked me nothing. After a few moments, he haphazardly threw the leaves on the table. Don Andreas lifted his head, looked me in the eyes and asked, “Did you write a book?”

My jaw dropped. How could this shaman from the remote mountains of Peru know something so specific about me, about my obscure self-published book? I had written “A Structure for Spirit” a few years earlier as a guidebook to help create a daily practice. There was no way he could have known anything about it. And yet he had not asked about something general like family or faith but a particular thing I’d done that not very many other people did. For him to see something in those scattered coca leaves was astounding.

“You have to make it bigger,” he said. “You have to include more of what you have learned on your journeys here in Peru. You are like a farmer planting seeds that others may harvest in the future. This wisdom is not your own. It must be shared. The Apus will help you.”

I had no thought of ever writing a book again. I did not even consider myself a writer. And even if I did decide to write another book, how on Earth would the Apus (the mountain gods) help me? The idea that I had a book to write left me shocked and a bit overwhelmed. It was the furthest thing from any plans for my life, but if a shaman from the holy mountains of Peru tells you to write a book, you really should start writing.

Twelve years later, “Beyond Fear: A Woman’s Path to Enlightenment” was published.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I know I broke every safety rule that fateful Sunday morning in November. I innocently set out to go hiking with Jethro, my scrappy tan and white terrier mix rescued a year earlier. There was no destination in mind other than heading north on the highway. I didn’t expect to be gone long, and had left without food or water wearing a lightweight nylon jacket and moccasins. The decision to hike seemed so mundane it never occurred to me to let anyone know I was going.

It was an unusually warm November day in New Mexico with a cloudless turquoise sky. Jethro was always up for an adventure and nimbly jumped onto the front seat of my silver Hyundai Elantra as we headed north on U.S. Route 84, which goes through the state from Texas to Colorado.

Driving north, I was wondering where to stop and hike when I spotted a sign pointing to the Rim Vista trailhead. I had read about the Rim Vista in numerous guidebooks boasting some of the best views in the state. I took my happening to see the words Rim Vista as the perfect sign that this was the day to hike the New Mexico gem.

Although the hike up seemed clear, the path going down did not. As I walked along the cliffs, I wondered if I was on the trail or not. I hiked back to the last visible marker I could find: a pink plastic ribbon hanging from a juniper branch. Then back and forth, over and over, I walked until I no longer had a clue as to what was the trail and what was not.

By now, the only thought in my mind was: I have to get down. It had been early afternoon when we first hit the trail, later than usual to start out on a hike. Sunlight was waning. The clocks had been turned back the night before to end daylight savings time. Light would be lost an hour earlier. Maneuvering through the rough terrain was tough enough during the day; going down without light would be impossible.

An ancient avalanche of rocks had wedged itself into the earth, making an arduous descent for Jethro and me. Sometimes, the jagged contours were more than he wanted to traverse, and he retreated back up. I made a makeshift leash from the sleeve of my nylon jacket which I tied around his collar, and we continued on down. When we seemed to be at a stretch of craggy terrain that Jethro couldn’t manage on his own, I carried him.

The rock-filled chute opened to a cavernous arroyo, a dry river bed deep as a canyon. There was nothing to do but head back up. We kept hiking along the mountainside looking for a path that would lead us to the trailhead. Each thread of a trail hit a dead end that left us nowhere to go but back up again.

One rocky descent eventually flattened out at a smooth, sloped ledge. The only way to go lower was to slide along the limestone ridge. With no other thought than getting down, I sat on my bottom, leaned back, and slid along the ledge, hoping that Jethro would follow. At the bottom, I fell hard off a ledge jutting out two feet to the flat ground six feet below.

Standing on tiptoes to see over the limestone ledge, I found Jethro sitting still as stone about a hundred feet away. His ears stood straight up, stiff at attention, my black nylon jacket still tied around his collar.

I called to him but he wouldn’t budge, not even an inch. I looked everywhere for a way back over the ledge to reach him but none of the nearby rocks could give me enough height or leverage to climb back up. The last light of day was ready to drop below the horizon. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else I could do.

I have had other dogs in my life, throughout both my childhood and while my children were young, but Jethro was the first one to truly feel like a companion. He was my family. He loved so generously and unconditionally. The map at the entrance to the trail had warned of bears and mountain lions. Jethro stood no chance. If anything happened to him that night, it would have been because I put him in peril. I don’t know how I could have lived with myself after that.

I surrendered to the thought that where I had landed was where I would be spending the night. There was no way I would keep trying to get down the mountain and leave Jethro behind. I felt suspended in a state of disbelief. Part of me thought this could not actually be happening, yet the gravity of the situation slapped me into a reality that left me wondering how I would survive. I looked around and thought about what I might need to get through the night. I was woefully unprepared.

I had never imagined that my innocent impulse to hike with my dog would leave me alone on the side of a mountain in a remote wilderness, with no one knowing where I was. I couldn’t see Jethro from under the ledge but he was close enough to hear his painful high-pitched whimpers.

