CFDS Episode 013: Divorce, Love and Running Away With Strangers

Even after divorce you may find yourself running away with a handsome stranger to a foreign land…complete with happy endings, food and intuition and how to get yourself some more clarity in your life.

And at the end of this episode I’ll share with you one of my favorite things to eat to help increase your intuition – which could really come in handy if you’ve got a tough decision to make like our guest Darla did.

Our guest, Darla Antoine

I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Darla Antoine. Darla is a soul coach, and she works with the elements of what she calls Sacred Darkness, such as dreamwork, divination and deathwork (which is not as scary as it sounds, she tells me). Darla will tell you a bit more about what she does later on, but first I really want you to hear her story which I just can’t wait to share with you because it’s gonna be great!

So Darla welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I’m really excited to have you here today!

Darla: I’m excited to be here Barbara!

Me: It’s really great, I mean, I can’t wait to hear your story because when you told me about it, I was like “That could have happened to me!”

Darla: I know, right?

Me: Because we’ve both had kind of like crazy pasts. And I know that it starts with a husband and kind of moves on from there with the mysterious stranger. So do you want to tell us what happened?

Darla: Sure, OK.

Darla’s story

So I got married young, I was about 22 years old which was in 2004 and I loved my first husband, obviously. We’re both from Washington State and we moved to Iowa.

He started going to grad school to become a chiropractor, I started to go to grad school in New Mexico for intercultural communication. The last year of his chiropractic school, he had to work under a chiropractor, so we moved to Spain.

Learning Spanish from very young

Ever since I was a little girl, I always knew that I’d be moving to a Spanish-speaking country. At 6 years old I was trying to teach myself Spanish, I just knew I needed to learn Spanish.

Me: Oh that’s so cute!

Darla: Yeah, and so this was it. We were moving to Spain and he knew he was gonna work under a doctor in Spain and we were gonna stay in Spain for as long as we wanted, and that whole thing. And I was like “Yes! It’s finally happening!” I was about 26 years old at this point.

But the long distance…I was living in New Mexico, he was living in Iowa and Spain. And we were only seeing each other every few months, which started to weigh on the relationship and there were other issues…

Me: Oh, so you didn’t go to Spain with him then?

Darla: I did, but I also was going to grad school so in summer breaks or on vacation I’d take time off to go and work on our relationship.

Whose dream will come true: mine or yours?

But anyway we had a great time in Spain, but the distance was wearing on us and there were other issues about…Have you seen the movie LaLa Land?

Me: No, but I know lots of people have.

Darla: Yes, lots of people have. And the movie ends not the way you think it’s going to end. It’s very obvious that if the couple had ended up together, that only one of their dreams would come true. Not both of their dreams would come true.

So that’s how it was with my ex-husband. If I’d stayed with him, his dreams would have come true but my dreams wouldn’t. I would just be the supporting role, and blah blah blah.

Do I stay…or walk away?

So I was in a very tough position of walking away from our life in Spain in our relationship and going alone on my own and that’s what my gut was telling me. I had a very profound dream that backed that up, and I went to a psychic for the first time in my life. She told me, she confirmed what I was feeling and confirmed that yes there was another life waiting for me if I wanted it, and that soon I would be travelling to Costa Rica for research. And I would meet someone there, and this someone would be involved in sustainability, eco living and such. I thought “OK, that’s interesting”.

And then I asked her some more questions and I got off the phone and made the tough decision. Not just right then and there, but over the next few weeks I slowly dissolved our marriage. It was very difficult.

I left Spain and came back to the States and then I had taken the semester off from grad school. I wasn’t in grad school in New Mexico, I was up in Washington State with my parents. You know, 26, 27 years old, living with my parents again.

Me: I know what that’s like, I did that once, it wasn’t fun.

Looking for a farm

Darla: So it was this time of year, late March, early April, and I thought well I need to keep my focus on the future so I don’t go crazy.

I was studying intercultural communication and I wrote my masters thesis on how food creates cultural identity and legacy, so I thought “I’m gonna get out of the library and I’m gonna go work and visit farms and talk about how food is affecting people’s cultural identity and their cultural legacy.

