Circles — Part 2
an essay continued…
I’m just going to go ahead and say it: I (essentially) was in a cult/a cult leader.
Ok, it’s not as scary as it sounds and no one was sacrificed at the altar but, I was definitely brainwashed, living in a cult-like world, borderline a leader of my own cult for a little over a half a decade, and I didn’t even realize it. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that I was living in and perpetuating a “cult” mentality.
Now, I could just call it all a ‘bad trip’ and keep moving forward as if this didn’t happen but that’s just not me. As an adult who’s childhood included serious traumas, I am hyper sensitive, overly analytical, and can easily become fixated on issues so naturally, I have to fully understand what happened to me/what I did to people I love before I can have real closure on this chapter of my life.
In part one of this essay, I describe the seemingly trivial interpersonal relationships of “mean girls” and how those moments intertwined themselves into the most vulnerable moments of my adolescence. The reason I started this essay there is because I believe that the ways in which society socializes — or depending on how you look at it — grooms young girls and women to treat one another is not separate from the way we are treated by society at large and therefore, how we treat ourselves.
The emphasis on my looks, beauty, sexuality, and ability to attract a male suitor was ingrained in my upbringing from a very young age — both inside and outside of my home. This overwhelming focus on a certain kind of femininity was and still is very dangerous for all people and particularly so for people from marginalized communities.
It starts in childhood and it permeates through our society and it’s also known as the patriarchy.
Or, heteronormativity. This is not a stand alone phenomenon and it is deeply rooted in white supremacy — a system that benefits from exploiting women, especially women of color, while denying the existence of LGBTQIA+ people in order to uphold a false binary that has not only been disproven by chromosomal science but also known to be tremendously damaging to the health of our society on a macro and micro level.
The reality is that sexuality is a spectrum, proper sexual education is essential, and gender identity is a construct. This does not mean femininity or masculinity are wrong in and of themselves; it just means that how a person choses to perform or display the characteristics of either or both is not defined by their sex. People are much more complex than our sexual organs and those exist on a spectrum too. All of this is completely normal and if taught to children without bias, censorship, or unnecessary taboo, could eradicate so much of the bigotry faced by non-gender conforming people today.
Unfortunately, bigotry is “as American as apple pie,” as a good friend of mine put it and in order to address it properly it has to happen not just on a legislative level, but on a personal one. We have to look at all the ways in which we contribute to this binary system and be brutally honest with ourselves as we do.
So here we go: my brutally honest story… but again — seriously, if you have’t already go read the first part before you go any further.
HEY! I mean it… did you really do it? Only you will know and all I can say is, I hope you know lying to yourself counts as lying, too.
OKAY, now that we’re all caught up, let’s start with the place where my indoctrination into the obvious cult began.
But first, let me remind everyone reading that I have a chronic disease that went not only untreated but UNDIAGNOSED for 15 years due to the inadequate and (IMO) xenophobic standard of care in this country. My symptoms were ignored and therefore allowed to progress to the detriment of my mental and physical health, which eventually led to an eating disorder in my teens, and a growing struggle with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation to this day.
This was all in motion before my 18th birthday. By the time I was an adult, I was primed and ready to be brainwashed by anyone offering me a miracle cure… because I was that desperate. This led me to spend over a decade working and contributing to a field known as the “wellness industry.”
…or what I like to call classic “snake oil” sales. This world exists to prey on people with medical, sexual, birth, generational, and/or marital trauma (amongst other traumas) because our healthcare system and economy is not built to protect us. In fact, it’s built to exploit us.
This starts to become abundantly clear when you begin to understand “economies of care” and simply take note of the ways in which primarily women uphold the backbone of society (i.e. educators, school teachers, nurses, caretakers, childcare providers, house cleaners, seamstresses, servers, sex workers, pilates instructors, YOGA TEACHERS) …all jobs held by mostly women and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. Baring some formal (and expensive) University education, these are seriously underpaid and too often unpaid positions because once again — we were never meant to be protected, we were meant to be used for the benefits of the patriarchy.
You see, just because we’re not property anymore/can own our own property does not mean that we are inherently valued in the same way that men are and the situation is much worse for non-binary and trans folks because these systems actually (in too many instances) refuse to acknowledge and actively legislate against their existence.
