Taboo Troublemaking Vol 3
Kali Ma & Ego Death & the Yogi Path
Have you ever experienced an Ego Death?
Have you ever stared into the eyes of Kali Ma as she severs your head (ego) clean off?
It’s quite a profound experience that deeply shapes the way you see yourself and the world around you—like a quiet unraveling of all the identities, stories, and roles you once clung to for certainty. In that space, there’s often a disorienting emptiness, but also a strange, sacred clarity, as if something false is falling away to reveal what has always been true beneath it all. It humbles you, softens you, and invites you into a more honest relationship with your essence—one not built on performance or perception, but on presence, surrender, and the willingness to meet yourself beyond who you thought you had to be.
This is one of those stories of ego death and the discovery of one’s true self in the deepest pit of addiction, separation, depression, and pain.
It’s a story I never thought I would release here because it feels like ancient history that should simply remain buried. But on my quest to becoming the person I am today, I’ve come to realize that buried history is often worth excavating. After all, we are still uncovering the ancient ruins of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the ancestral civilizations of Native America. The excavation of what lies hidden in the shadows is the essence of taboo troublemaking—where I, as a writer reveal beauty in what has been forgotten, suppressed, or deliberately left unspoken.
This work is not just about uncovering facts. It is about reclaiming fragments of truth scattered across memory, lineage, and time itself. There is a kind of reverence in this process, like brushing dust from something sacred with trembling hands, knowing that what emerges may not always be comfortable, but will almost always be alive, textured, perhaps a little mossy, and necessary for our wholeness.
Becoming whole. Becoming empty. Like the stretched-out and blissful corpse of Savasana (शवासन) at the end of a yoga practice.
Someone recently asked me how I got into yoga.
The question sent me spiraling backward through time, reflecting on where this journey truly began—not just my yoga practice, but my spiritual practice altogether.
So allow me to teleport you back to my early twenties.
At the time, I was attending university while working as a cocktail waitress at an Italian fine dining restaurant in Atlanta. I was a full-blown metalhead who lived for weekends spent bouncing between concerts, underground parties, and whatever adventure promised the loudest music and the wildest stories. Electronic music, punk rock, rock and roll, metal—I loved all of it. Most nights I could be found wearing those iconic disco shorts from American Apparel, white Doc Martens or four-inch platforms, red lipstick, and my bright red hair cut into Betty Page bangs. I was like a little gangsta badass—or at least that’s who I believed myself to be. To be fair, part of me still does. My ego certainly likes to think so.
One afternoon in art class, I heard my professor Sam Parker mention a new offering called Metal Yoga at a nearby studio called Tough Love Yoga. At the time, I thought it sounded cool as hell. Nobody was offering anything remotely like that. Yoga seemed soft and serene in my imagination, but metal yoga? That sounded like something I could get behind.
The truth is, I had no idea what I was walking into.