So I started looking for permaculture farms in the Washington State, British Columbia area. And somehow I landed on a site for a permaculture farm in Costa Rica.

Me: Uh-oh!

Darla: Yeah! The psychic’s words from 3 weeks ago? I totally didn’t think even about it, it didn’t even cross my mind. I’d forgotten what she’d said.

Whose decision is this, anyway?

So I thought “well this is interesting”. I sent them an email, and they wrote right back and they said “We’d love to have you come and volunteer, we could use you next month”. And I’m like “Next month is 10 days away, I should ask my husband about this” and I thought “I don’t have to ask my husband about this, he’s not gonna be my husband much longer”.

Then I thought, “I should ask my mom about this” and I thought “No, no, I’m 26 years old, I don’t have to ask my mom about this!” So I had like almost no money, I booked the ticket and did a happy dance because I was stepping into my own adulthood, making my own decisions, doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, and it felt really good!

10 days later I was being dropped off at the end of a road in Costa Rica. And it wasn’t until I had booked the ticket and wrote back that yes I’d be there in 10 days…That’s when I remembered the psychic’s words that I’d be going to Costa Rica for research.

Me: Wow!

Darla: And I got goosebumps, I thought “Oh my gosh, something’s gonna happen!”

Life on a hippy farm

It was great! It ended up being like a really disorganized hippy farm. I didn’t learn anything about permaculture!

Me: That’s hysterical!

Darla: I was disappointed but then I just embraced it. I was like “You know what? This is like summer camp for adults. This is fine”.

I was gonna stay for a month but I ended up extending my stay for two months and I didn’t have any money to pay the $300 to stay there for a month. So I made a trade: I would be the cook for the second month in exchange for staying. And so when you’re the cook for 20 people, you’re cooking all day.

Me: Yeah, I know what that’s like too!

Darla: Yeah! So the first month was all summer camp and the second month was like work. But it was what I needed. I got to be around people who didn’t know me as so-and-so’s wife. They just were meeting me at face value and embracing me and loving me, and some of the people I met there are still really dear friends today.

Me: And how was your Spanish at that time?

Darla: It was pretty good. It wasn’t as good as I thought it was, but it was pretty good because I’d been living in Spain. And I took Spanish in high school and college because I just always knew that I needed to learn Spanish. It’s the only foreign language I’ve bothered to learn.

From summer camp to full time cook

So about 3 weeks into my time there I was cooking. I wasn’t officially the cook yet, but I was filling in for someone and I was cooking. And the guy who owns this farm also used to own a tour guiding company. He would bring in mostly college students who were on a tour. They would come in through his farm for a day or two and learn about permaculture and then go on the rest of their tour in the country.

So one of these tours was coming through, there were about 18 college students. I was told they would be here at about 8 pm.

Now there are two ways to get to this farm: you could hike through the jungle for an hour and a half, or you could take a 30-minute boat ride. It was very isolated which was perfect for me.

So I was told that they were going to be walking in and the next day boating out and to have dinner ready by 4, they’d be arriving by 3, perfect. They’d be led by their Costa Rican tour guide. OK.

And one day, among the vegetables…

I’m in the kitchen and I’m chopping vegetables and all of a sudden there’s this redhead standing in my kitchen. He’s decked out in all this fancy gear. Fancy outdoor gear. And I’m thinking because he’s pale-skinned and redheaded, “He must be one of the professors”. He looked about 30 years old. The group’s arriving. And sure enough I see some college students walking in behind him.

Well I immediately get super annoyed with him. I’m like “Who is this guy?” I don’t see the Costa Rican tour guide anywhere.

A friend and I had just gotten lost on that trail between the farm and the nearest town the week before. It’s a very difficult trail, you need to know what you’re doing.

I’m like “Here’s some hotshot young professor, he’s ditched the tour guide, showing off, he’s wearing a whole bunch of gear he’s never gonna wear again, it’s obviously all brand new…”

Me: It’s interesting how many assumptions you made though, right?

