Letter from the Director: Seeking a Champion Vol. 142, April 2025

By  Renée Tillotson

A few years ago, I was earnestly seeking a champion. In my role leading literally thousands of students, teachers and staff members at Still & Moving Center over the last 14 years, I’ve watched countless beautiful life stories of people who have faced their obstacles, taken action, and surmounted difficulties. However, there was one problem I had never seen being solved: the sense of victimhood. I kept asking myself, “How do we help someone who feels like a helpless victim of their life circumstances, no matter what they do?”  

I even began to wonder whether anyone stuck in a victim mentality ever makes their way out of it. Surely it’s possible, I thought, but I had never seen it happen. So, I began asking the universe to please bring someone into my life who has felt thoroughly victimized and yet, through their own agency, has turned around their fundamental outlook on life. 

Please, show me such a person, I asked.

Not long after I began asking this of the universe, the pandemic hit and we put our Sunday Satsang conversations online. I also started a new Saturday offering online: Gems from the Wisdom Traditions conversation circle. Now we could converse weekly with folks literally all over the world, many of whom were struggling and coping with all sorts of circumstances.

Into my life came Carol Ann, a retired nurse in her mid-thirties. Meeting her was a trip! With her permission, I will relate a bit of her uplifting life story.

At Satsang, we talk about the theme for that week from our Still & Moving Center Almanac. We read through the quotes – by everyone from the Dalai Lama to Dolly Parton, as I like to say. And we talk about how we make sense of those fine ideas from our own life perspectives and experiences.

Carol Ann shared a lot more revealing personal experiences than anyone had shared before. Over the weeks and months, I learned that she was suffering from a wider array of ailments and misfortunes than anyone I have personally ever met. She struggled with complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and myriad physical health problems. 

Growing up with a schizophrenic mom and an abusive father and other vile men in her childhood had left its impact. Her abusive husband had attacked her and left her for dead. The hospital had revived her from a near-death experience. She then had a mental breakdown, and her now-ex-husband had gained custody of their children and put a restraining order on her seeing or contacting them.  

Every time we talked, I’d learn about another dumbfoundingly terrible circumstance in her life. Nevertheless, Carol Ann always talked about a silver lining to all her dark clouds. 

As we kept reading and conversing about all the uplifting quotes from wise people around the world, and we shared our insights, Carol Ann was busy making her own connections and telling us her epiphanies.

Carol Ann was working with her counselor on trauma triggers. She was figuring out ways to rewire her brain with new neuropathways. For example, if she heard a sound or smelled a scent that reminded her of a tragic past event, she would associate that sound or scent with a new, positive memory. She refused to keep falling down those rabbit holes of her traumatic past, finding ways to move forward instead. 

While I was simply reading studies on neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to heal itself by choosing what to think about and focus on – Carol Ann was actively putting all this new science to use. She was determined not to let her past control her future. 

Probably the most significant life experience she shared was her second near-death experience. She was despairing over the loss of her career and her children and tried to take her own life. She again learned how blissful the after-death state really is, surrounded by loving, angelic beings and learned that everyone’s prayers go to the same heavenly Divine.

Carol Ann, I must tell you, is a very empathetic and compassionate person. That means she not only feels others’ pain acutely, she also wants to do something about it. I think this compassion may be the key to her overcoming her sense of profound victimhood.

In that second near-death experience, Carol Ann had the option of remaining in that heavenly state. She had no pain, no problems. It was a very tempting option. However, she came to realize the value of living a human life in the body. Only as a human being in a body was she able to sense and learn new things. And only in a body was she able to help and teach others. 

So she decided to come back into the world, into her very sick body and damaged brain, and restart her life.

It was not long after her re-entry into our world that I met Carol Ann. That was in 2020. In 2021 she surprised me by showing up in person here on O’ahu. She was struggling mightily over what kind of legal punishment to seek for her ex-husband, despite all the retribution her family members were urging. As we thought it through together, she realized that, as a nurse, she had given her Hippocratic oath to “Do no harm”. No matter what he had done to her, her conscience would not allow her to respond in kind.

Coming to that decision – even though he has yet to be brought to justice – gave my friend an enormous measure of relief and a realization of her own freedom of choice. And with that decision, she took another big step towards holding the reins of her life, not allowing circumstances or others’ expectations to drive her.

She found new uses for her nurse training by becoming a traveling Red Cross volunteer/worker on assignment, traveling with her service dog Annabelle to assist others around the country who were facing disaster. She did this while managing grave medical problems of her own. 

By 2023 Carol Ann was attending and loving so many online Nia classes with me, that she traveled back to Still & Moving center to take her Nia White Belt certification to teach Nia. This training with our mighty Winalee Zeeb – a powerhouse of positivity – left Carol Ann charged up and ready for a new career. She left the island this time committed to finding a job teaching Nia to children. She saw it with crystalline clarity in her mind’s eye.

She returned home to California and voilà, she secured a position with a studio that sends movement teachers into the community to teach after school classes to underprivileged children. She also serves many private clients by giving home health care. Here again, Carol Ann’s huge heart leads her to help those less fortunate. Meanwhile a team of 13 Stanford medical doctors keep watch over her own fragile health. 

A couple months ago she called me to say that she was thinking of coming back to O’ahu over  her Spring break for a mindful movement training she’d found online to enhance her teaching. “Hah!” I laughed, when she told me. “I’ll be teaching that course!” 

“No way!” she exclaimed. So, she came to spend a regenerating 10 days with us as she started her Level 1 Instructor training at our Academy of Mindful Movement. Now she’s back home sharing with the kids in her Nia classes the techniques she’s learning at the Academy, always paying it forward. Here again, the universe conspired to assist someone who was helping herself and others. 

And what a fun-filled time we enjoyed. Carol Ann definitely knows how to play like a kid!

This Saturday at our Gems from the Wisdom Traditions, she’s giving an online presentation to us on Clara Barton, the Civil War nurse who started the American Red Cross. How fitting.

Is she any more perfect than the rest of us? Carol Ann would be the first to tell you no. Does she still suffer from bouts of depression and truly daunting medical problems. You bet. But Carol Ann keeps chugging forward. 

I was looking for a champion who had found his or her way out of victimhood and into a life of self-determination. And I met Carol Ann. I feel so blessed.

Join us midday on Sunday in the week of the “Fearless and Lion-Hearted”, during the sign of Leo, at Still & Moving Center to tune into your own inner animal totem. 

To start your inspirational day, get moving with “Lion-Hearted “energy at with Renée Tillotson’s Nia class 10:30 – 11:40 am

11:45-12:15  Potluck: Bring a vegetarian offering if you’d like to join us for lunch

12:15-12:35  Satsang: Learn with Renée about a spiritually gifted and inspiring Leo named Helena Blavatsky, born in Ukraine in August 11-12, 1831, who was called “lion-hearted” for her courageous work to uplift humanity. 

12:35- 2:15  Inspiration Card Crafting: Turn inward and find with Dayl your own Animal Totem, that creature whose energy best fits or enhances your own. Let yourself be surprised! Craft an inspiration card to reflect your discovery. 

No supplies needed, but kindly bring magazines to cut up if you have them. Mature teens welcome also.