We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
~ MARCEL PROUST
This is the last part of a trilogy where I'm looking into the synchronicity that has influenced and redirected my life and some major choices I've made. The first story is about me discovering yoga, the second one about me becoming the explorer of inner and outer landscapes and the final third one looks into the random circumstances that had to line up for me to become a teacher.
The inner voice "there has to be more to life" from story one combined with the glimpse and discovery of our inner world of being from story two, were the biggest factors leading me to take a sabbatical a few years after my attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It was an irrational and illogical decision on all accounts - I was 29 - most of my friends were having kids, buying apartments, settling down, getting married; I lived a very comfortable life with good income and excellent career prospects; I was surrounded by a loving family and awesome friends. Why rock the boat? There was no clear answer to that, but a sense of unexplained urgency that at one point crew so unbearable, that I was willing to lock eyes with my fear of losing what I had (or might have) and step into the void of not knowing what comes next.
Curiously (and realized only in hindsight) during the time between my inner turmoil with making the decision and actually leaving, the outer circumstances were lining up to support me in many ways. It was "boom" years in Estonia. Real estate prices skyrocketed, so I was able to sell my crapy first floor apartment for enough to pay back all my loans and have money in the bank. I was also working my ass off in the recruitment firm, as everyone was expanding and hiring and we were the best company in town for headhunting.
There is no hiding the fact, that having money in the bank makes it so much easier to make risky-looking decisions. I say risky-looking because to be honest and not to over-glorify my decision, there was no real risk! I was taking a sabbatical with a clause that I can come back any time I want and with a hint of potential partnership if I do decide to come back at the end of the year. I had the money to tie me over for that year and the worse thing that could happen would be me hating the whole endeavor and coming back in a few months and picking up where I left off.
My leaving initially had little to do with yoga or spirituality. There was an inner knowing, kind of a hunch, that this step is a start of a new era, but it was too daunting to even look further in that direction of thought, so I kept "selling" myself the idea that in a years time I will return to my life as I knew it.
My first stop was India, where I got my initiation and schooling into a life of a backpacker. The first few months did require some adjustment to attitudes, beliefs and habits, there was definitely frustration and fear, but all in all - I finally was in my element. I would say the most exhilarating aspect of those first traveller steps was my realization that I can totally re-invent myself. Or "undo" many of my limiting concepts of self. Whether it was the unfamiliar surroundings, the newness of each moment, the stream of new people that I would constantly meet or quite possibly the combination of it all, I found myself again and again stepping out of my habitual ways of behaving, my self-image started to shift, I became more outgoing, more daring, more trusting and a hell of a lot more spontaneous.
The framework of "this is my life" was no longer there, all bets were off and I was slowly but surely making friends with the unknown, learning to become more flexible, open minded and alert to synchronicities pointing the way. My theory is that we begin to open up to the "magic" of a spontaneous easy flow when our life-force and energy is no longer exclusively spent on cultivating and grooming our appearance in the eyes of others* in an attempt to reassure and validate our self-worth. I would step back into that trap soon enough, with a new identity of a "spiritual person" to build and up-hold, but during those first initial months the old was being stripped and cast away and the new had not arrived yet, so I was as "blank" as a 29-year old can be.
After about half a year backpacking through South East Asia (and about half way through my sabbatical year and my budget) a random chance landed me in Australia. It was never in my plans, but from my current latitude of 8 years into the future, I tell you with longing in my heart, that I often consider Australia my second homeland, a place of rebirth and huge transformation. Random chance, ey...?
It was while living in Sydney, that I picked up a regular practice of yoga again. I had decided to take a small break from the constant moving around and replenish my finances. I tried on my "old shoes again" - I got hired as a recruitment assistant by a small job agency, I rented a room overlooking the Rushcutters Bay, found a lovely yoga studio a few streets away at Potts Point and slipped back to 9-to-5. It was a life-stye I knew, with the perks of better weather and better pay, possibly bigger fish in the sea and more opportunities.