From assumptions to lovely surprises

Darla: I made so many assumptions! And I was so annoyed. And then I saw the way he was looking at me. Then I thought “Oh my God, this guy’s gonna be a pain, he’s gonna want to flirt with me…”

So here’s the thing, I very seriously thought, “He’s gonna want me to move to Michigan to the suburbs and have babies!”

Me: Oh that’s hysterical!

Darla: I don’t know why Michigan, but Michigan popped up and I was like “I don’t want to move to the suburbs and have babies in Michigan! No offense.”

Me: Now I’m laughing because I know what happens afterwards, right?

Darla: So yes, but then he thought I was Costa Rican. He opened his mouth to introduce himself and it was in Spanish, in perfect, ‘this is my first language’ Spanish. Not ‘I’ve learned Spanish really well and I can introduce myself’ Spanish. It was perfect Spanish.

And OK, well, I stopped, my eyes popped out, my mouth might have dropped open a little bit, and I was like “OK well you just got more interesting!” I was kind of shocked and I didn’t say anything, so then he took my shock for not understanding, and he switched to perfect, ‘this is my first language’ English!

He said “Hi, I’m Andy, I’m the tour guide”. And I was like, “OK, hello!”

Me: All your assumptions were gone, right?

Darla: All my assumptions were gone, which was wonderful! It was nice to be surprised.

In less than 24 hours…

And there was definitely some attraction between us, but he remained very professional. He was there at the farm for less than 24 hours, so he didn’t try to sneak off into the bushes with me…

Me: Did you regret that?

Darla: Yeah! But then I thought well, he doesn’t just hit on every cute girl he comes across, this is something. So it turns out his parents emigrated to Costa Rica when he was in the womb, when his mother was pregnant with him, from Michigan! They came from Michigan in 1978 and moved to Costa Rica and he had been born and raised in Costa Rica by US immigrant parents.

And before they left the next day, we exchanged email addresses and he said, “I don’t care when you come back to Costa Rica, I don’t care if it’s next month, next week, one year, two years from now, you let me know the next time you come back to Costa Rica and I’m gonna take you out on a date”.

Me: Oh! It’s like something out of a movie!

Darla: Yeah, it really was! But I thought, “well you’re cute but I’m never gonna see you again”. I took his email address and neither one of us were big on Facebook but we eventually added each other to Facebook and I went back to New Mexico to finish my graduate degree, I got another boyfriend and kind of forgot about him, honestly.

Two years later…

And twice over the course of two years he emailed me via Facebook and all the conversation was “How are you?” “I’m fine, how are you?” “I’m fine” “Good”. That was it. Hardly no conversation at all.

Me: Wow.

Darla: Yeah. But then I was finishing grad school and I thought “You know, I’m gonna go back to Costa Rica, that’s really where I feel like I started to become my own adult. And I’m gonna go back for a few weeks and go visit friends that I made there before I go get a job and have to ask a boss for permission for vacation”.

So I was making plans to go back to Costa Rica when he emailed me, Andy, this guy in Costa Rica. He emailed me out of the blue. And I’m like “Oh actually I’m coming to Costa Rica, do you still want to go on that date?” And I thought he could have been married with kids, then, I don’t know.

Me: Yeah, because it was two years later, right?

Darla: Yeah, it was two years later. And he immediately wrote back and said “Let me know when you’re coming and I’ll pick you up at the airport”.

Me: Ohhhhh!

Darla: And I thought, “Oh dear!”

Falling in love…

So it went from being seeing him for a night, going on a date, to spending the entire 3 weeks with him. He drove me all over the country, we fell in love.

Now here’s the thing: the psychic said I would meet someone in Costa Rica and that they would be involved in sustainable living. And he has an organic sustainable farm, he and his sisters run an eco lodge, so yeah.

We live on an organic, sustainable homestead now in Costa Rica, and it’s been 6 years. Actually 6 years earlier this week, we celebrated it’s been 6 years since I came to Costa Rica to see him, and we’ve got two little boys, and we’re madly in love with each other still.

