The Caged Tiger: Trusting My Intuition to Expand My Life
In this deeply personal reflection, Marcela recounts her journey from a constrained adolescence shaped by religious expectations and constant uprooting to a life of self-discovery and liberation. Through powerful storytelling—including a vivid dream about a caged tiger—she explores themes of belonging, resilience, intuition, and the courage it takes to reclaim one’s path. This story is a testament to the transformative power of engaging and trusting your intuition and choosing expansion over confinement.
I was 14 years old when my mother found solace in faith. A single weekend retreat with Campus Crusade for Christ transformed her from a woman drowning in sorrow and anger to one immersed in a newfound faith. Our lives changed overnight. Prayer groups and church became our center, and our world shrank into a religious framework that, while comforting for her, increasingly became confining to me. Until then, daily religious practices were not part of our lives. Our family attended Catholic mass on special occasions, we attended Catholic schools because all of the bilingual private schools in Colombia at the time were Catholic, and I had my first communion at 11 years old like everyone else in my school, but we were not religious people.
At sixteen, I found myself uprooted and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Every decision from then on was dictated by my mother’s faith. I immersed myself in the church, playing the role of the devoted Christian—attending youth groups, leading church activities, and convincing myself that this was my path. During summer breaks, my siblings and I would fly back to Bogotá to visit our father. His lifestyle was one of freedom (albeit under supervision) and nothing like the religious rules I was expected to follow in Charlotte. Navigating these two worlds wasn’t always easy for me. In Bogotá, I defended my mother’s faith and rules; in Charlotte, I defended my father’s more relaxed way of caring for us.
Charlotte was a city I never truly embraced. Though beautiful in its Southern charm, I always felt like I was wearing someone else’s clothes—as if the city wasn’t made for me. We moved to Charlotte from Bogotá, Colombia in 1981, a decision my mother made for herself and her three children in search of peace. I wasn’t happy about the move. It pulled me away from the life I had built over the past five years at the all-girls Catholic school I had attended since fourth grade—from the group of friends I had grown close to, the boyfriend I enjoyed spending time with, and the cheerleading team I had started with the blessing of the school nuns. In the bedroom I shared with my sister, I had posters of John Travolta, Farrah Fawcett Majors, and my very own record player. I felt a deep sense of belonging. I was happy. My parents had finally separated, and I was beginning to carve out a new path for myself—one that no longer meant living in the middle of their strife.
The life I had created in Bogotá disappeared the moment when my mother sat my brother and me in our grandparent’s bedroom in their Charlotte townhouse and told us we were not going back to Bogotá from our summer vacation. Charlotte was the city my grandparents chose to move to from Miami for my grandfather’s job. Every summer, when school ended and I finished summer school so I could pass to the next grade—every year between fifth grade and ninth grade—I had to take summer school for geometry, algebra, or some kind of math class I couldn’t pass during the regular year, we would travel to wherever my grandparents were to spend the entire summer with them. In 1981, it happened to be Charlotte, North Carolina.
We stayed. This would be our new home. I had only brought my summer vacation clothes, nothing else. The moment my mother told us we were not going back to Bogotá, a mix of emotions welled up inside me. Anger, sadness, a sense of loss, confusion, courage, death. My father didn’t know we were staying. I had not said goodbye to my friends, my boyfriend, my father’s family, or my bedroom. Everything a 16 year old holds important was gone in one short conversation. This was not the only time this would happen in my life. In 1992, my then husband made a decision that changed the trajectory of my life by having me stay with my son in a different city than the one I was living in—without any of my belongings.
By August 1981 my new life had begun. I was now in a coed public school of about 2,500 students and I knew no one. Although I spoke English, I could not understand the slang, the southern accent, and most of all, the culture. I vividly remember one of my first days in the high school cafeteria. The massive room was filled with students—many of the girls appeared to be blonde, blue-eyed, and looked like Farrah Fawcett Majors to me. I, with my brown hair, olive skin, no makeup (forbidden in my former Catholic school), and braces, felt like I didn’t belong. I tried to sit with a group of African American girls, only to be told, “You can’t sit with us. You’re not Black!” Confused, I threw my food away and for weeks sat outside alone, subsisting on Snickers, Three Musketeers, and peanut M&Ms.
My world was getting smaller.
Eventually, solace came in the form of two girls from Venezuela who had just moved to Charlotte and an exchange student from Mexico named Mónica. The four of us Latinas stuck together, navigating the overwhelming world of American high school as best we could. During my siblings’ and my first visit to Bogotá after a year in our new home, I went to my best friend’s house and asked her to move with me to Charlotte so I wouldn’t feel alone. She told me to ask her father, she was willing to pack her bags and come to East Meck High School with me.
“Please let her come with me to Charlotte.” To my surprise, her father—who had always been kind and sweet to me—agreed on the condition that her sister come along as well. Her sister, who had already graduated from our old school in Bogotá, simply said, “Sure, I’ll go.” That year, having my best friend and her sister by my side transformed my world, even though they only stayed for a year before returning to Colombia. It remains one of my happiest memories.
