The Dark Side of Love - Taking off the Mask, Tantra, and Transcendental Taboos
There comes a moment when life whispers—softly, persistently—and calls you to face the parts of yourself you’ve been running from. It isn’t loud, nor is it demanding. But the whisper has weight, and it tugs at your soul, beckoning you to step into a place you’ve avoided—the raw, unfiltered space of your heart.
Dmitry Dolzhinskay Studio - “Warrioress”
For years, I have hidden behind walls of self-protection. They have been high and impenetrable, built from fear and disassociation reinforced by the belief that if I dared to truly feel, I would only uncover more pain. It been a narrative I have clung to, telling myself that the heartache would be unbearable, that it was safer to stay numb, to not go there. But deep inside, I know that if I want to evolve, and if I want to become someone I had not yet imagined, I had to step through that door.
I had heard about the tantric path from whispers in Tulum. It was spoken of like a sassy secret, a sacred practice that unlocked profound healing and cracked people open to levels of connection I couldn’t fathom. They said it stripped you of your masks, left you naked in your truth, and allowed you to feel. And as beautiful as it sounded, the truth was; “feeling” terrified me.
I had spent so many years stuffing my emotions into dark corners, reacting with anger and toxicity whenever I felt hurt. I didn’t understand the storm raging inside me, and honestly, I didn’t want to. My defense was to keep busy, over work, move away and use alcohol and drugs as a form of escapism to convince myself that I didn’t care—that I wasn’t attached, that nothing and no one could affect me. But that wasn’t true. I had always been yearning for love, to be held, seen and accepted. The signs were all there—tightness in my chest, a racing heartbeat, and the unrelenting urge to run anytime the walls of my heart cracked open, even just a little, the sensation was unbearable. The vulnerability felt like pain, sharp and disorienting. I didn’t know how to sit with it, how to process it, so I did what I thought I needed to survive: I buried it. Any form of connection or attempt to get to close, I would turn into another person. Avoidant, un-interested, unable to make eye contact, pretty much the complete opposite of what I was seeking. But no matter how deeply I buried it, my desire for connection was still there, pulsing beneath the surface. I craved love, real love—the kind that leaves you breathless, seen, and held. Yet that craving was buried under layers of fear. Fear of being seen too clearly, fear of being misunderstood, fear that the parts of me I had deemed unlovable would send someone running.
And so, I built a story around my fear. It was easier to believe that love was meant to be messy, unstable, and painful. That toxic patterns and heartbreak were simply my reality. I convinced myself that this was just how it worked for me. It became my identity, my narrative. I told myself I wasn’t worthy of healthy, mutual love—even though I wanted it so desperately.
Looking back I have a much better understanding, I see how much fear controls me/us. I fear/ed (being) reject/ed. I fear/ed being abandoned. But more than anything, I fear/ed losing myself in love. So I cling to my defenses—sharp words, emotional distance, the façade of indifference—and I repeat/ed the same painful patterns in every relationship.
The heartbreak is/was familiar. The instability (felt) normal. And my own fears keept me stuck in the cycle, over and over again.
But there’s something about life—it refuses to let you stay in the dark when you’re meant for more. I began to see, piece by piece, the role I played in my own suffering. I realized that the very defenses I thought were protecting me were actually keeping me from the one thing I desired most.
“The walls I built didn’t just keep the pain out—they kept love out too.”
It wasn’t an easy realization. To face my fears meant looking at the places I’d been avoiding for so long. It meant admitting that the patterns I blamed on others were mine to break. It meant opening the door to my heart and sitting with the mess, the discomfort, and the grief.
IT WAS TIME TO DANCE WITH MY SHADOW YET AGAIN…show time
Dmitry Dolzhinskay Studio - One piece by Liliana Montoya
But this is where evolution begins. It begins in the raw, messy truth of seeing yourself fully, without judgment, and choosing to believe that there is another way.
It wasn’t the tantric path or the whispers of others that ultimately led me to this breakthrough. It was the quiet, persistent call from my soul, reminding me that I had the power to rewrite my story.
And so I started. Slowly. Hesitantly. But I began…
I learned to sit with my feelings instead of running from them. I learned to ask myself the hard questions: What am I afraid of? What am I holding onto? What am I ready to let go of?
