Balinese jail, bumble date, and a business venture gone wrong

How to embody Divine Feminine energy in times of chaos

Me at a water temple in Ubud, Bali

I get a text from my unknown WhatsApp number, saying that Immigration would like to speak to me and I need to come to their office immediately.

Initially, I ignored it and brushed it off as a scam… surely the Balinese immigration office wouldn’t contact me on some thing as casual as WhatsApp. but then I got another message to say come immediately to an office that was over an hour away and that they had my passport.

A few days earlier, I submitted my passport to a visa service so that I can renew my 30 day visa before it expired, A simple procedure, that I didn’t know what turn into one of the nerve-wracking moments of my life.

I get to the Immigration office still not really that  nervous because I assumed it was just a small clerical error that they needed me to confirm before extending my visa. 

I arrive there and I’m taken to this underground office, it has the cold, dark, sterile yet grungy vibe of an abandoned hospital… a uniformed officer instructs me to wait.

Am I walking into my own kidnapping?  I think to myself as I wait for what feels like hours in deafening silence.

I see other expats coming in and out of the office crying in tears, completely disheveled, yelling… it seems pretty scary for a simple visa violation.

Indonesia is known for having draconian laws, especially against foreigners aka digital nomads, so what seems like a simple mistake can quickly become a life-changing error.

A few days prior to getting my visa extended, I put a deposit on a beautiful bed and breakfast rental villa complete with a pool and outdoor kitchen. I had plans to sublease this place on Airbnb (and I had already found my first customer! ) for a year as I lived out by “eat, pray, love” quirky spiritual and innkeeper dreams, while making passive income of course.

I asked the owner of the Villa if this was OK and he assured me to go right ahead. I did have a business visa, though admittedly I never really read the fine print, And literally, every other digital nomad I knew was subletting a place  because real estate was so cheap for the American and European standard.  No big deal I thought! 

Besides, the house number was 1208,  my birthday is December 8, and I took it as a sign from the divine that I should have this place.

Little did I know that I did not have the right business visa and I was going to be investigated for illegal real estate practices, punishable up to five years in prison or US$30,000 fines.

I had the business visa that allowed foreigners to conduct business meetings with foreign clients online, but NOT conduct any business practices IN the country of Indonesia, Including virtual work, such as marketing, a.k.a. posting a rental listing on Airbnb. It is a subtle but important difference that created so much restless uncertainty. 

For two weeks, they held my passport and my devices were surveilled for evidence of money laundering and illegal real estate sales. I was stuck in Indonesia about a month before I was supposed to be in Brazil for a spiritual retreat I was hosting.

After about six hours of face-to-face questioning, I cried and cried and cried and cried, begging them to understand that I’m just a confused and ambitious American, with an entrepreneurial spirit, who meant no harm, or had the intention breaking of a law.

The officer said “intention doesn’t matter it’s what you did that counts.”

He was unmoved. Which I understand why, he spends all day every day, working with mostly pretentious, American and Europeans who think they can come Indonesia disrespect the land, and do what they want for a quick buck without re-investing into the country. He told me it would either be five years in jail or a $30,000 fine.

They would let me know when a higher up reviews my case and until then my passport would be confiscated, and I would not be allowed to move too far from my hotel I was staying.

All I could do is wait. Wait for the longest two weeks of my life.

I learned one of the most powerful Divine Feminine lessons ever in that two week waiting period and it was to completely surrender to the life that was meant for me. There was not one thing I could “do” I had to just “be”. 

I had to master my own energy call upon my own inner strength, because worrying and panic would not release me from  on the other side of the world, thousands of mile away from home. This all happened during the famous Brittany Griner case so I knew it was very possible to get stuck abroad with a legal mishap, even as an American citizen (specially as a Black one). I had no idea if the judge would grant me favor or punish me, technically I did break a law after all.

I spent those two weeks in deep deep meditation, self reflection, and doing high-level energy work. One day, the day before I was to go to the immigration office and hear my fate, my Bumble dating app notification goes off.

Naturally, in the midst of all this drama,  dating wasn’t my priority  and I hadn’t checked the app for a while.

A guy I was chatting with before ping’d me to let me know he was back in town after his business trip, and really wanted to meet me. I told him what was going on and that I wouldn’t be available to date because I could very much will be going to jail. and he said some thing that changed everything:

Well, if you’re going to jail, don’t you still need to eat dinner?

And he was right. Me being starved would not help anything. So I got all dolled up and took a motorcycle down to the local burger shop, where we talked about what I was going through.

Through a crazy miraculous turn of events, he let me know he went through a similar situation in Singapore, where he was actually jokingly named Singapore’s ‘sexiest criminal’ after an episode of harmless road rage. 

He was tall 6’5”, charming a real life James Bond complete with a British accent and a sexy silver fox appeal. Normally, our 20 year age gap would make us incompatible, but in Bali land of the hippies, anything goes and it only added to the mystery and seemingly forbidden sensual tension. Initially, I thought it was just a story he wanted to tell me so I could sleep with him, but after searching it up, he was really telling the truth! I was shocked, what are the odds?

But it gets even better…

He told me he had a friend, who knew a friend who was the Chief of International Police, and that he could call a pardon on my behalf. I let him help me, and my decision from the local Bali police office was delayed.

Later that night, he invited me to one of the most spectacular fine dining of my life with his friend so I could tell my story first hand. Overlooking the crashing ocean waves amidst a luxurious clifftop restaurant we ate a decadent  seven course meal an exchange stories before riding motorcycles to an upscale bar, and dancing the night away. 

Me on a night out in Bali, my sparkly Birkenstocks and I against the world

Even if he was lying to me, and this was just a giant pick up line, I thought,  well isn’t this a fun way to spend the last few moments of freedom being wined and dined by a handsome James Bond look-alike?

There was nothing I could do but completely surrender to the consequences.

Completely surrender to the moment and be in my Divine Feminine energy by staying present. and finding pleasure In the most uncomfortable situations. For once in my life, there was not one thing I could do. Not one thing I could control.  And as a high achieving, ambitious, first born daughter with a type-A personality, not being in control conflicted with my core identity.

It was scary yet liberating, like jumping out of an airplane. The rush of not being able to control how I would land but yet the blissful freedom of being fully embraced by life, letting it happen as it supposed to happen and trusting in the powers that be to get me to my destiny safely. 

A few extra days passed, and I was called back to the office. They said that they received a message from international police and deemed that this A big mishap on my part, but I would not be punished for it considering I had someone to vouch for me. I would not be charged for crime, I would not be fined and most importantly, I would be free. I just had to leave Bali asap be away for at least six months before I could return.

I booked a one way to the USA where equally heroic friend Peter kindly greeted me and let me stay at his retreat center for free for a week before I rushed off to Brazil to host my own spiritual retreat.

I was divinely pardoned.

A true ram in the bush scenario.

I had already taken a loan out for $30,000 (and received it miraculously) before meeting up with my Bali bumble date. I was ready to pay my way out of the situation and take full responsibility.

But in order to receive my miraculous blessing, I had to let go and let God divinely orchestrate on my behalf.

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