Two months into my new life in Sydney, the option of sponsorship was put on the table by my employer - a 2-year commitment to the firm would get me a permanent visa. It was an exciting concept to mull over, a completely new road opening up. With that decision baking in me, one morning I attended my usual yoga class. We had a substitute teacher and she taught an interesting mix of yoga and pilates. As I was chatting with the teacher after the class, she paused for a moment and passingly asked, if I had ever thought of becoming a teacher. BAM!!! My life was never the same again …
Another road came into view. A path I had never considered before, yet now I could not get that voice out of my head. Have you ever thought of becoming a teacher? I never had … but there it was now, following me everywhere. I spent the next few weeks in deep in doubt, indecision, confusion and in constant battle between reason and that strong pull I had felt before - the very same force that I felt in my first yoga class, the same determination that set me off on an impossible adventure to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and that same urgency I felt when I made my decision to take this sabbatical.
The poet John Keats wrote about Negative Capacity as a quality that goes to form a Man of Achievement and that is "when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".
I knew none of these concepts back then, but try as it might, the reason was losing ground. I started looking into teacher trainings, I found several trainings in Sydney that I could take over the weekends and still keep my road nr 2 (job plus permanent visa) open. Yet it seems it was not an half-hearted leap that was expected of me. You've done it before, you can do it again - the voice said. Over the last few months I had "fought back" some ground of familiarity, security, predicability and normalness, yet "this is not why you left home" was the knowing that was arising.
So - Byron Bay, a small alternative town on the east coast of Australia, and a 6-week intensive course it was...
Curiously (and realized only in hindsight) during the time between my inner turmoil with making the decision and actually leaving, the outer circumstances were lining up to support me in many ways. It was "boom" years in Estonia. Real estate prices skyrocketed, so I was able to sell my crapy first floor apartment for enough to pay back all my loans and have money in the bank. I was also working my ass off in the recruitment firm, as everyone was expanding and hiring and we were the best company in town for headhunting.
There is no hiding the fact, that having money in the bank makes it so much easier to make risky-looking decisions. I say risky-looking because to be honest and not to over-glorify my decision, there was no real risk! I was taking a sabbatical with a clause that I can come back any time I want and with a hint of potential partnership if I do decide to come back at the end of the year. I had the money to tie me over for that year and the worse thing that could happen would be me hating the whole endeavor and coming back in a few months and picking up where I left off.
My leaving initially had little to do with yoga or spirituality. There was an inner knowing, kind of a hunch, that this step is a start of a new era, but it was too daunting to even look further in that direction of thought, so I kept "selling" myself the idea that in a years time I will return to my life as I knew it.
My first stop was India, where I got my initiation and schooling into a life of a backpacker. The first few months did require some adjustment to attitudes, beliefs and habits, there was definitely frustration and fear, but all in all - I finally was in my element. I would say the most exhilarating aspect of those first traveller steps was my realization that I can totally re-invent myself. Or "undo" many of my limiting concepts of self. Whether it was the unfamiliar surroundings, the newness of each moment, the stream of new people that I would constantly meet or quite possibly the combination of it all, I found myself again and again stepping out of my habitual ways of behaving, my self-image started to shift, I became more outgoing, more daring, more trusting and a hell of a lot more spontaneous.
The framework of "this is my life" was no longer there, all bets were off and I was slowly but surely making friends with the unknown, learning to become more flexible, open minded and alert to synchronicities pointing the way. My theory is that we begin to open up to the "magic" of a spontaneous easy flow when our life-force and energy is no longer exclusively spent on cultivating and grooming our appearance in the eyes of others* in an attempt to reassure and validate our self-worth. I would step back into that trap soon enough, with a new identity of a "spiritual person" to build and up-hold, but during those first initial months the old was being stripped and cast away and the new had not arrived yet, so I was as "blank" as a 29-year old can be.
After about half a year backpacking through South East Asia (and about half way through my sabbatical year and my budget) a random chance landed me in Australia. It was never in my plans, but from my current latitude of 8 years into the future, I tell you with longing in my heart, that I often consider Australia my second homeland, a place of rebirth and huge transformation. Random chance, ey...?
It was while living in Sydney, that I picked up a regular practice of yoga again. I had decided to take a small break from the constant moving around and replenish my finances. I tried on my "old shoes again" - I got hired as a recruitment assistant by a small job agency, I rented a room overlooking the Rushcutters Bay, found a lovely yoga studio a few streets away at Potts Point and slipped back to 9-to-5. It was a life-stye I knew, with the perks of better weather and better pay, possibly bigger fish in the sea and more opportunities.