And in that process, I began to see that the love I was seeking wasn’t outside of me. It was within me, waiting to be unlocked the moment I stopped being afraid of it.
The journey isn’t linear. It’s messy and vulnerable and terrifying at times. But it’s also freeing.
For the first time, I allowed myself to believe that love didn’t have to hurt. It didn’t have to feel unstable or confusing. It could be soft, mutual, and nourishing.
And it began with me. With breaking my patterns. With choosing myself. With stepping into the space of my heart, raw and exposed, and finding the courage to love all that I am.
Because love starts here, with you. Always.
I thought I was healed. I really believed I was over the self-sabotaging, the running, the chaos. I told myself I was confident, whole, and ready for love. But deep down, I was lying—to myself, to others, to the little girl inside me who was still waiting to be seen, held, and loved.
The truth is, I was still running. Running from my own reflection. Running into situations that forced me to face myself in the most painful ways.
“It was like life kept handing me mirrors, and each one showed me the parts of myself I didn’t want to see”—the anxious little girl, the sharp-tongued woman, the person so desperate for love that she couldn’t trust it when it arrived.
For years, I had struggled to feel good about myself. My defense mechanisms were airtight. I wore this hardass persona like armor, burying myself in work, using my busy schedule as an excuse to avoid vulnerability. And when that wasn’t enough, I turned to alcohol and recreational drugs to take the edge off, to numb the discomfort of truly being me.
Ironically, my career in PR made it easy to hide in plain sight. I could slip into any room, charm anyone, and play the role of the polished, fun, magnetic woman. That version of me was lighthearted, easy to love, and always “on.” She knew how to grab attention when her ego needed a boost, how to flirt when her heart craved intimacy—but only under the influence. Without the alcohol, I felt like a monster, too raw, too exposed, too much.
And in my rawness, I became cruel and manipulative to men. I was mean. I hurt them before they could hurt me. I convinced myself they deserved it—that they had to pay for the damage someone else had done to my heart long ago. That heartbreak had left such a gaping hole in me that I couldn’t believe in love anymore. I didn’t feel worthy of it, and I definitely didn’t trust it.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t the villain in this story. I wasn’t evil, though I flirted with my own darkness more often than I care to admit. I hurt people, yes, but what I was really doing was projecting. Every wound I inflicted was a reflection of my own pain, my own fear of not being enough.
I craved a love so deep, so pure, that I kept attracting the exact opposite. I wasn’t attracting the love I deserved—I was attracting lessons. Lessons that forced me to see myself, to feel the pain I had buried so deeply that I forgot how to love without condition. I forgot how to love without making someone wrong for being exactly who they were.
And when I looked deeper, I saw the truth: I wasn’t choosing myself. My reflection in the mirror was dull, broken, and shadowed by years of self-neglect. I had spent so much energy trying to prove I was enough for someone else to choose me, when all along, I had abandoned myself.
““Was I ignoring the red flags in others? Or was I ignoring the ones within me?””
And so, I screamed to the universe, “SHOW ME!”
Then came the invitation. It was time to step into a new way, a new practice, something radically different: a retreat called Kali Academy, a three-day intensive with nine men and nine women. I had no idea what would unfold, but I knew it was going to challenge everything I thought I knew about intimacy, vulnerability, and connection.
The retreat demanded everything—presence, honesty, and the courage to confront my deepest fears and limiting beliefs. It asked us to strip away the layers we’d carefully constructed, to reveal the raw truth of who we were. The group dynamics were unlike anything I had experienced—humbling, intense, and undeniably transformative. We we worked with groups and paired with people who in some casess triggered us, forcing us to confront discomfort, see our shadows, and uncover truths we’d buried deep within.
For someone like me, who sometimes struggles with even a simple hug, the exercises felt foreign. Eye-gazing as a form of various expressions of emotions, movement, touch—each practice pushed me further out of my comfort zone. But as the days unfolded, I began to see the opportunity in the discomfort. This was a chance to lean into my feminine energy, to nurture, to soften, and to be gentle with myself in ways I had never allowed before.
In one exercise, I was asked to identify who I felt most triggered and unsafe around. To my surprise, that person became the key to a breakthrough I didn’t know I needed. Later, I stood alone as the men in the group chose the women they felt safest with. It was a humbling moment. I realized that in my efforts to keep people at arm’s length, I had been pushing everyone away—unintentionally reinforcing a pattern of isolation I had carried for years.
