Shashana G. has always wanted to save the world. Simply put, her journey is profound and humbling in the rawest of ways. Her spirit speaks to an innate and unstoppable drive, one which has pushed her from youth to forge her own path in life—between temporary homes, jobs, and friends—or without them altogether. She possesses a kind of bravery and dedication to her life perspective that either makes or breaks a person. There is no in-between. Shashana recounts her journey with astonishing clarity and holds herself with a gentle ferociousness that makes her story almost feel unreal. But it is.
Shashana’s early years were marked by upheaval. When she was four and her parents got divorced, her childhood became a patchwork of homes and cities. Salt Lake City—splitting time between mother and father, then to San Diego with just her dad and six siblings. By age seven, she saw her mother twice a year, and this distance only grew when she left for boarding school in Massachusetts at 14. Grounded much of the time and often struggling to see eye-to-eye with her father, she made the decision herself: she wanted to get away.
Despite growing up with privilege, Shashana carries a deep sense of resentment and survivor’s guilt from being born into wealth. A transformative women’s history class opened her eyes to gender dynamics, the patriarchy, and a male dominated society—along with how distorted her view of her mother was, “It took me three days of questioning to really get it,” she recalls, “to understand how I’d been brainwashed by my dad, who had demonized my mom. I realized, wow…my mom’s been undervalued, and so have I.”
High school proved challenging academically and socially. She performed well early on but lost motivation when teachers failed to inspire her. At 18, three months shy of graduation, she left school with a backpack full of books and a bold goal: to walk across the United States. Along the way, she experimented with some drugs for the first time—weed, acid, shrooms—and entered a turbulent relationship with an older man (her boss) while working in construction. That relationship turned abusive, and Shashana returned to San Diego, determined to reclaim her independence.
A spontaneous decision with a high school friend set her on a path of hitchhiking up the West Coast. The pair travelled together to Oregon, and from there, Shashana made her way to Northern Washington. She traveled alone, never staying more than three days in one town.
Along the way, she dabbled in drugs here and there, initially out of loneliness and survival, yet continued to explore life with only cannabis as her consistent companion, “When you’re alone for so long, around all these strangers…it does something to you,” she reflects on an interaction hitchhiking with some unusual truck-driving characters named Jimmy Morrison, Merlin, and a dog called Marl Jean—who introduced her to crank (the men, not the dog). “You can kind of vibe it out and be alright, but then you always get into some dicey situations from time to time as a woman, especially when you’re by yourself.”
Shashana remembers her drive to explore vividly: “…seeing the world. I felt like it was the only thing I could do. It was the only thing I felt good doing and the only thing I was capable of doing. I felt a need to see the world and to understand things from a perspective that I couldn’t get from others or from books.”
At 19, she found temporary refuge at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, working in the kitchen and learning about Buddhism. Cooking for hundreds of people each day taught her discipline, creativity, and the value of routine amidst chaos. “It was the best job I’ve ever had, but also the worst job I’ve ever had. It was like hell—the people in the kitchen, the stress, the management. But the job was to cook for hundreds of people every day. And I loved that. It was a lot of creativity.” It was a period of sobriety and personal growth, though a romantic relationship with a coworker brought to light challenges of working in a stressful environment with a partner.
After her relationship ended, Shashana moved to Fort Collins, then Jackson Hole, Wyoming, before family matters pulled her elsewhere. Miscommunication about her brother Max’s whereabouts prior to working security at the Oregon Eclipse Festival prompted her to seek him out. She cared for him through struggles with mental health and schizophrenia, driving up the West Coast, picking him up from her mother’s home, and heading to San Francisco. A friend in the Bay, Reed, got Max out of the car on Haight Street—a rare moment of connection.“There were all these buckets. My brother’s a really good drummer. Reed got him to play out there for a little bit, and I just thought that was really special. He got him out of his comfort zone.”
Shashana worked to find them both employment, but despite her efforts, Max relapsed, forming troubling new friendships and losing his job. “I was overwhelmed with worry about him. He was hanging out with some people that were, and I don’t mean to judge, but they were the most demented looking people I’ve ever seen.” When legal guardianship shifted to her sister, Shashana carried both guilt and a renewed understanding of responsibility—the realization of her limits and what she could control. Her brother would later end up in rehab for almost four years.
In her twenties, she was back at it—a whirlwind of travel, experimentation, and challenging relationships. Traversing the East Coast—Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, and Rhode Island—she explored towns and cities while volatile relationships mirrored past patterns, and she dealt with physical abuse and, in turn, physical retaliation. This only worsened the toxic dynamics.
Reflecting on one relationship from age 22 to 24, Shashana explains, “I copied his toxic behaviors and escalated them in my own ways as well, just becoming attached from then on out. He would hit me on the back of the head so no bruises could be seen. We beat each other to death in pretty much every state. I beat him to a bloody pulp and left him on the side of the road for dead at one point. Not quite for dead, but a couple miles away from a haven. He was barefoot and it was freezing.”