Me: Oh wow! That’s such a nice story! And it has a happy ending as well, doesn’t it?

Darla: It does, yeah.

Intuition kicking in…at the strangest times

Me: And one of the things that came out when we were talking about this was you were saying how your intuition really helped you to make some of the right decisions. Do you want to say more about that? Were there specific moments when you just tuned into yourself? And how did you do that?

Darla: Yes, so my intuition really started picking up at the same time as my marriage started ending. And I’ve always been a really strong dreamer. Dreaming has always been a really great way to get messages to me from the divine.

So one was I had a dream right before I ended it with my husband that confirmed that I needed to end it. Two was right before I came here to visit Andy, speaking of dreams, anyway.

A most powerful dream

I woke up in the early morning and I started coughing. Like I’d been sleeping with my mouth open or something and my throat was dry. So I started coughing and I needed to get some water. There was water across my room on my desk, but I was still dreaming. And I had this very vivid image of like my astral body or something in the cosmos. Like I was flying through stars, I’ve never consciously remembered something like this.

And I was zooming to get back to my body because my body needed me, but there were these two orbs of light going with me. Like we’d been out playing in the cosmos. I got back into my body and I woke up, but these orbs of light were laughing at me. They were taunting me. They were like “Ha ha, look who has a body! Look who needs to get back to their body! Ha ha!”

And as I got back into my body and I started becoming conscious, I could still see and hear them and the more I woke up, the more they faded. Then I tried to get up out of bed to go get the water and I fell to the floor, like I couldn’t operate my body. I still wasn’t completely back into it.

Me: Wow!

Darla: I started laughing and I had to like drag myself across the floor to get my glass of water

Me: Yeah cause you must have been really thirsty!

Darla: Yeah! By the time I’d had a glass of water I had regained function of my body, but I just felt that those two orbs were gonna be my children.

Me: Oh! Wow!

On paper? Insane. But in reality…

Darla: Yeah, this was about a month before I came to visit Andy on the trip that we fell in love. So I thought, “OK, things are shifting in my life. Things are changing. A whole new energy is coming”.

And then sure enough within like 8 months after we got together, I was pregnant by the end of that same year with my first son. So yeah, so the dreams definitely told me that shifts were coming and that changes were coming.

But then also just the gut feeling that I had that “This is crazy, I left one husband and now I’m moving to a foreign country to be with a guy”.

On paper it all sounded insane, but in my heart and in my gut I knew that this was right, this was what I’d been preparing my whole life for. I always knew that I needed to speak Spanish. I always knew that my partner, my mate, was far, far away in another country. Ever since I was a little girl, I just knew it.

Me: That’s really funny that you say that about the Spanish, because I was told years and years ago by a psychic that…I was learning French at the time and the psychic was like, “Well, you really need to learn Spanish” and I was like, “Really?” I was in high school, I was like 18 or something, you know? And I wound up using Spanish when I was 38! But use it I did and, you know, married a Mexican, yeah, all that stuff. So it sometimes takes quite a long time to manifest, right? But it does, it’s there.

What Darla does now to help others

So talking about dreams and intuition, I think that links really well to the kind of thing that you’re doing now with people. Do you want to say a little bit about that? And then, you know, where people can find you?

Darla: Sure. So one of the biggest things I love helping people with, especially women but men as well, I love helping them also tap into their dreams. Even if you haven’t remembered a dream in years or whatever, you can regain your dreams.

And on my website which is – should I give my website address?

Me: Yeah, sure!

Darla: OK my website is thecopperscarab.com I’ve got a whole bunch of blog articles that can help you reclaim your dreams. But I also have a course that will just walk you through everything you need to know about dreams.

Death work and transitions

I also help people with death work. This is kind of a new door I’ve got my foot in, but I really love it. I think death work is something that’s present at any time of transition, and it’s something that really helped me navigate divorce. It helped me navigate moving to another country, and it helped me navigate becoming a mom. Because the old ‘me’ had to die. Well, all three of those things. I had to shed an old version of me.