I have no wilderness experience. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been camping. Although I love nature and the outdoors, I was in a situation far beyond anything I had ever experienced. I don’t even know how to use a compass, nor would it have made a difference if I had one.

I believe there was a part of me then that knew if I fell prey to panic, it would mean my demise. To look beyond the present was fraught with uncertainty. Each moment seemed to have an urgency that let me know I had no time to waste. Shelter for the night was the priority.

I began stacking small rocks under the overhang to build a low wall that would give me some shelter from the wind. More likely what it gave me was an illusionary sense of safety that kept my mind from spiraling into despair.

I laid on the cold ground, the low wall of rocks to my left, the ledge overhead, engulfed in a vast wilderness. All light was nearly gone. The temperatures were dropping precipitously. Without the nylon jacket that was still tied to Jethro, I had on only a tank top and sleeveless acrylic vest. I pulled up the stretchy cotton tube skirt over my capri leggings so it covered my shoulders and arms.

I was totally unprepared for a November night in the high desert of northern New Mexico, where temperatures drop into the twenties and snow is not unusual at this time of year. My disappearance would not be known until I missed my physical therapy patient visits on Monday morning. There was no way to let anyone know what had happened. Jon, my dearest friend in Abiquiu, had dinner plans with another friend and was unlikely to try reaching me again, figuring Jethro and I were safe at home.

As the night grew darker and the temperature became colder, I instinctively pulled my knees to my chest trying to stay warm. Lying there, I began kicking my feet up and down to keep my blood flowing and my body temperature up.

There was no way I could sleep. My mind was more alert than it had ever been. Keeping myself moving was the only defense I had against the cold of the night. I pulled my vest up farther to cover my mouth and nose like a ski mask. I began a “breath of fire,” a rapid yogic breathing in and out through the nose to generate internal body heat and fill the inside of my vest with the warmth of my breath. (Later, I would learn that the combination of moisture from my breath and the cold air of night could lead to potentially fatal hypothermia.)

I kept moving as the night grew deeper and the temperatures even colder. In the dark, I could hear Jethro whimper. The only condolence was that it meant he was alive. I called to him.

“Mama is here, baby.”

“You are such a good boy.”

“Look up at the sky, Jethro.”

“Do you see the stars?”

“Night will pass.”

“Morning always comes.”

“I love you.”

“I am here with you.”

“Always.”

Without food, water, or physical comfort of any kind, I had no tools to sustain me other than faith. I am not a religious person or churchgoer. I do not have faith in Jesus or any theological text. The faith that was being called on under the overhang that night was a complete and utter surrender to what was happening. I had no control over the immensity of my situation, no control over the temperature or weather. I felt lost amid the vastness of the high desert wilderness, nothing more than a human speck against the insurmountable force of Nature.

Surrender seemed my only option if I were to survive. It was not the surrender of giving up; it was a total acceptance of the moment, of what was happening in the here and now in a way I had never experienced before. The small cry of fear or any nagging worry was lost amid the blessed state of grace that held me through the night.

As the blackness unfurled, stars filled the night, many of them shooting across the sky.

“Did you see that, Jethro? Wow! Wasn’t that beautiful.”

The moon was nearly full, and the light that bathed the surrounding cliffs painted fleeting, ever-shifting images etched in stone. Ancient faces held in the mountain were shapeshifting through the night.

I had learned of the Apus, the spirits of the mountains, from the medicine men and women of the Q’ero people of the Andes. For nine years, I had traveled to Peru with a group of women I shared a mentor with, spending most of our time in the mountains in ceremony and receiving initiations to awaken the Divine Feminine. The Q’ero speak of the Apus, the mountain spirits, with the intimacy of a beloved. They live in balance and with respect for all living things, guided by reciprocity, or ayni, to create right relationships with the world around them. They understand the balance of nature—its power and its beauty—not as an abstract concept but as an embodied way of walking through the world. For the Q’ero, restoring ayni, or right relationship, with our planet is essential to our human evolution on Earth.

Although the mountain spirits were a fascinating cosmology while I was immersed in the Andes, the idea did not translate to my life back in the U.S. Mountains were foreign to me. I was born at sea level in New York City. As a child, I spent my summers in the Atlantic Ocean near my grandparents’ bungalow on Long Island. I didn’t know any mountains growing up, and certainly had never heard the word Apu before going to Peru.

Yet while I lay isolated and alone on a remote mountain in New Mexico, those were the teachings—once foreign to me—that I felt now deep in my bones. Bathed in moonlight, under a canopy of shooting stars, I endured conditions I had never imagined held by what I would soon learn was an Apu.

