Dear Ones, Sacred Rebels, Change Makers, Brave Seekers, and those with more questions than answers in this one wild and precious life - Welcome, and hallooo from Lanka Land!
I have emerged from more than 2 weeks of tech detox and “silence" here. While I did not go full Vipassana, I can count on one hand (mmm, ok, maybe almost two hands) the number of conversations I had with other humans…I had many more with the birds and with myself. And after 2 weeks of post-quarantine freedom and re-acquainting myself with Sri Lanka and re-learning my passwords, we're in intermittent lockdown with the country's most significant COVID spike (previously rates were very very low). Many of my favorite activities - jungle rides and roti shop hangs! - are not accessible. Yes, this is disappointing, but I know there is a deeper lesson to be learned when expectations are not met and my happiness is high.
With 2 weeks of silence in quarantine as my entrance, it's almost as if I trained for this.
Short excerpt below from the full essay. Be sure to click the link to read the full piece, where in addition to describing the gorgeous setting and my days, I share the evolution of life lessons, invisible help, taking shape through a mantra, a moving meditation, which guided me through my days of nature and silence and body awareness.
Excerpt: Self Trust
I would be lying if I told you every moment of my quarantine was glorious (though most were). There was a day in the last third of my time which was very dark, but very revealing, and in that way healing. We cannot heal or transform or grow without swimming in our deep dark inner waters and meeting the self doubt we carry with us, which points to our vulnerability, and therefore our strength. And when we rise to meet it rather than ignore it or cloak it in masks, I call this courage. I was asking myself what I needed, and my inner voice answered asking for a guide. I was reminded of the yoga teacher's “I am here” and how supremely comforting those words spoken by another sounded in a time of fear and doubt.
And then I realized, it is not another’s voice I need to hear or depend on. It is my own. I. Am. Here. I’ve got me. I can trust myself, my intuition, my wisdom, my experience, my way of being. “I’m here, and I’ve got you,” I heard myself saying to me.
It wasn’t trusting a yoga teacher that enabled me to do a backbend or balance on my head, or transition careers, or move countries - it was trust in myself. If we can learn to trust ourselves despite the fear, if we can see in ourselves the small miracles others see in us, like the miracles we silently witness in nature, what might be possible? So often it is lack of courage that holds us back from taking the risk, that keeps us stuck in the comfort zone, stuck in complacency, stuck thinking it can’t get better. It can! (And I learn that one almost daily here in Sri Lanka...but that’s for another time)
Begin to trust yourself, the inner voice that knows the way. The courage to acknowledge the voice that keeps you small - it’s supposed to send you a warning signal - while not letting it take the driver’s seat and keep you in the smallness of the comfort zone. This transition invites the skill of vulnerability that makes following the squiggle of your life’s purpose possible. Feel the risk being alive.
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Click to continue reading…I finally sat myself down to create a Medium account - something I've been reluctant to do, a vulnerable admission that writing has become an important part of my life and way of being in the world.
All past essays will be posted there soon (:
