[mostly] no regrets
As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.
Jack Kornfield
I was recently fortunate enough to partake in a fun, funky, challenging workshop in Paris with the luminous Carrie Owerko, followed by an equally enjoyable and therapeutic chat.
Carrie shared with me the continual planning of her own schedule/world tour/domestic life, even after many years of traveling and teaching across the globe. I was grateful for her for expressing this, because I truly look up to teachers like her who pave the way for teachers/students like me with their intelligent, diligent, heartfelt work – and criss-crossing the world to introduce it to various cultures, countries, and communities.
I told Carrie how thankful I was to be in France and be able to follow humbly in her footsteps to some degree of teaching globally, even though I was simultaneously getting the physical and mental sh!t kicked out of me. She briskly [yet sweetly] grabbed my arms, looked me in [perhaps even through?] my eyes, and enthusiastically reminded me: “Sasha! If – if – we are lucky enough to grow old some day, you will never look back and regret the time you moved to Paris.”
Carrie encouraged me that it is the challenging times that keep us on our toes, aware, alert, present, intelligent. These ass-kicking moments increase neuroplasticity by cultivating grit and cracking our hearts open all at the same time. They teach us how to stay strong and act with attention, and also by default remind us to stay soft, flexible, and receptive.
Like in the Bhagavad Gita, the sticky moments are what prepare us to enter into the moment – whether the moment is a battle or a joy – with both tenacity and a spacious heart.
May we move forward with alertness and ease; with the resilience of a rubber band that can bend and expand and come back to center with a deep knowing that if and when we break, we can reconnect and rebuild.
All roads lead to home in the heart, however far away you feel you drift, whenever you feel like life is giving you a run for your money or using you as a personal punching bag. Learn more about your ego from the worry and guilt that arises, trust in the process, and carry on.
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Onward.
Photo: Christina Amarens for Wanderlust GaPa.
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