I spent hours crying, asking myself, “What more can I do? Who do I need to be to feel loved and accepted?” In this vulnerability, I began to see myself more clearly. I realized how much I had been hiding—not just from others but from myself. I had been performing, playing roles, and denying my feelings, all to fit a narrative that no longer served me.
On the other side ….
Photo Credit: Alfredo Vasquez
The retreat marked the beginning of a profound shift. It taught me that to receive love, I had to first give it to myself. This meant accepting life as it is, not as I wished it to be. It meant letting go of idealized versions of people and relationships, embracing my own truth, and admitting what I truly wanted without shame or self-deception. It became clear how much I had been avoiding myself—afraid to feel, to open up, and to let others truly see me.
As the retreat progressed, the exercises grew more intense, the emotions more raw. One particular moment stands out in my memory. I was asked to release all my anger—everything that had been festering deep within my soul, buried in the dark recesses of my heart. And as I screamed from the depths of my being, something shifted inside me. I felt a pop, like a bullet being released from my chest, and I sat on the floor, breathless, confused, asking myself, What the hell just happened?
““But in the rawness of that moment, in the messiness of my vulnerability, I began to see myself with clarity. For the first time, I saw the ways I had contributed to my own heartache. I had been hiding, performing, playing roles for others, but never truly living for myself.””
This was the energy of Kali—the destroyer. And she wasn’t here to scare me. No, she was here to remove the masks, to strip away the layers of protection I had built around myself, to make me stop tolerating my own bullshit. She was here to help me break through, to get out of my own way, to stop hiding from what I had been avoiding for so long.
The retreat showed me that the love I had been seeking could only find me once I learned to give it to myself; but this was obvious; it was about FEELING and BEING it for myself - accepting myself, flaws and showing up fully in my truth.
KALI ACADEMY
IN THE REAL WORLD – Post 8 weeks from the TULUM retreat stepping into a new dimension of myself. I wanted to be seen, truly seen, without the masks or pretense. I started expressing myself more, leaning into the freedom of honesty. But with that openness came my insecurities. The old fears resurfaced—fear of being misunderstood, of being hurt. I found myself questioning whether I was ready for the kind of love I had always dreamed of.
“How do I stay open?” That question became my mantra. Staying open meant trusting the process, even when the path felt uncertain. It meant allowing myself to feel, to stumble, and to grow. I realized that healing is not linear—it’s messy, contradictory, and sometimes downright uncomfortable. But through it all, I learned to honor the process, to embrace vulnerability, and to trust that I am worthy of the love I seek.
Kali Academy was a catalyst to my journey in furthering my understanding of tantra. . It reminded me that true love begins with self-acceptance. It invited me to shed the layers of fear, to stop hiding, and to show up as my most authentic self. And while the retreat was a beginning, the real work lies in the practice—staying open, staying present, and continuing to love myself, even when it feels terrifying.
This journey showed me that in order to truly love, I first had to come back to myself. I had to sit with my own shit, question everything I had ever believed about love, and get honest about what I needed, what I desired. I had to set boundaries, speak my truth, and know when to walk away from situations that didn’t serve my highest good.
And here’s the thing: the real truth about love is this—sometimes, you have to let it go. You have to be willing to release it, to trust that what is meant for you will always come back. Because love, in its truest, most pure form, can never be forced. It’s only when we release, when we let go, that we make space for the love that is waiting to find us.
I know that I’m ready for the real thing—whatever that may look like. The question is no longer about what I can do to earn love, but how much I’m willing to open up to receive it. This is the real journey of self-love and acceptance, and it’s the one that will guide me to the love and connection I’ve always desired.
To understand the transformative power of the retreat, it’s important to understand what Kali Academy represents. Named after the Hindu goddess Kali, the academy is designed to invoke the energy of transformation, destruction of the old, and the fierce love required to awaken truth. Kali herself is often misunderstood—a deity associated with chaos and fear—but she represents a force of profound liberation. She tears down illusions, forcing us to face what we’ve avoided, and invites us to rebuild on a foundation of authenticity and courage.