By my senior year, after attending public high school for both the 10th and 11th grades, I began to think that perhaps I could finally build a sense of belonging. I was looking forward to experiencing what it would be like to graduate from a big coed public high school. I was vice president of the Spanish club, I was in the creative dancing group, and even joined a Greek life club. I had a group of friends I could call my own.
Then, my mother decided to pull all three of us—my siblings and me—out of public school. I believe her decision was rooted in her desire to guide us within an even deeper Christian lifestyle. She enrolled us in a small, newly opened Christian school run by the church we attended. The school housed students from kindergarten through 12th grade, all learning together in one room. I doubt there were more than 40 or 50 students in total. Using the PACE (Packet of Accelerated Christian Education) system, each student worked independently in their own cubicle, and we even graded our own work in a separate room. In the senior class, there were only three of us.
My world was getting smaller.
To put this transition into perspective, by the time I graduated from high school I had attended 11 different schools—from several schools between kindergarten and my first time doing fourth grade (I did fourth grade three times, a story for another chapter), to my beloved all-girls Catholic school in Bogotá, where I had found my tribe and a sense of home, to a co-ed public school in Charlotte with nearly 2,500 students and a culture so foreign to me, to graduating in a class of three. My world kept getting smaller.
Immediately after graduation, I knew I didn’t want to stay in Charlotte. That summer, while visiting my father in Bogotá, I asked him if I could stay and live with him. He simply said, “Of course, honey.”
While in Bogotá, my life took another unexpected turn.
In my mid-40s, I had a dream that would encapsulate how I sometimes felt in my youth. In this dream, I stepped into my backyard and saw a cage. Inside it, a massive tiger paced back and forth. The cage was just big enough for the tiger to turn around, yet it was trapped. The backyard was overgrown, wild, and unkempt. As I approached, the tiger met my eyes—not with rage or aggression, but with deep sadness. I felt no fear, only an overwhelming need to set it free. Without hesitation, I walked slowly towards the cage, and I opened it. The tiger didn’t lunge or roar; it stepped out slowly, deliberately. It walked away with calculated steps, pausing just before it reached the edge of the backyard. It turned to look at me, then turned back and started running into the open field beyond. When I woke, I knew I had freed a part of my soul. The cage had represented the confines of my world—one that had become smaller and smaller, shaped by fear, obligation, and the expectations of others. The tiger was my spirit, yearning to roam, to explore, and to exist on its own terms. I did not yet know the path forward, but I knew one thing with certainty: I had to trust and engage my intuition. I was seeking ways to both simplify and amplify my life.
Fast forward to 2022, I began to feel that my world was getting smaller again, and this time I had control of my decisions. I had been living in New York City for almost 18 months when I decided to put all my belongings in storage, pack a couple of suitcases, and embrace a digital nomad life. My plan was to travel for four months, visit family and friends—the people you always say you’ll visit but never do because life gets in the way. So, I did it. I planned trips across the U.S. When the four months came to an end, I found myself wanting more. I could not bring myself to look for an apartment and stay in one location.
What was meant to be four months turned into twenty. During that time, I traveled solo 99% of the time, visiting 70 cities across 12 countries. I never planned too far ahead—just three or four weeks at a time—always asking myself: Where have I not been? Where do I want to go back to? Those 20 months were the greatest gift I have ever given myself. I got to know myself more deeply. I learned to like myself more. I absorbed my own thoughts, uninterrupted. My childhood fears and experiences had, in their own way, taught me the importance of taking care of myself. Some might call it selfishness as I grew older, and for a time I believed I was selfish. But I eventually learned that being selfish means putting your well-being first. It doesn’t mean you lack compassion; it means you understand that you must take care of yourself in order to care for others. Perhaps the fear of not having solid ground to stand on in my childhood and my youth drove me to seek solitude, giving me the resilience I would need later in life. Resilience, I came to realize, doesn’t come without a touch of being self-ish.
My experiences are not unique. I do not claim that my life has been worse or better than anyone else’s. What I have done with those experiences can be divided into two parts. For the first 48 years of my life, I had internalized the belief that there was something deeply wrong with me. The next 12 years became a transition period—a fork in the road—where I could choose to remain trapped in old beliefs or challenge them and see if they were truly mine. I chose the latter. Today, at 60 years old, I am just finding a voice I never knew I had—a voice that has the strength to support who I am now and how I want to continue to grow and evolve.
In my ongoing journey to become the woman of my dreams, I have learned that every twist, every painful memory, and every joyous moment is a stepping stone. The freedom I experienced that day when I freed the tiger in my dream was the first step toward embarking on the journey of creating my own beliefs—an act of defiance against beliefs I adopted that sought to confine me. My desire to expand my world and live on my own terms manifested in a tangible way in August of 2022 when I became a digital nomad at the age of 57.
Have you ever felt your world shrinking without your consent?
What cages—visible or invisible—have you learned to live inside of?
What would it mean to trust your intuition fully, to open the door, and let your own inner tiger run free?