These cracks in the foundation of our society cause people living with chronic illnesses to easily fall through and end up in horrible circumstances by no fault of their own.
Sadly, in our hyper capitalist world, this too has been exploited by many industries but particularly, the “wellness industry,” which (again, IMO) largely exists as a dark mirror to our broken healthcare system and overwhelming reliance on the undervalued and underpaid people, mostly women, who end up (often unknowingly) feeding it.
Full disclosure: I was one of those women and the following explanation is no excuse…
By the time I was 26 (the age I had to get my own healthcare plan) I was an insurance pariah. My bills were astronomical, my morale was totally shot, and I had also self-diagnosed myself with Endometriosis — which immediately made me “crazy,” according to most doctors.
But I wasn’t crazy… I was right.
I also felt extremely isolated. In the process of trying to “be well” I lost precious time, job opportunities, and authentic connections with family, friends, and potential professional colleagues who (similarly to the doctors) deemed me crazy because there was absolutely nothing else I could be when I’m in an out a painful cycle no one else but me can see or feel… right?
Wrong. So wrong. I am far from crazy but I am angry and I’m okay with that.
Anger is a natural reaction to violated boundaries and violation is the most proper word to describe the feeling I repeatedly felt every time an OB/GYN poked, prodded, and patronized my desire to simply be well.
To top it all off, some of these docs (mostly men) spent the short 15 minutes we had together commenting on my pubic hair, focusing on how this disease must be “horrible for my partner,” and offering an unwarranted emphasis on preserving my fertility rather than discussing options for pain relief, or simply and coldly stating my only option is a hysterectomy if I cannot tolerate hormones that legit make me want to die.
This part led me to develop a dangerous disassociation with my own body which translated into me “freezing” in several unwanted sexual advances that turned into assaults. And then, (as too many of us end up doing) I blamed myself.
In the yoga / “wellness” world — this would be deemed is a “root chakra” trauma. I completely lacked a sense of sense of safety in my own body and responded to any perceivable danger by either freezing, fighting, or taking flight.
So, when similar violations happened in my social circle or “workplace” — I did not know how to react. I shut down. I quit. I gave up. I walked away. I felt completely defeated.
(Side note: for anyone still questioning/seeking proof to validate the part about how women are valued less than men — look no further than the simple fact that no one is going around chopping scrotums due to chronic pain. Nope, we’ve got drugs for that and no one is blaming men’s achey balls. Don’t believe me? Go on… Google it.)
Okay, that was a long “reminder” but it needed to be prefaced before I go back to the whole cult thing… the person who introduced me to to this world is my best friend and no, not the one from my pre-teens.
We met in college and she immediately inspired me with her sunshine-like personality. She’s creative, nurturing, wild, and completely uninterested in what the “mean girls” thought — yet she was accepted by them. She could fit the mold if she wanted to but she refused to conform to it and that inspired me. She’s a year older than me and I looked up to her. I still do.
She also has endometriosis.
Not surprisingly, she also grew up in similar social circles and her childhood looked a lot like mine from the outside with a whole different story on the inside… but that’s her story to tell, not mine.
My story is: Someone that we both wrongfully trusted violated, exploited, and manipulated our good will, chronic pain, and distrust in both the patriarchy and the institutions derived from it (such as “western” medicine) to his benefit. He was the one who did the real “indoctrination” and it was happening to her while it was happening to me and many of our friends, unknowingly of course, because that’s how cult mentalities work. And he wasn’t the only one; he was just the first in a long line of men I encountered over the course of my “career” who took advantage of the weakest aspects of what it means to be a woman (especially a queer, trans, or woman of color) in today’s falsely equitable society.
Needless to say, we both bought it and naively became yoga teachers and even started a business in this “field” together that eventually turned into an absolute shit show when my boyfriend at the time (featured in part one) and three of our other closest friends got involved.
Within months, the trained patterns of the patriarchy reared their ugly heads and in less than a year — we were at each others throats with me and the boyfriend holding the upper hand. He, because he was a man with expertise and me, because I was his girlfriend which also made me an easy target.
There’s more to it but the point of this essay is to discuss the social dynamics at play and how they are not unique.
