My name is Simona Rich, and I was born in Lithuania.
I grew up with my mother and brother. My father was mainly absent from my life from the age of sixteen, and that was a good thing.
He was an alcoholic. Because of his emotional terrorism, the entire family suffered. It sometimes truly felt like living in hell.
I, as a child, suffered the most because I was the most sensitive.
I suffered from extreme emotional ups and downs, and when in my teenage years , because of growing self-awareness, I understood the harm of such emotional imbalance, and started seeking a way out of this unhappy situation.
That’s how I found meditation. The first book that I read on this subject was Deep Meditation by Yogani and it was the only meditation book that I read for several years.
It totally transformed my emotional state, and from a girl who was totally controlled by emotions, I became calm and in control of myself.
That was the first big win over my lower nature.
At school, I was very average. At the age of sixteen, I got my first job – at the department store where my mother was the director.
The job was torturous, and it made me realize that if I stayed average at school, I would probably have to slave in a similar job for the rest of my life.
This was an excellent motivation to start taking my studies seriously. So, after a year of intense focus on my favorite subjects (mainly the English language and the arts), I passed several subjects with flying colors which got me a scholarship to study in the UK.
Life in the UK
I studied tourism in the UK. There I started a very “normal” life.
I was in a relationship, living with my partner in his apartment, watching TV and having an okay-paying job.
But although I was living the life that’s supposed to be normal by today’s standards, I always felt that there was something wrong with that kind of lifestyle.
I knew it always, that feeling was in the background of my mind whether I was watching TV, enjoying my favorite M&M’s, taking a stroll down the city streets, or spending time with my boyfriend.
I couldn’t really define that feeling. I just knew that I was searching for something, and I thought that I would never find it – I assumed that there was no answer to that unspoken question.
So I continued my average existence, though always aware of the fact that something was wrong with that kind of living; that some major part of my life was missing, or that something was hidden from me.
A turn for the better
What really triggered me to rethink my life were two things.
The death of an employee at the time of me working in a business call center, as well as the question that reached me out of nowhere.
One afternoon, I was walking to the bookshop after finishing my call-center shift.
The question that I heard in my head was this:
Is this all life can offer me?
I never thought of such things before, so it felt like the question didn’t come from me but from the outside. It took me off balance, and although I was pondering on it, I couldn’t answer it.
I entered the bookshop and started browsing. I would go to that bookshop often those days, but I would never buy anything – I just loved browsing through all sorts of books.
But that time a particular book caught my attention, and I knew I had to get it.
It was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and it was the book that totally changed my understanding of how to handle finances, and it was the book that started my journey towards financial independence (and later – spirituality).
This book led me to many other wealth books, such as Think and Grow Rich and The 4-Hour Workweek, and the more of them I read and applied in my life, the more in control of my finances I got.
Reading such books eventually led me to a similar category of self-help books to do with personal development. I ended up reading hundreds of such books, and due to this I totally changed my life.
I became emotionally and financially independent, and started my own self-improvement blog.
When the blog generated enough income, which happened within around six months of me starting it, I finally was able to decide where I really wanted to live.
Life in India
To decide where to live, I asked the Universe for the best suggestion.
All sorts of messages started reaching me about India.
So I took it as a sign that it was the place where I should go. And the day I landed there, it felt like home, which was the feeling I never experienced before, always having felt like a stranger in the world.
I stayed in India for at least six months, sometimes more, each year for more than ten years. I sometimes would rent houses there, and sometimes – stay in hotels. Mostly, I stayed in the southern part of it, called Kerala.
It was in India that I started to seriously practice meditation. There, I also discovered yoga, and all sorts of other eastern traditions got my attention, such as palmistry, ayurveda, and astrology.
I also lived in another location in South India, in a modest hut with a Bharatanatyam dance teacher and her little child.
It was a traditional Hindu arrangement – a student living with a teacher. That woman had taught me so much, and I still keep in touch with that special soul.
I also attended Carnatic music classes in a traditional school in the city of Trivandrum.
I believe that the reason I was so attracted to the old arts of India was because I might have had incarnations in that country.
My Life Story Continued…
My life is full of changes, twists and turns, so it’s very difficult to summarize it. It feels like I’ve lived already 100 lives in this one.
But to put it short, I became a successful personal development teacher, then ended up almost destroying my career because of my more drastic spiritual awakening that I wasn’t ready for, which opened me to other dimensions. Some readers, however, continued following me.
I was led to study and practice astrology, which got incredibly successful. I bought small land in my country, then sold it, and together with my father’s inheritance money, was able to buy a beautiful farm in Lithuania. My life was then about sometimes staying on the farm, and sometimes – long stays usually in Asia.
Deepening Mindfulness and the Spiritual Support Group
To make it very short. I got married after four years of dating my boyfriend. After two years of marriage, our paths separated – for good. We were developing in very different ways, and I prayed that if we would only hinder one another, may our paths separate.
And it did. He found someone else, and was honest to tell it the moment he knew something will start developing between them. It was very painful, but I knew, this was the next step in my spiritual journey.
At this time of our paths becoming more distant, A Course in Miracles came for the third time in my life. I knew I had to study it deeply, which led me to spend six months in almost total solitude and silence on my farm.
From there, the deepening presence led me to the creation of a Spiritual Support Group, and people started signing up. Some readers from whom I didn’t hear from ages, suddenly entered my life, and joined the group. It was just meant to be.
It was amazing how a group of beautiful, loving souls all there to progress together so effortlessly formed. Some of them started experiencing greater space and deepening presence from the very first call. I’m truly blessed to be witnessing all of this.
So I’m coming out of my silent retreat now, and I also booked my next trip, which will happen in March 2025. This time, however, presence led me to open it for my group members as well, to make it into a budget mindfulness retreat. Three members are already in, two are thinking of joining.
I’m going to finally meet my readers! And yes, this offer is still open for any of my current, past coaching clients and group members to join me:)
So these are all the developments for now. More will surely come, as my life changes always.
Thank you for reading this far! And should you wish to have more interactions with me and to deepen your presence, consider joining my newly-formed spiritual support group.
With love,
Simona Rich