Why I Created IAME8

 

For most of my life, I searched outside myself for answers, healing, validation, identity, and God.

I looked everywhere.

Churches. Pastors. Christian counselors. Addiction counselors. Spiritual teachers. Books. Programs. Reiki. Workshops. Awakening teachings. Healing methods.

I spent years believing that someone else must know something I didn’t.

And in many ways, all of it helped me.

AA helped me begin looking honestly at myself. Teachers like Eckhart Tolle, Joe Dispenza, and Sadhguru opened new ways of seeing. Reiki transformed parts of my life. Different experiences and awakenings shaped me deeply.

But through all of it, I was still searching for someone to tell me who I was.

For years, I compared myself to everyone else. I believed others were more spiritual, more awakened, more connected, more powerful than I was. I was constantly trying to become something.

It never fully felt right.

One of the greatest gifts in my life has been my husband, Stephen Hornbuckle, who continually reminded me:

“You are just as powerful as anyone else. They can’t do anything you can’t.”

Back in 2014, while in rehab, I experienced an awakening that changed me deeply. I remember realizing that I was already in heaven — that there was nowhere else to go.

Ironically, that realization began an even deeper search.

For the next twelve years, I searched everywhere trying to understand what I had experienced. And eventually, after all the seeking, reading, questioning, healing, breaking down, and rebuilding… I woke up one day and realized:

It was me.

I was never missing something outside myself.

I was simply returning to myself.

I created IAME8 because I want people to know they are not alone.

This is a space without judgment. A space where you do not have to fit perfectly into someone else’s spiritual language, beliefs, or path.

Every awakening is personal.

We may share similarities, but no two journeys will look exactly the same. There are many roads home, just like there are many roads leading to the same destination. We may travel differently, believe differently, heal differently — and still arrive at the same place.

I do not believe you need someone else to tell you who you are.

I believe much of what we seek has always existed within us.

IAME8 is simply a space for reflection, healing, awareness, remembrance, and the freedom to be wherever you are on your journey — without shame, performance, or fear.

A place to return to yourself.

And maybe that is what this journey truly is for many of us —

not becoming someone new,

but returning to who we have always been.

Which is where the deeper exploration begins.