What I have learned....

So I have another confession to make, I am avoiding looking into the mirror to see who looks back. It was the question I got the other day from  Mark, “so what have you learned?” that I have been dreading. I wish I could say I have profound words of wisdom to share, but alas, like most things, I am a bit slow on the uptake. Typically it is about 3-6 months where I can look back and say, "Oh THAT is what I learned" and often it is slow and gentle and seemingly small  and insignificant that I don't think that it is life changing, or profound, or wise. But then I am different, I can feel it, I notice it in the small things and the times where I catch myself by surprise at how I re-act to something. It is in those times I think wow, that is unusual and a little different for me but in a good kind of way. It is those times where I guess I have learned or changed or grown - but then as I write that it feels weird and wrong and a little bit fake. I don't feel like I have changed fundamentally but I do feel more me than I ever have in my life. So I guess that is something.

But I can start with the obvious - my hair is longer than it has been in perhaps 10 years. A pleasant change and I actually can say I like having longer hair, I have a few additional laughter lines but I feel more comfortable with my aging body than I have ever felt in my life. I think I have maybe lost a few kilos, either that or my boobs have shrunk (maybe that is too much information, sorry!) But it is funny as for someone who had such a rigid exercise and diet pre-trip to my "regime" now consists of daily coffee, cake if and when I feel like it, a walk if the mood takes me and some gentle stretches, I wonder what the diet industry is on about. Free your minds people and watch your body follow suit. My skin is also clearer and brighter than it has been, well since I can remember, maybe my pre-hormone teenage years? I tell you, there is something about a stress free life, it really does work.

Me with long hair

I guess I need to get to the good bits though, not the external and obvious outside changes, but the internal  stuff. I am crystal clear on what I want to do in this life time and how I am going to go about creating that, my dreams have been unleashed and I am in a place of creativity and flow that is inspiring and empowering. I truly believe that anything is possible where before I think I could say that but under my breath snigger "yeah, but only if you have the brains, the money, the power, the confidence, the skills..." blah blah blah. I feel less afraid of life, of people and what they think, of walking through unknown streets, of using public transport in foreign countries, of having no plan, of putting my heart out there and not getting it returned, of talking to strangers, of being myself, of having dreams, of not conforming to what everyone else seems to be doing, of asking for help when I need it....the list is endless.  I can see more clearly my old habitual thought patterns that cripple me, when I sabotage myself and slowly but surely they do actually start to change. (I certainly have not mastered that but I am for sure working on it)

I have learned to always carry toilet paper, to sleep on any form of surface (including buses) and to embrace whatever is thrown at me. I have let go of some of the how things "should be" and let in more of how things really are. I place less expectations on myself and others, especially timetables, and can notice when my agitation arises and breath my way out of it. It starts to sound like I have found bliss! Far from it, but I have learned the most is to really dream, to dare to do things and to get out there and do them. When someone asked me once about getting in to yoga and the spiritual path - I described at as before I left, I felt like I was always wearing a suit made up of a careful collection of long held beliefs of how I should be, what others wanted me to be and expectations of society. I felt like when I started to become more aware over the years, it was like finding the zipper to that suit, but for some reason I had been walking around with the last piece of suit dragging behind me, for what ever reason I could not shake that final foot of the suit. I feel now, the suit is well and truly gone, in fact I think I burnt it somewhere between India and Nepal. And that feels pretty fucking amazing. So I guess I have learned something after all :) The best part is, I have not changed, it was there all along....I just had to see it.