Kali Academy embodies this essence, offering a space for individuals to confront the layers of conditioning, fear, and shame that often block us from authentic connection. The academy’s approach is rooted in the principles of Tantra—a term that, for many, carries heavy misconceptions.
In modern culture, Tantra is often reduced to something solely sexual, exoticized, and misrepresented. However, Tantra is far more than what mainstream culture portrays. At its core, Tantra is an ancient spiritual practice that originated in India, focusing on the integration of mind, body, and spirit. It teaches that all aspects of life—every emotion, sensation, and experience—can be a pathway to awakening and self-realization. Tantra invites practitioners to embrace their humanity in its fullness, rather than suppressing or denying parts of themselves.
The practice of Tantra is about presence, awareness, and energy. It offers tools to dissolve barriers to connection—whether with oneself or others—through practices like breathwork, movement, meditation, and intentional touch. While sexual energy is part of Tantra, it is not the focus; rather, it is a gateway to deeper intimacy with the self and the divine. In essence, Tantra challenges the dualistic thinking that separates body and spirit, sensuality and spirituality.
Kali Academy uses these Tantric principles in a modern, accessible way to help participants reconnect with themselves and others. The retreat was structured to create safe spaces for vulnerability, teaching us how to dismantle the walls we’ve built around our hearts. Through exercises like eye-gazing, partner work, and movement practices, we were invited to be fully present—not just physically, but emotionally and energetically.
One of the most profound aspects of the experience was learning to sit with discomfort. In a world that often encourages us to numb our feelings, Tantra reminds us that even the most uncomfortable emotions—fear, anger, sadness—are part of the human experience. Rather than avoiding them, Tantra teaches us to move through them with awareness, using breath and presence to transform pain into liberation.
But it’s not always an easy path. The taboo and misconceptions around Tantra often make it difficult for people to embrace the practice fully. In Western culture, Tantra has been commercialized and often misused, reduced to a focus on sexuality that strips away its depth and spiritual significance. This distortion feeds into shame and misunderstanding, making it harder for people to see Tantra as the sacred practice it truly is.
During the retreat, we talked about these misconceptions—the shame that surrounds our bodies, the fear of vulnerability, and the societal conditioning that keeps us disconnected from ourselves. For many of us, including myself, this shame had created a sense of disconnection that we didn’t even realize we carried. Through the practices we engaged in, we were able to reclaim parts of ourselves that had been hidden or suppressed for far too long.
What makes Tantra, and by extension Kali Academy, so powerful is its invitation to wholeness. It doesn’t ask you to be perfect, nor does it demand that you have all the answers. Instead, it asks you to show up as you are, with all your contradictions, fears, and longings. It teaches that healing is not about eliminating discomfort but about finding beauty and growth within it.
ISABELLE FROE
In a world obsessed with quick fixes and superficial connections, Tantra reminds us of the depth we can access when we slow down, breathe, and allow ourselves to be truly seen. It is not about indulgence or escapism—it is about radical honesty, about shedding the masks we wear and embracing the raw, unfiltered truth of who we are.
Kali Academy became a microcosm of this practice, showing us what is possible when we commit to the work of self-exploration. It wasn’t just about connecting with others—it was about rediscovering ourselves in that process and courage to love, to forgive, and to open our hearts in ways we never thought possible.
By the end of the retreat, I understood that the real gift of Tantra and Kali Academy was not just the tools it offered but the permission it gave us—to be messy, to be human, to be free.
This has left wanting more. Wanting to explore deeper depths of myself as I know this is only the beginning. The
Upcoming retreats and projects. The Kali Academy offers retreats and virtual integration group meet ups along with facilitator training for those who feel the call to share this powerful transformative gift.
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ABOUT Isabell Froe is an experienced international tantra facilitator. She learned from the source of the teachings in the Himalayan mountains in India has a Master’s Degree in Indian Studies, completed various Tantra Trainings, studied Yoga Therapy, Ayurveda Medicine and runs workshops & retreats all over the world. She is a teacher of Kaula and Shaktism and has studied under respected masters in this tradition.
“Isabell is an embodiement of a Dakini with the spirit of Kali and is deeply devoted to empowering the masculine on the path to their highest potential.” She combines her knowledge of tantra with highly intuitive channeling work to support those who long for truth, love, authenticity and freedom.