This complicated relationship ended in her second arrest for domestic abuse. The first was due to slapping a cross-state stalker ex-boyfriend. At the whim of her partner, police pepper-sprayed her. “I was like, ‘You guys need to take me to the hospital. You are arresting me. Take me to a hospital. I am not mentally well right now. I was just in a physical fight with my ex. You should have arrested him.’”
Even in the darkest times, Shashana found small anchors, like her mother’s dog Matylda: “She was a lively, little scraggly pup dude. 15 pounds, big black eyes, and white with some brown spots. A long-haired miniature dachshund mixed with a terrier. She was always there for me.” Matylda was one of Shashana’s closest friends through her travels, someone who always showed up for her through the challenging times.
After her second arrest, Shashana left alone again for Vermont, where she discovered solitude and sanctuary at her brother’s home, getting some moments of melancholic peace. “I stayed there for three months. I built shelves and a bed in my new van while I was there.” Her journey continued after solitude in the woods, next—a Rainbow Gathering in Pennsylvania, where she picked up a friend struggling with alcoholism. They traveled to Oregon, until tragedy struck in a collision with a deer at 70mph, totaling her van, thankfully without injury to her friend or their pets. A second close call came next in New Mexico —she narrowly survived a horse charging her in the dark, “I couldn’t see anything. I just heard the hooves coming at me. It stopped right before it hit me, right in front of my face, and it was breathing on me.” Perhaps this was life’s way of foreshadowing what was still yet to come. And the majestic and mystical qualities of such danger. Despite the intensity of some of her experiences, Shashana had yet to fall into active drug addiction and was managing to ride the wave of her volatile and raw freedoms while staying out of serious trouble. For now.
Next came Northern Colorado, bringing moments of deep connection as she lived on Native American land, sleeping on a riverbed, cooking over a fire, experiencing sweat lodges, and native community life for four months. Eventually, she returned to Northern California and Oregon, where hardships intensified: losing her car, struggling on the streets, and falling into a daily meth habit influenced by a boyfriend living on a boat.
Legal troubles mounted, and police brutality added to the weight. “I ended up in trouble—jail for three or four months, then six or seven months, arrested about 20 times, mostly for being homeless, being on the streets, or minor vandalism incidents. One time, a police officer broke my arm on the hood of his car for no reason. I felt alone, ashamed, stigmatized. A product of being isolated, starving, and unsafe.”
The challenges of homelessness were profound. “Being on the streets, I was exhausted. I couldn’t rest. Every place I laid down—lawn chairs, cement, anywhere—I felt anxious, unsafe, alone.” Over time, her life became a cycle of temporary shelter, theft, arrest, institution, and isolation. Shashana laments on the solitude she experienced, “I spent a lot of time alone—the meth just changed the way I pursued reality. I’d act in ways I wouldn’t normally, take risks, get into trouble, and feel different but not completely unlike myself.” Things got more and more challenging for Shashana to survive following the end of the relationship that brought her into addictive addiction, she was now alone on the streets with Matylda.
Nights often required sleeping in terrifying, secluded places—she would often get robbed, even of her time. “I fell asleep under a bridge once, because it was raining. I woke up 10 days later under the same bridge. I had a needle mark in my arm. These experiences were terrifying and disorienting, but I survived.” Soon after a second experience of losing over a week of time with no recollection of what had happened, Shashana knew it was time to get out of Oregon. That much was clear enough. She was in murky waters, but was not going to give up so easily. Next came Los Angeles, where she found refuge on another one of her brother’s couches, until the streets called her back.
After a year and a half homeless and in and out of relationships in Los Angeles, her breaking point arrived. For the first time, Shashana willingly sought treatment, finding support and stability with her father’s support after a final hurrah that ended in arrest at a Petco. One month in detox brought clarity. Shahana chose Beit T’Shuvah to follow for rehabilitation. “This place has given me stability, routine, and community. Seeing familiar faces, giving hugs—it’s huge. The less I go to meetings, the more I edge toward using or getting into trouble. Every time I attend, it keeps me grounded.” She works in the kitchen and brings an exceptionally positive light to any room she is in. She writes poetry, reads, spends time in the garden, and is positive about her future.
Reflecting on her past, Shashana embraces both struggle and growth. “It’s been revelatory to realize I cherish relationships with my family, even though I isolated myself for years.”
Today, she carries a sense of integration and speaks with a natural poetic rhythm, “There’s a privilege in knowing the genetics you come from…bits and pieces from lives before us, influences, even the music we listen to become part of us.”
Shashana’s story is one of resilience, self-discovery, and the pursuit of stability after a life marked by adventure and chaos. Yin and Yang. Through Beit T’Shuvah, she is learning not just to survive, but to thrive with solid ground underneath her, discovering a new kind of community, purpose, and hope each day.
To have endured so much and to hold it with the grounded and carefree grace that she does is a testament to her ethos. Shashana is an altruistic warrior, fighting battles that will never be recognized, yet persisting nonetheless. Her kindness is far from weakness. If you spend time with her, she will leave you questioning who you are, what you stand for, and the meaning of life itself.
“I don’t have to run anymore,” she says. “I get to be here.” And, Shashana, this is where you’re meant to be. Welcome home.