The First Bali Memoir

Wow, to be privileged enough to spend 6 weeks in Bali, everyone told me over and over how lucky I was. To have the opportunity to travel, to further my studies by completing another 200-hour yoga teacher training, and then taking two weeks at the end to have a vacation.  But most “privileged” have the choice potentially to do something like this (privileged meaning a roof over your head, enough money to buy food and all amenities you need and savings in the bank, which is probably at least 80% of anyone reading this blog post). It’s an agreed upon reality that we have to settle, work full time, get married and have children and save money in our 30’s. That’s a perfect option for many and this option is great if it’s truly your dream life, some of it was mine for a while and I was happy with it for years, until one day I wasn’t. At several touchpoints throughout our lives we genuinely have choices, even if it doesn’t feel like it immediately. So, if you are someone who is “privileged” in the context I just described, you have exactly the same options. I’m not indifferent to anyone else, it was also a risk for me walking away from everything that I had previously known.  I had the same fears as everyone else would have. I had no guarantees; no certainty and I was taking a leap of faith.  So lucky is a questionable word, maybe decisive is a better word for just making the final call to do it. However, one thing I can say is that I never have lived my life based on a fear of what won’t happen, but more based on what potential opportunities could happen.  I saw this as an opportunity to take a break, to further my studies and to reflect on the life choices that I’d made so far, and potentially what life choices I wanted to make next.  That happened to be the life choice I made at the time and so far, I haven’t looked back

One blog post wouldn’t possibly be able to sum up my Bali experience, so I’ll start with a re-cap and perhaps seed out more of my learnings later.  I expected this journey to be a deep soul dive, a deep moment of reflection of who I am, what type of life I want to live, what my values are and what really matters to me, along with my highest reason why in everything I do. Well what can I say, it definitely delivered.

I was lucky enough to train with the deep and beautiful soul Meghan Currie – a creator, a leader, an artist and a true space holder.  She helped me to enhance so many valuable life skills including listening, not running away, practicing non-judgement and S L O W I N G   D O W N. We all run around so quickly like our life depends on it, and quite often it does and I was most definitely one of those people.  But this fast pace of life we all live, is it making our lives better?  Is it making us happy?  Is it improving our relationships with others? Is running around this way truly adding value?  Is it allowing more for what is important to us?  I can’t answer for anyone else, but I had my doubts that it was for me personally.  I’m trying my best to slow it down where I can, because I no longer see the value in running around trying to complete as much as possible. Because in doing that throughout my 20’s and early 30’s, I might have been highly productive, efficient and showing up for anything and everything, but the downside was that I eventually lost myself.  I lost my spark, it dimmed my flame and I found myself wondering who I even was anymore and what I was even working towards and why. Everything was a priority but I seemed to have no time to prioritise what was actually fundamental to me living a better quality of live. I needed to take a moment in Bali to decompress, re-calibrate and to re-route my sat nav to alter my course.

I was also blessed enough in Bali to be mentored by other incredible souls Jenny Sharada (a fellow Sister and the wisest woman I’ve ever met), Lindsay Maycock (an Anatomy specialist and an absolute hoot), Matt Corker (Coaching & leadership expert), Jackie Jaipur (A grounded beautiful soul who makes important things happen), Brandee Lee-Johnston (an inspiration and beautiful inside and out), Emma  (a highly creative and loving soul who is onto big things in life) and Maria Herminia Diaz (a true supporter with a huge warm and loving heart). But it doesn’t stop there. I also went on this journey with 41 other beautiful souls that were each seeking to re-route their courses in some kind of way.  Each had their own reasons for being there and we were all completely different human beings, except one thing we all had in common. We all wanted to unravel and heal in some kind of way, to just be unapologetically ourselves, and to give and receive love.  I’ve never felt so much love from 41 people that I’d only just met. Over the weeks we laughed together, cried together, held space for one another and even though the training finished at the beginning of December, we still send each other messages of support and love and are following each other’s journeys. I have 41 family members all over the world and it couldn’t feel more soft, gooey and wonderful.

So this overwhelming amount of love got me thinking – why as human beings are we not always kind to one another?  Anyone and everyone can vibrate higher when they are accepted for who they are and when they feel they are cared for.  The ultimate fear in human psychology is abandonment and being rejected.  When this happens, it causes so much pain and trauma, yet we do it to one another all the time.  From taking out our issues on loved ones, to putting a partner down or belittling them, to making colleagues feel rejected by dismissing their ideas or gossiping about them.  It’s true that there are people in this world who are not good people and some behaviour is unacceptable, but reacting with even minor aggression or low-level behaviour back to them is not helpful.  We don’t have to shower them with false love, but we must just continue to show up as who we want to be in this world, and to radiate love and care in a way that is authentic to us.  Most of us are carrying around scars which limits our love and affects our behaviour in some kind of way. We walk around with those scars are even though we think the wound or wounds are closed, quite often they are actually still open.  As soon as someone does something we don’t like, it’s like someone scolded our open wound. I don’t have all the answers - except if you are wounded (we all are in some kind of way), do the work on yourself. Go on the journey, it doesn’t have to be in Bali and it doesn’t have to be a yoga teacher training, we don’t all want to be yoga teachers!  But I think so many people are turning to a yoga practice to heal and address some issues they have in some kind of way. Because it feels like we don’t have so many other options out there apart from therapy, and this general pace of life certainly doesn’t seem to be doing it for us either.  Be kind to yourself and create space in your daily life to reflect – what are you carrying that is holding you back from living your most authentic life? Who do you need to forgive so that you can be free? Are you living life by your values? What are your values? Where do they even come from?  According to who?  Are they even yours? Truly yours?  Why, and why again?  I’m sure you have the answers as to why your values are your values, and that’s good, but be an open book, be curious and ask yourself where they come from and why it’s so important to you.  Quite often we’re carrying around values that are not even our own, and if that’s the case we are just trying to live someone else’s life in some ways, which isn’t necessarily the path to eternal bliss.

Breathe, meditate, create space for yourself, even if it’s only a few minutes a day.  We all spend hours on our mobile phones. Put it down for a few minutes - you won’t miss that 15 minutes extra scroll time on Instagram or Facebook.  Think, reflect, open your mind, commit to being a student forever, learn about your past, see your open wounds and try to understand what has left scars, work on healing them in any way you can.  Most of us need help doing this, so if therapy is not an option for you and you are not someone that needs to take medicine, then seek to gain knowledge from those that carry wisdom and kindness over aggression or poison, people that can help to support you in some kind of way. Take up a yoga practice, treat yourself to a retreat, learn breathing techniques, read books, watch youtube videos of wise leaders. Some things we do need to pay for, but so much is also free through the internet.  Do it for yourself and for all of those around you, and the world will be a better place

Wherever you are, I send you love and light and hope you give yourself permission to be who you want to be, to heal over time, to treat others as you wish to be treated, and to treat life as one continuous journey.