In sociology, the way we women turned against one another, deferred to the man in the group, and blamed the victim of a variety of different violations (across the board) was nothing short of pick me feminism meets the cycles of abuse. Quickly, it was just me and him. And then even more quickly, it was just me.
Without getting into all the details of “what happened,” the moral of this story is a warning as old as time… don’t ever go into business with your friends or romantic partner. Not because it’s a bad idea but because we still live in a deeply unequal and misguided world that does not allow for collaborative and egalitarian efforts to easily or naturally thrive. Especially when we are young, naive, and completely unequipped to take care of ourselves, let alone a business.
Bottom line, in order for the company to “succeed” by traditional business standards we had to make traditional business decisions, which included hierarchical structures that did not take into account what would happen to our relationships and eventually, our health.
Again, I’ll speak only for myself but it wasn’t long before I was fully submerged in the waters of New Age spirituality. Before I knew it, I was cascading like a waterfall into a bottomless pit of “wellness” scams, pyramid schemes, and borderline conspiratorial communities that were (and still are) spreading complete misinformation in regards to cures for a variety of mental and physical illnesses.
I already had one foot in the door when I attended my first Yoga Teacher Training in 2012 but by the time I was running our business nearly entirely on my own in 2016, I had completely fallen down the rabbit hole that I might as well have renamed myself “Alice” and it would have made sense.
Meanwhile, I was still very ill and hiding it (from myself and everyone else) because it would be proof that all the scams were not working.
To anyone with endometriosis reading this right now: NO amount of yoga, meditations, affirmations, acupuncture, herbs, crystals, you name it will cure you. There is no cure and every time you have your period your organs are fusing further and further together. Endo is a progressive disease that only gets worse with time and an excision surgery (by a skilled surgeon) is the only available treatment but it is NOT a cure. I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying this because you deserve to be told the truth and the opportunity to be well. If anyone has convinced you otherwise, I am so sorry. You deserve better there, too.
The fallacies in the “wellness” community became abundantly clear with the onset of the pandemic but I would be lying if I said I thought I was ever a part of it… At least, at first.
When the conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine campaigns began to circulate throughout our community, I vehemently opposed them and “set myself apart” from anyone touting them — while running a business based in the very same cesspool that spawned those theories in the first place. The hypocrisy was real.
I was so far down the rabbit hole that I didn’t even realize that the threat was coming from within and my only hope was to work my way out with grit and might… not love and light.
For nearly a decade, I had been clinging to (and selling) crystals as one of my main sources of “relief” when really it was just another well practiced expression of my ability to disassociate from my own body. Only now do I realize and understand that this is a typical defense mechanism for the nervous system and in the absence of any other tangible treatment or acknowledgment for my disease — it worked for me.
But, that does not mean that it worked and it definitely means that the entire premise of this “healing” was held up by the power of placebo which — it is worth noting — is not powerless. But, it’s also not free. It’s actually really fucking expensive and therefore, a privilege.
In order to be able to suspend your reality enough to believe that a rock (or okay… a crystal) is healing you on any level you have to have 1) enough disposable time and 2) enough disposable income to risk the chance that is doesn’t work and you’ll have to rely on an expensive medical procedure to fix what the placebo only delayed.
This is a double edged privilege that handedly walks chronically ill people right through the door of exploitative circumstances and situations only to have them repeat the pattern.
How? It’s simple and it goes like this:
“You have a beautiful practice, have you considered becoming a yoga teacher?
There’s a free info session this weekend.
You would make a fantastic teacher.”
…Sound familiar? If you’re a yoga teacher, I know it does because I’m 100% sure you’ve also been asked to say something like this at the end of every class you teach. This is the pattern and it’s entirely too easy to nonchalantly engage in that you might not even notice that it’s happening. That’s what makes it what it is — grooming.
Why does it happen? Because our health care system is not designed to support people’s overall well being and often misses the mark on meeting patients' needs. It’s designed to wait until you’re sick enough to be believed and by then it is usually very expensive and sometimes too late. I know because I’ve been there and was lucky enough to make it out alive but not before I wasted an obscene amount of money and nearly lost my mind. And to be frank, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I likely would have lost it completely and continued to damage myself, my wallet, my family, and my community… all while “meaning well.”
