HIDING FROM LOVE IN BEVERLY HILLS

A Story of Rejection, Beverly Hills Dreams, and Finding Home

Rejection's Dance

How strange to find comfort
In the very thing that breaks us
To orchestrate our own abandonment
Like a familiar lullaby
Safer in the knowing of the wound
Than in the mystery of being seen
We'd rather write the ending
Than risk the story writing us

I learned about love from Beverly Hills 90210, hiding in my grandmother's house while my parents battled their heroin addiction.

Those stolen moments between episodes became my window into what love could be - my only glimpse into the "real world" beyond our ultra-orthodox walls. I absorbed every detail, every interaction, crafting a dream of what it meant to be loved.

Life has a way of being painfully poetic. Decades later, I found myself in actual Beverly Hills, meeting my future wife who showed up to our 8am coffee date on a skateboard, joint in hand. I should have been living my childhood dream – my heart freshly cracked open from shamanic ceremonies, ready to experience the love I'd always imagined.

But when real intimacy appeared, something inside me froze. Beneath the spiritual awakening, beneath the Beverly Hills dream come true, I was still that little boy hiding at my grandmother's house. Only now I was hiding behind ceremonies and substances, playing the role of the cool magician-shaman, desperately trying to be good enough, special enough, worthy enough of love.

What I couldn't admit then was how terrified I was of being truly seen.

Not the mystical guide, not the awakened being, but the uncertain human beneath it all.

My entire identity had become wrapped up in not being "bad," in proving my worth through achievements and magical experiences.

Each time intimacy knocked, those early messages would flood back: love is conditional, safety means performing, vulnerability equals danger.

I became a master of orchestrating my own rejection – a tragic dance I knew every step to. Because rejection? That was familiar territory. I knew exactly how it would hurt, exactly how to survive it.

But real intimacy? That was a free fall into unknown depths. Better to control the crash than risk the flight.

This pattern followed me everywhere, becoming most painfully apparent in my role as a ceremony guide. Here I was, helping others open their hearts while mine remained carefully guarded behind substances and spiritual bypass.

Not because I was trying to deceive anyone – I truly believed in the magic, in the medicine. I just couldn't face the simple truth that I was using that very magic to avoid facing myself.

Looking back now at those Beverly Hills episodes, I see something I missed all those years ago. The "cool guys" who always “got” the girls weren't magnetic because of their perfect hair or clever lines. They had something I wouldn't understand for decades: they knew who they were, regardless of who loved them back. Their worth wasn't hanging on someone else's validation.

Sometimes the medicine is hidden in the wound itself. My addiction to rejection was actually pointing to my deepest longing – to be truly seen, to be truly known, to trust that my heart is safe to share.

Your patterns aren't random.

Your wounds aren't punishment.

Your story holds medicine.

We just have to be brave enough to look.

With an open heart,

Oriya

P.S. If this resonates, I work with people one-on-one through Story Medicine sessions, helping decode their patterns and extract wisdom from their wounds. Every story, no matter how painful, contains medicine if we know how to find it.