The night lost all sense of time. I was utterly alone and yet at the same time inextricably woven to a sense of being one with all things. I watched a kaleidoscope of changing images as the moonlight reflected along the ledges and crevices. It seemed as if veils of ancient stone were parting to let me look deeper into the recesses of the mountain. At one moment, the light appeared to rest. An image revealed itself in the stone. It was a face, not clearly defined or detailed, as if I was looking at a faded old lithograph on the side of the mountain. Although my eyes could see the image, I was aware of its power not by my visual perception but by a profound knowing deep in my bones that I was in the presence of a sacred, ancient wisdom. I was literally in the presence of an Apu.

I remember hearing words, not audibly but in a way I could understand. There are not many who have witnessed this, I was told. I could understand why I thought. I imagined there were few people who faced circumstances so extreme. The Apu presented me with a question:

“If you did not bring fear or worry to this situation, why do you take fear and worry with you anywhere?”

Even before I was aware of the presence of the Apu, I felt deeply held and profoundly protected despite my dire circumstance. No one knew where I was. The only thing keeping me warm in the harsh cold of a November night was pulling up my tube skirt around my shoulders, lying on my back with my knees against my chest, continuously kicking my legs up and down, and breathing rapidly into my vest. But this deep sense of being held wiped away any fear or worry. Fear is my baseline, my resting state, the place from which I build my life. If I was not afraid here, when there was so much reason to be, why am I afraid anywhere?

excerpted from Chapter 1, “An Unintended Vision Quest” form “Beyond Fear: A Woman’s Path to Enlightenment”

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I was bright as a young girl. I scored well beyond my grade level on all the standardized tests. School subjects came easily. Through every quarter of every year in elementary school, I received straight A’s. I was the only one to get a medal for academic excellence at the award ceremony at the end of sixth grade. I did not aspire to be smart. It came naturally. I didn’t give it much thought.

In 1972, I entered seventh grade. Sitting there among the neat rows of desks, I stared at the test paper the teacher had just passed out, and, pencil in hand, deliberately began to mark in the wrong answers. I did not want high marks. I did not want to be known as a smart girl. Somehow, I had come to believe that a boy would not like a girl who was smarter than he was. At twelve years old, I wanted a boy to like me. I dimmed my light and dumbed myself down to get that boy, whoever he was. It was a pattern that would continue throughout my life, in all my intimate relationships with men.

No one ever directly gave me the message that boys don’t like smart girls. Although I remember consciously marking in the wrong answers to lower my test scores, I was unaware of what was driving me to do so. The smart girl theory was an insidious transmission downloaded into my twelve-year-old psyche from a culture in which men held the power. I saw this in my home and, even to my young eyes then, in the world around me.

Coming of age in the ’70s meant I was wedged between two generations of women. The era before me was the one in which my mother and grandmothers shaped their lives around home and family and surrendered the power of finances and money to men. Ahead of me, the modern feminists were emerging, with their fight for equal rights and equal pay, hailing Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” as their anthem. “Our Bodies, Ourselves” was the pioneering oracle bringing the previously taboo topics of women’s health, sexual independence, and reproductive rights to the masses.

I saw my mother as miserable in her marriage. Her sobbing sessions behind locked bathroom doors were a normal part of our life. While Mom sat on the toilet seat, I stood next to her, absorbing her sorrow to let her misery dissipate and keep her in the marriage. Perhaps it was my responsibility as the oldest of five. At the heart of her agony was my dad’s drinking.

“Life would be wonderful if only your dad would stop drinking,” was her elusive dream for our family.

My mother’s heartache was painful to see. I was powerless to make any change. I was confused and often angry hearing about her unhappiness and how much she hated my dad’s drinking. I had no consolation to offer, no sage advice at eight years old. My sole purpose through those merciless laments was to listen. Once my mom had exhausted her tears, the bathroom door would open, we would walk into the hallway and nothing ever changed.

One day, tortured by sitting through another crying session, I burst out with: “Just leave him!” Her response left an indelible imprint on my life. “Your father brings home a good paycheck,” she said. My dad was a traveling salesman. He sold perfume and cosmetics to department stores in and around New York City. He had dropped out of college to start supporting a family when my mom became pregnant with me. I remember the vow I made to myself in that moment: Never would I depend on a man for money. What my mother had said was a frightening window into the world of grown-ups. I could see even then that whoever had the money held the power. Perhaps it was no surprise that the will of my eight-year-old self was not strong enough to surmount the psychological imprint my mother’s misery would leave on me. Later in life I would find myself right where I said I would never want to be.

Decades later, I would find myself right where my eight year old self said she never wanted to be; trapped in a marriage because of the money. I would ultimately find the courage to leave my marriage despite my fears around finances. Many years after my divorce, I would finally be the owner of a home that, for the first time in my life, I bought completely on my own.

As a woman born in 1960, overcoming the deep seated patterns of dimming my light and keeping myself small in order to be safe and in order to be loved, is by far the biggest life lesson I had to unlearn.

excerpted from Chapter 3, “Dimming My Light” in “Beyond Fear: A Woman’s Path to Enlightenment”
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Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.karenchrappa.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karen.chrappa
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/karen-chrappa

Image Credits

Alison Postighone