And this is really the best case scenario. Worst case, I could have died. Every month was a dangerous dance with the darkness. Too often it became life threatening and made me afraid of myself. I’m still afraid to be alone when I’m on my period.
Turns out this fear was not unfounded. My second excision surgery included an appendectomy and when my doctor told me the state of my organs it dawned on me that if my appendix had ruptured during any of my horrific periods, I would have absolutely stayed home and died because I stopped trusting the ER a long time ago.
Remember, it’s been 17 years at this point.
Put together, my background, medical history, socialized conformity to traditional gender roles, and “pick me” mentality made me an unwitting contributor to countless occurrences of exclusive, white-washed, and ableist environments that rewarded a very specific (and unrealistic) body type while relying on the denial of invisible illnesses like mine, in the name of “wellness.”
Alternatively to the Medical Industrial Complex, “wellness” became a trend (or it’s own complex) by spotting the cracks in the system and capitalizing on them, mostly by offering people non-invasive and preventative care options that should be free, easy to access, and repeat. Instead, this unregulated industry traps well meaning individuals in far from healing circumstances by gatekeeping, perverting, and co-opting language, texts, and healing practices from historically oppressed cultures.
This only further feeds the false narrative that we live in a post-racial, equitable world and essentially weaponizes whiteness when all the “peaceful” moms in yoga pants refuse to get themselves or their kids vaccinated while too many people in the Indigenous, Latin, Balkan, Asian, Indian, African, and Middle Eastern countries they steal from beg for vaccines.
Sage is a plant sacred to Native Americans and has historically been banned as a tool of colonial oppression.
Palo Santo is an indigenous tree burned by Latin cultures for spiritual purification.
Paganism began in the Balkans and many of these rituals are still practiced throughout Eastern Orthodox cultures today.
Acupuncture is a Chinese traditional medicine.
Reiki is a Japanese healing practice.
Yoga is foundational to Hinduism and is so much more than a series of poses, it’s a way of life.
Magic and mysticism is deeply rooted in African history.
Islam is a peaceful system built on reverence for all God’s religions.
But this history, at least to my knowledge, is not taught by a single “training” program I’ve ever seen, researched, or or heard of. This is wildly problematic, now with globally devastating consequences thanks to a deadly virus and the capitalistic narcissism that allows people to deny it while profiting from it.
In truth, I always had a feeling something was rotten or simply “not right” with what I was engaged in but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I often had feelings of “imposter syndrome” and questioned my role as a business owner, teacher, and especially a “healer.” I’ve never been fond of that word but that’s what the people around me started to call me. And to a point, I was also primed for this. Cultural rituals, ceremonies, and traditions were a huge part of my family life growing up as a first generation Bulgarian American. I was baptized in the Eastern Orthodox church and still celebrate Christmas and Easter “our” way. However, I was forced to erase much about my culture of origin in order to fit in socially early on in my childhood. I believe this is another part of what attracted me to New Age spirituality and simultaneously caused me to struggle to put words to the feelings I experienced in these communities that commodified and appropriated Eastern cultures.
Ironically, for a world so anti “Western” medicine, this kind of commodification and appropriation is a highly prevalent Western practice that rarely leaves anything worthwhile or authentic in its wake.
I’m not sharing any of this to exonerate myself from participating in these concentric circles of power and perpetual exploitation. I know I am guilty and I am working daily to dismantle the implicit prejudices engrained within me as I seek to rebuild my health, spiritual practice, and career in a way that is genuinely authentic to me.
I’m primarily sharing this to offer context as to how white supremacy is a pervasive ideology that harms everyone and leads to so many prejudices, including but not limited to ableism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, amongst a sea of racism and xenophobia.
Make no mistake, the “wellness” industry as a whole is guilty of everything I’ve described primarily for the same reasons a certain type of people end up there — it requires and is designed to be upheld by people who have the privilege of “self care.”
This is something 90% of Americans simply do not have but absolutely deserve and I would argue, have the right to have as a human being with a nervous system… just like every other species that lives on this planet. Notice, none of them are working to live?
The notion that someone can or should work themselves to death is more prevalent amongst our society than the words enshrined in our constitution, granting every man the right to the pursuit of happiness.
But, ask yourself:
Is this happiness?
And what about women?
What about trans and non-binary folks?
Do we have the same rights to pursue our own happiness?