Two months into my new life in Sydney, the option of sponsorship was put on the table by my employer - a 2-year commitment to the firm would get me a permanent visa. It was an exciting concept to mull over, a completely new road opening up. With that decision baking in me, one morning I attended my usual yoga class. We had a substitute teacher and she taught an interesting mix of yoga and pilates. As I was chatting with the teacher after the class, she paused for a moment and passingly asked, if I had ever thought of becoming a teacher. BAM!!! My life was never the same again …
Another road came into view. A path I had never considered before, yet now I could not get that voice out of my head. Have you ever thought of becoming a teacher? I never had … but there it was now, following me everywhere. I spent the next few weeks in deep in doubt, indecision, confusion and in constant battle between reason and that strong pull I had felt before - the very same force that I felt in my first yoga class, the same determination that set me off on an impossible adventure to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and that same urgency I felt when I made my decision to take this sabbatical.
The poet John Keats wrote about Negative Capacity as a quality that goes to form a Man of Achievement and that is "when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".
I knew none of these concepts back then, but try as it might, the reason was losing ground. I started looking into teacher trainings, I found several trainings in Sydney that I could take over the weekends and still keep my road nr 2 (job plus permanent visa) open. Yet it seems it was not an half-hearted leap that was expected of me. You've done it before, you can do it again - the voice said. Over the last few months I had "fought back" some ground of familiarity, security, predicability and normalness, yet "this is not why you left home" was the knowing that was arising.
So - Byron Bay, a small alternative town on the east coast of Australia, and a 6-week intensive course it was...
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost)
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (Robert Frost)
This decision DID make all the difference! This WAS a step towards a new era of consciousness unfolding. This WAS where all the previous decisions started making sense. This is a beginning of a journey of battle, discipline, struggle, doubt, of overcoming and betterment, that has, and still is, gradually ripening into a more nurturing, trusting and self-affirming way to respond to a Calling.
My direction in life had changed - the reference point more often than not is now inside. Suspending my own preconceived ideas and plans is not easy (and often I fail), yet I'm in awe at the synchronicity and divine order that keeps showing up and pointing the way, whenever I AM open, willing and receptive enough to see and hear and trust the moment-to-moment guidance.
Life is a free flowing, dynamic and creative process. The most important thing I've learned is to keep EXPERIMENTING, OBSERVING & PLAYING*
- Epilogue-
I stumbled upon Robert Frost, when I was fervently looking for the right words and closure to the trilogy. I read Road Not Taken and in such a simple way, it expressed it all. Thank you, I uttered!
My direction in life had changed - the reference point more often than not is now inside. Suspending my own preconceived ideas and plans is not easy (and often I fail), yet I'm in awe at the synchronicity and divine order that keeps showing up and pointing the way, whenever I AM open, willing and receptive enough to see and hear and trust the moment-to-moment guidance.
Life is a free flowing, dynamic and creative process. The most important thing I've learned is to keep EXPERIMENTING, OBSERVING & PLAYING*
- Epilogue-
I stumbled upon Robert Frost, when I was fervently looking for the right words and closure to the trilogy. I read Road Not Taken and in such a simple way, it expressed it all. Thank you, I uttered!
The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves o step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves o step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I -
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
PS!
I was given an amazing chance to say "Thank you" to that substitute teacher, who said the right words at a right time. I had been living and teaching in Byron Bay for a year, when my boyfriend's best friend from Sydney was coming over wanting us to meet his fiancé. The fiancé was HER:) … I recognized her at once when she got out of the car and exclaimed "You are the reason why I am here"…
* paraphrasing Jed Mckenna
I was given an amazing chance to say "Thank you" to that substitute teacher, who said the right words at a right time. I had been living and teaching in Byron Bay for a year, when my boyfriend's best friend from Sydney was coming over wanting us to meet his fiancé. The fiancé was HER:) … I recognized her at once when she got out of the car and exclaimed "You are the reason why I am here"…
* paraphrasing Jed Mckenna
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