Gina Marie Calvario

The work I did at White Raven in my 30s genuinely changed the trajectory of my life. I sometimes describe it as emotional and spiritual surgery, and I really mean that.

When I look at the woman I was before White Raven and the woman I am today, the difference is dramatic. Before White Raven, I found myself in a string of toxic relationships. I was drinking heavily. I was constantly searching for my purpose and often felt desperately lost. My relationship with my parents was strained, and perhaps most importantly, I didn’t yet have a strong, loving relationship with myself.

White Raven taught me how to change that.

Through the work I did there, I learned how to fall in love with myself. Today, I can genuinely say that I am my own best friend. I enjoy my own company. I trust myself. I listen to my instincts about the people I allow into my life, and I fiercely protect my spirit and my peace. I know how to set boundaries, and I have learned that I can be loving and compassionate without abandoning myself in the process.

White Raven also taught me how to honor all of the different parts of myself, including the little girl parts of me that once carried so much pain. Instead of running from those experiences or wishing they hadn’t happened, I learned how to understand them, care for those parts of myself, and integrate what I have lived through into the woman I am today. My pain and trauma are part of my story, but they no longer define or control me.

That transformation has rippled into every part of my life. I have a good friendship with my parents now. I choose healthier relationships. I know how to recognize when something or someone doesn’t feel right for me, and I trust myself enough to act on that knowledge. I am confident in who I am, and I have become unapologetically myself.

Of course, life still happens. I still have triggers. I still experience hurt, conflict, fear, and all of the complicated emotions that come with being human. The difference is in how I respond to them.

One of the greatest things White Raven taught me was to pay attention to that tiny space between a trigger and my response. I notice it now. I can feel what is happening inside me, get curious about where it is coming from, and choose how I want to respond rather than simply reacting. I am continually amazed by how much calmer and more grounded my responses have become.

White Raven gave me a foundation that I have carried with me for years. Perhaps some of the clearest evidence of how much my life has changed can be seen in the choices I make today.

After years of unhealthy relationships, I chose to marry a truly good man, a man of high character who comes from a loving family and who brings kindness, friendship, stability, and goodness into my life. He is a positive influence and a joyful presence in my world. I don’t think it is an accident that the woman who learned to love, trust, and protect herself also learned to recognize and choose a partner who treats her with love and respect. The quality of the relationship I chose for myself is one of the things that makes me most aware of just how far I have come.

That same confidence has allowed me to completely reinvent myself professionally. In my 40s, I made the enormous decision to pursue a new career as an airline pilot. I am now three years into that journey, nearly finished with my training, and preparing to begin working as a professional pilot. It has required an incredible amount of courage, perseverance, trust in myself, and willingness to do something difficult and uncertain. I don’t know that the woman I was before White Raven would have believed she was capable of something like this. The woman I am today does.

I truly feel that I owe so much of the life I have today to the work I did at White Raven and to the people who supported me through it, especially Marianne, whose guidance, wisdom, compassion, and presence helped me find my way back to myself.

White Raven didn’t give me a life without problems. It gave me the tools, self-knowledge, confidence, and self-love to move through life without losing myself.

And that has changed everything.