What if our definition of happiness does not equate to a job with little to no upward mobility, that’s tied to our healthcare plans so we don’t quit or doesn’t offer healthcare at all, undervalues, underpays, and effectively boxes us out of many of the “liberties” that we are meant to be “entitled” to as Americans?
You see… this is where the systemic issues start and where the puritanical, protestant, and “patriotic” hegemony of white supremacy and heteronormativity begins… and never ends. It literally never ends. It’s in every system because as I already said… it’s baked into the pie that is America.
And that pie, despite all the systemic efforts, is becoming more and more colorful and culturally mixed than is palatable to the minority (mostly white) rule that has effectively worked its claws into our healthcare, judicial, and information (media) systems.
The best analogy I can think of is that the pie is non-conforming from within but the crust is still keeping us all trapped in.
This is also not exclusive to the United States. Policies driven by the US like the Global Gag Rule have worldwide consequences for people’s human rights, particularly when it comes to abortion and contraceptive care which has dire economic and environmental consequences for working, rural, poor or marginalized communities.
This is not unlike the way the yoga, meditation, and New Age spirituality world that encompasses much of the “wellness” industry harms Black, Indigenous, and people of color globally. Aside from the emotional and economic harm of commodifying and appropriating Eastern practices and culture, the sources from which crystals, sage, Palo Santo, yoga mats/props, and “spiritual” decor that likely adorns the spaces many people in this world move through most often come from exploitative systems themselves.
The argument that globalization, mines, and massive factories bring jobs only makes sense when those jobs pay people livable wages and 9 times out of 10, they don’t. And sometimes, this stuff is totally reliant on the labor of enslaved people but you wouldn’t even know it because it changed 15 handlers before the product got to you. This once again, disproportionately negatively impacts BIPOC while enriching a handful of (usually) white “entrepreneurs” who have essentially bought themselves that title… like I did.
If it isn’t already abundantly clear: most industries rely on exploiting and underpaying people and yoga studios are no different.
Let me put it this way, yoga teachers are to studio owners as factory workers are to the factory owner — a means to an end and in the absence of a healthy and competent HR team/worker’s union, the odds that the owner will exploit the worker are favorable if not inevitable.
No longer is this something that was prophesied in writings such as The Proletariat as much as it is a lived phenomenon by the modern day “working class.”
Yoga teachers, like hairdressers, massage therapists, and nail technicians (another field dominated by women), are a part of the service industry and are not included in minimum wage laws, protections, and disability regulations. This means most people are “at will” employees and their work can be terminated at any time, for any reason and they are not entitled to paid sick leave, maternity leave, or any other medical leave or healthcare; again, for any reason.
The thing that sets yoga studios apart and places them in another circle within the vin diagram of New Age cults is the revolving door of enablers that are groomed to keep the money pouring in.
Bottom line: studios do not make enough money off of public classes alone. If they did, you would be paying $100/class (at least) just to cover the overhead of a brick and mortar business. Obviously this cost is prohibitive to any viable business so in order to keep the class rates down and their doors open, they sell trainings, certifications, and workshops to God knows what while lying to you that if you keep studying and gaining more “experience” hours you will eventually be successful running your own business. Many go so far as to tell you to quit your job, stop taking certain medications, or just generally function as pipelines into a short lived employment within the studio — like a yoga teacher mill. This is all classic to any pyramid scheme but this one is extra sinister because it relies on building false sense of community, shunning medical institutions, and embracing revisions of sacred philosophies that were literally used to oppress an entire people — such as the Yoga Sutras during early colonialism in India.
This could be a whole other essay but I am not an expert on this history so if you want to know more, I recommend following Susanna Barkataki and reading her work.
Ultimately, what’s most noteworthy is the systemic nature of grooming and enabling that goes on sometimes for “business” reasons and sometimes to conceal horrendous crimes. See: Pattabhi Jois, Yogi Bhajan, Bikram, Osho, the Young Living dude, the overly botoxed English guy still doing weird shit in Hawaii — the list is endless… All men — supported and upheld by a long line of women, usually of the white and wealthy affliction.
…Just like my ex, me, my girlfriends, and our primarily female base of subscribers.
Sometimes I wonder how many of those women could have saved their money, invested it, or spent it on something useful instead of a box of rocks and my New Age yoga babble.