And between divorce and moving to another country and becoming a mom, I think motherhood has been the hardest transition for me. Maybe because there’s so much joy and love wrapped up in it as well, it’s not just that I’m cutting off this part of my life and moving on. You have to keep living and interacting and loving this new life. And it’s also very painful. It can be very painful and a very hard transition.

Divination for everyone

So I help women transition through big life transitions with death work, and then I’m a big fan of divination. Dreaming I think is a form of divination, but especially when you’ve got big decisions to make. It’s really easy to get stuck in your head or stuck in your emotions and you kind of need a way to get the clarity without the emotions and without influencing it yourselves, so learning a divination tool is really helpful. Whether it’s tarot, or claircognizant – inner knowing – or dreamwork, or anything like that. I think at least a form of divination is really important for everyone to know.

Me: Yeah, I’d agree with that, cause I think it’s just really empowering, you know? To know that you’ve got this tool to make really important decisions yourself, right?

Darla: Exactly.

Me: Yeah, that’s really cool. I’ll definitely put the link to your website in the shownotes as well, and I’ll get into the food tips in just a moment.

But first I wanted to thank you so much for being here to share your story cause I love your story and I also love what you do. So I’m gonna encourage people massively to check you out and see what you do because it’s just amazing, so thank you for being here with me!

Darla: Thanks for having me!

Me: You’re very welcome!

Food and intuition

So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I’d share with you one of my favorite foods to help with your intuition in case you’ve got any difficult decisions to make, among other things.

This food is very common and I’m sure you’ve eaten it already without knowing the amazing good that it’s doing for your mind!

The food is…almonds!

Now I’m not talking roasted, salted almonds. I’m talking about fresh, raw almonds.

Benefits of almonds

Almonds are a great source of vitamin E, protein and calcium, which are all nutrients that our endocrine glands absorb and which therefore can help bring us clarity of mind, focus and heightened intuition.

How you use almonds

How do you use almonds? Well you can eat them raw by the handful, of course. You can sprinkle them on salads or eat them in a trail mix. But no matter how you eat them, one thing I would say is that to get maximum benefit from your almonds, it’s best to soak them first for a few hours. I soak mine overnight or while I go out for the day.

The reason I say to soak them is because nuts have a natural coating of enzyme inhibitors which can make them heavy to digest. The enzyme inhibitors are natural, and they’re the reason you can walk through the grocery store and not a forest. They tell the nuts to wait to become a tree until they’ve got not just light, but water as well. So when you soak them, you’re basically activating them. You’re telling them that it’s time to release that fabulous growth potential – which you absorb when you eat them soaked. It’s kind of like eating the potential of an entire tree with each soaked nut. Pretty cool, right?

Think of sprouts – it’s the same principle. You’re eating the potential of an entire plant in each sprout. That’s why you’ve heard that they’re so good for you.

Where to find out more

Anyway, if you want some specific recipes for using almonds, I have lots in my 5-Minute recipe ebooks that I’ll link to in the show notes.

The link between food and intuition is actually one of my favorite topics, so I’ll also link to an article of mine that goes into more detail about several foods that you can eat to help improve your intuition.

And for those of you who want to read more about the science behind food and intuition, I’ll link to an excerpt from the best resource that I found which comes from a book called Nutrition for Intuition, written by Doreen Virtue and Robert Reeves and published by Hay House.

I’ll also link to an article that has more information on other health benefits of almonds in case you find that useful, because there are a LOT of them!

Have YOU got a story to share?

Which brings us to the end of this week’s story – and if you’ve got a crazy, true story to share (and you’d like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation), I’d love to hear from you!

Got a question, or a comment?

Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen ‘on the go’ in iTunes.

I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!

RESOURCES

Darla on Instagram

Article on food for intuition: https://rockingrawchef.com/increase-intuition-with-food/

Excerpt from article on food and intuition from the book Nutrition for Intuition: http://www.fourcornersmagazine.com/sedonaconsciousmag/nutrition-for-intuition-by-doreen-virtue-and-robert-reeves/

Article on other benefits of almonds: https://draxe.com/almonds-nutrition/

5-Minute recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/