Magic Happens When You Miss the Boat

So when I found out I missed the boat to get to the retreat center where I was working for a week, instantly I felt anxiety wash over me and settle in my stomach. Now what? Are they going to think I flaked out? What did I get myself into? Before I allowed doubt and fear to come in and take over, I took a breath and sat with that feeling. Allowed it to be and before I knew it, my boyfriend helped me get a water taxi and within 10 minutes I was on my way.

Before I left on this journey my ThetaHealer said that a week teaching at the retreat center will be transformational. “Now this is what I want,” I thought to myself, “Transformation. Cool. I can’t wait to get there.”
But now I found myself expecting. I started to expect to find transformation here, at this retreat center with its beautiful open-air accommodations surrounded by lush jungle and peaceful ocean. If transformation was going to be somewhere, here was it.

After a few days feeling like a bystander in my own life, I realized that it didn’t matter where I was. If I was going to find and experience transformation, it was going to be within me. And only my responsibility to make it happen. And, let me tell you, this realization didn’t come as a gentle glow of light that I stepped into, it came on in the form of a migraine. I taught class one night feeling the migraine coming on only for it to blossom later that evening. And, again, I sat with it.

By the next morning I awoke with the migraine gone and I experienced an awakening that I knew in my heart how much I love my studio home and living there with my boyfriend and our dog and two cats. That I loved eating Cheetos and beer. I love my body as it has changed over the years and I love this life I created for myself. And I realized that missing the boat was the thing I needed to awaken the truth within me; and to give me clarity to know and trust that transformation was with me all along.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, please consider donating to the Bending Tree Expansion Project to help us expand our resources to live your yoga. Our goal is to help people find their strength and creativity from the inside out…meaning finding their joy and living it fearlessly, from the heart.