Which leads me to say: I am sincerely sorry to anyone who I harmed throughout this wild, unchartered, and completely reckless journey towards a “healing” that never arrived. I know now that while I was aiming in the right direction, my compass was completely off and I got very lost along the way. My goal now is to earnestly do my best to contribute to dismantling these structures and rebuilding new systems that are more inclusive and authentic to the cause of personal wellness and collective well being.
This is partly why I no longer work nor will work for any yoga studio with a “Teacher Training Program.” As I’ve thoroughly described, I firmly believe many of these business models are scams that disproportionately damage low income women and families while often excluding and harming the cultures from which the practices originated.
I want to be clear though, this does not mean that these practices are not healing. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is because they are so deeply healing and sacred that they lose their potency when they are bought, sold, and manipulated to enrich a small few at the expense of many — just like everything else that exists within the “economies of care.”
Care. That word has so many meanings depending on where and how it is used in sentence but all of them point back to one thing: community.
Without a community, there is nothing to really care for. None of us exist in a vacuum and even the concept of “self care” is based in the idea that we want to be our “best selves” in order to show up more fully in our jobs, homes, and relationships because we’re never really just doing it for ourselves. We’re doing it for the health of our community and our role in it.
Women have been doing this since the dawn of time.
Specifically in America, Black women revolutionized “self care” as a radical act of political rebellion in the face of a system that has historically restricted access their access to quality healthcare, reproductive, and environmental rights. This is yet another example of how white women in “wellness” have co-opted language that was designed to liberate all people from the paradoxical relationship between care systems and capitalism, not drive us deeper into it.
Look, I don’t know what the solution is and I definitely don’t want to accidentally start another cult but I do want to say… it doesn’t have to be this way.
We can do better than this.
We are women and non-conforming people who birth nations. We can birth a new system of care that supports the needs of all people and does not rely on exploiting the weakest and most hopeful among us.
The thing is, yoga and the teachings within the practice still ring true to me no matter how counterintuitive that may seem after everything I’ve seen. The Chakra System (to me) is a perfect explanation to our complex nervous systems and provides a clear framework for the rights our body is designed to need fulfilled in order to thrive, not just merely survive.
When satiated and in balance, our seven Charkas serve to:
Keep us safe, grounded, nurtured, and protected.
Offer us a sense of identity, sexual, and creative expression.
Claim our power, for the benefit of all and at the expense of none.
Love and be loved.
Speak, be heard, and actively listen.
See and be seen.
Hope and have faith.
I know it seems far fetched and after everything I’ve been a part of, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jaded, too. But, I am still hopeful. Mostly because people never cease to amaze me and when I look around, change is the only constant. People who repeat the trope: “people don’t change” are simply unwilling to change themselves. People do change. In fact, they change all the time — the only difference is whether they are changing consciously or unconsciously.
And I’m telling you, as a former “mean girl” who used to care way too much about what everyone else thought of me instead of what I thought of me… if I can change, anyone can.
In sum, nothing changes unless we do and escaping reality is a powerful bubble of privilege that will eventually burst, no matter who you are.
We must acknowledge our past if we want a different future and I’ll say this last part in classic yoga babble — “the only way out is through.” Not a single one of us is getting out of here alive and nearly every last one of our societal struggles can be tied back to the ways in which we oppress, impose upon, and exploit each other and our natural world, which includes the politicalization of our collective resources, cultural sovereignty, and bodily autonomy.
None of this should be political but it is personal and to many people, deeply spiritual.
For this reason and many more, moving forward, I have nothing to else to offer but my perspective and I have no interest in imposing it on anyone else.
This is my experience and you can take it or leave it.
with love,
P
Disclaimer: When you’re in a cult, you’ll know because you wont know until you’re out or ready to get out. No, it doesn’t make sense and if you think you’re in a cult, you probably are. Sometimes it’s totally unassuming and sometimes people drink Kool-Aid (and die). Don’t die. Don’t hide. Get out.
Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-YOUR LIFE MATTERS (800-273-8255)
Cult awareness hotline: 1-800-CHECK THIS OUT (it’s not actually a hotline)
Bad friend hotline: 1-800-BREAK UP WITH THEM (neither is this)
