Today we’d like to introduce you to Yasmine Aker.
Yasmine, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Several years ago, I was hit with a series of loud and disorienting life events which forced me to address past traumas that I had been ignoring for years. I was misdiagnosed with MS; a year following that diagnosis my father passed away. A year after, I had a nervous breakdown, and a year after that my marriage fell apart and ended in divorce.
I was told to see a therapist. My therapist told me I had been ignoring my feelings and had to “feel my feelings,” but I had no idea what “feeling my feelings” actually meant. I realized that like many others, I had been living in survival mode for the majority of my life. There’s this beautiful quote I heard once, and have no idea what the source is, but it goes something like “if a patient doth not cry, the body doth cry elsewhere” And my unwillingness to cry or listen to the truth, had forced my physical body to cry.
What was I ignoring? At the age of four, I was molested by a member of our church — a man who’d molested multiple girls within our community with impunity. At age 14, I was raped by two older boys at a religious camp where they had me locked in a room with them. I was able to eventually escape through the window. At twenty-four I was drugged at a nightclub and raped in the men’s bathroom in plain sight while saying the words “NO” and “Stop” as clear as day.
I moved to Canada with my biological family at the age of 9 and lost my mother figure in the process. Five years later, my biological parents had to leave Canada (I was 14 at the time) and I subsequently ended up living in and out of different homes ranging from foster care, my aunt and then my brother’s house, and even with a group of street kids in an apartment above a pizza store. By the end of high school, I had my own apartment and lived alone.
Everything I hadn’t fully addressed was part of the tapestry of my ill health so I had to begin the journey back to myself, a journey to living in alignment with my body, mind, and soul. I’ve had to feel my feelings, cry all the tears I had been holding back, and learn to listen to the uncomfortable truth, so that I could heal from the inside and out.
My quest led me to talk therapy, physiotherapy, women’s groups, yoga, Buddhist temples, reiki certification, embodied voice classes, (TRE) Tension and Trauma Release Exercise classes, mindfulness practice, personal development courses, Landmark, a music therapy internship, Ayahuasca ceremonies, psilocybin ceremonies, becoming a Buddhist, going to the Vatican to be baptized, and multiple silent retreats at temples.
On my way back to myself I realized I had so much power within me to sit with my traumas and to honor my body and mind. So then, I wanted to share this knowledge with others so that they could be active participants in their own healing. I use the word healing because our society understands what that word means, but in truth I don’t think we are in need of emotional healing; we are never healing our traumas because we are not broken or in need of fixing — I think we need to learn to honor the truth, release, and remove what may be in the way to reveal our already whole and complete self.
I created a short program that integrated all the things I’d learned along the way and started teaching this multi-disciplinary “healing” workshop. I would facilitate these workshops either at my home, for other organizations or retreats, or at a yoga studio. The workshop brought together all the lessons that had helped me calm my central nervous system. Since the pandemic, I haven’t held these workshops, although initially I began offering short TRE lessons on IG live for free to help people cope in those first few months.
I’m currently in the process of creating a nine-day online course that includes the materials from that healing workshop to help people use the methods I’ve found useful. I want to share with others the tools that helped me most. I am not a healer, I am not a doctor, and I probably would have never thought I would create a course for people to learn how to boost their immune systems, calm their central nervous system or learn how to listen to their truth — but I am a teacher and I feel it is my responsibility to teach what I have learned and to offer it at a price that would make it accessible to those in poverty just the same as anyone else. My online course will be available soon and I am committed to charging only $35 for the entire 9-day course and save people over $600 in what this course would actually cost.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue our passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Creating a healing workshop or an online healing course was never my passion, my passion is storytelling, but I feel called to take this detour and help others that might be in a similar circumstance that I was in. There have been many obstacles along the way; financial, medical, and interpersonal. I was without a home when I was a teenager and lived above a pizza store with a group of other teens. I’ve been told NO more than I can recall and have lost all my financial stability several times in my life. Those things were detours and opportunities to gain insights and learn lessons. It hasn’t been easy, but in some ways, it has been the easiest. Just as many times as I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I have also been in the right place at the right time.
What else should our readers know?
My story is not a sad one, not in the least! I received a $60,000 scholarship to any university of my choice, I’ve traveled the world, sang at Carnegie Hall at the age of 14, and have been an educator and program facilitator for multiple programs. I competed in the MISS WORLD pageant and was the titleholder “Miss London.” And before the madness of the pandemic, I was one of the founding members of a beach clean-up initiative. I’ve released multiple music albums and have been enjoying an amazing career as an actress — I’m truly one of the luckiest people on this earth and am grateful for every single moment of it.
This past month I released a music video aimed to address women’s rights after an interview I did for Iranian television program generated a lot of upset. This upset actually opened a dialogue with the people of Iran about women’s rights and their freedom to wear whatever they wish to wear and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to be part of this dialogue.
The music video: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFqkNr4ghdU/
The interview: https://youtu.be/4UosfVFds_0
The subsequent IG post to address the issue: https://www.instagram.com/p/CFKK3t0ghs5/
I currently play the character Mona Nazari on the show FBI on CBS – that’s my job job as an actress.
I’m an actress, singer, songwriter, producer, filmmaker, an activist and a teacher. I’m a daughter and a sister. I love my community of friends and love to see people shine.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
ALL OF IT!!! Every single moment has been luck, one of my friends from college used to say I have a horseshoe stuck up my ass — in reference to how lucky I have always been. And it’s true! Some might look at the events of my life and say whoa, those were really intense and negative events, but on the flip side the positive events and opportunities have so greatly outweighed any of the suffering I’ve had to endure… in fact the suffering has been a gift from the universe and has afforded me the opportunity to be able to connect deeply with others and to help the people around me.
Contact Info:
- Website: yasmineaker.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamyasi/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/pickuppartyla/
- Upcoming shortfilm: https://okay-film.com/
Image Credit:
Instagram @peterdokus, @officialjaredfix, @alejandroibarraphoto
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