Missing the Solstice
About this book
How do people create (and survive) drastic changes? How do they leave unhealthy relationships, groups, belief systems, or entire identities? And how do they leave when these things are essential parts of their lives, their careers, their place in their families ... or all three?These questions are crucial in a time when so many of us have been drawn into polarized belief systems and conspiracy theories that are tearing apart families, friendships, political parties, and the foundations of American governance itself.But change and reclamation are possible at any time. Missing the Solstice is a true story about a psychic healer in the New Age who realized with increasing horror that her belief system was not healthy or ethical, and that her continued support of ungrounded ideas was damaging people -- even if she never meant to hurt anyone.Karla McLaren was one of the teachers who brought the New Age concept of the psychic empath into the national conversation in the 1990s. From the age of 10 in the 1970s, when she entered the New Age, she was immersed in every part of the metaphysical community, from yoga to veganism to psychic healing to energy healing to alternative medicine to trance channeling, past lives, and more. She witnessed the many problems in these communities, and hoped to bring a grounded and ethical focus to what was (and still is) an unregulated wild west atmosphere that overwhelmingly appealed to sensitive and vulnerable people.But something changed drastically in 2001, and over the next 2 years, Karla slowly realized that she could no longer support New Age ideas or continue with her career.Missing the Solstice is a specific story of one woman who left a community, a belief system, a thriving career, and an entire identity behind, but it's also a story about what it means to leave any situation or identity that you've outgrown.This story is deeply relevant in a time when New Age conspiracy theories have gone mainstream, and when the least grounded and most paranoid excesses of alternative medicine are being forced onto the American public.Karla lost almost everything and missed the solstice in every sense of the word, but what she couldn't have guessed was that there would be an entirely new life -- and a better world -- waiting for her on the other side.