Preparing for my second farewell to Canada – this time with a bit more gratitude

The last time I left canada to live in another country (about 10 years ago) I didn’t realize what I was leaving behind. I ended up moving to Greece and missing so much about Canada – endless supplies of water that doesn’t mysteriously shut off, the friendliness of Canadians always willing to give a helping hand, winter (yes I actually missed winter!) and so many other things. I felt sad then that I hadn’t realized what great of a country I had grown up in and how much of it’s comforts I took for granted.

I find myself, ten years later, leaving my beloved country once again. Having spent the last 1.5 weeks where I soon will be calling home, I’ve been enthralled by the beauty and newness of this land that I’ve forgotten about how wonderful Canada is. This morning we checked into our flight very early (our hotel is literally right next door) and as we turned to leave the line to check in our baggage we were confronted by other Canadians who politely moved over for us to pass with a smile on their face. Their friendliness reminded me how great canada is. I decided, instead of being sad and annoyed that we have to return back to pack instead of stay here and enjoy Europe, I should appreciate Canada because soon enough I will miss it so much.

I now find myself excited to return home and take in the beauty of Canada one more time before we head off to our new life. Winter will have probably begun in Saguenay and I’m excited to take the first breath of fresh air that will send a chill down into my lungs, and with it a promise of Christmas and cheer. I will miss that important aspect of Christmas – snow. I will appreciate the first real snow fall (if it comes in the next two weeks) and watch as the night sky is lit up with tiny (or big) dots of snow, lighting up the ground, giving the night life. I will sit and look with awe that first morning after a big snow fall and sit mesmerized at the beauty of the white earth, and hope no one ruins it with car tracks or shoe prints. I will find the beauty that is Canada, because while it is not Europe, Canada has it’s own kind of raw natural beauty that you only notice when you’ve left it behind. I will smile at people as I pass them by because I know in canada they will most likely smile back and two strangers will share a moment.

It’s staring to hit me, I won’t be living in Canada for awhile now. I will be in a new land, and while I love this place, it will take a while for it to become home. Before then I will have moments where I will want to be back in Canada with the mundane and the normal. So instead of knocking it down for being – normal or mundane – I will take it all in and appreciate every moment because soon enough it will be in my past.

Disconnected

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about disconnection. There seems to be an epidemic in our culture concerning this. We see it all around us, yet I don’t think many of us even realize there is a disconnection, and if we do, what to do about it.

I find it funny that in a world where we are increasingly “connected” through social media, cell phones/tablets, Facebook, etc etc, that we don’t actually know how to connect with each other and with ourselves. It’s kind of depressing really.

We live in a culture where “me” “want” “more” are some of the key words that surround us. It’s all about ME, what I WANT and whatever that is I want MORE. the more we consume, the more we feel we are ….

what? What are we doing?
Filling a void?
Where did that void come from?

I am not putting myself above any of this, I too am a part of this epidemic. I am currently struggling with where “me” ends and where my boundaries lie, should I even have boundaries?

I don’t talk about this much, but getting on my mat every day has helped me reach a place inside me that I forgot about a long long time ago. A place where I knew I could do whatever it was I was doing. A place where me want more did not exist. A place where I was enough. A place with no boundaries, a place full of joy even in the midst of chaos. I call this my spiritual awakening in my personal writing.

I use the word spiritual with a purpose. I grew up going to church almost every Sunday, but long abandoned that faith because it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense that at certain times in my life I was considered dirty (during mensturation). I couldn’t practice the same way as my male counterparts because of this dirtiness. I walked away from it and never looked back. I now see this as the wrong choice to have made. I am not saying that I should have stayed, because I still agree with my decision that there was nothing for me there, but I cut myself off from something vital to me.

I lived in a world where me want more is what I practiced. What did I find? Nothing. I found myself lost in myself. I had things, a comfortable life, yet I was unhappy. I think a lot of us feel this way. Yes there are days where we are truly unhappy for real reasons, but there are others where we can’t find reasons. On paper we have everything we should need yet there is a void.

me want more

We blame this void on others, the economy, our family, our health… What we don’t realize is all of this could be cured if we just let go and listened. I definitely am not talking about chronic pain or illness when I talk about health, these are valid reasons to be having difficulties in life. I’m talking about health issues which can be solved if we ended this me want more mentality.

My year of yoga is coming to an end in a few months. Today I want to remind myself that beyond the me want more is something much more valuable. If we look, we find something better, something more priceless than any of this me want more. We find peace, love, life, beauty, we find ourselves. We find that we are filled with love and light/energy. This light/energy is in each of us, and in that way we were never really disconnected, we were only blocking the light/energy that was there all along.

I often wish I could draw out a map to show people how easy it is to conquer this epidemic. No pills are needed, no money, nothing, just you, your breath, and your willingness to listen to yourself, really truly listen. Everything else will fall into place there will be no room for me want more

I believe that each person, each experience is brought to us because we need to learn something, in order to grow.

We all find our own paths to spirituality, I truly believe that. This might be organized religion of some sort for some people, for others it may be travelling the world and witnessing the miracle of living. For me it was and is yoga. I know one thing for sure, we don’t find it with me want more. That’s where I think we’ve lost our way as a culture. We have let go of some fundamental truths that bind us. These truths cut across all religions, all faiths, they are truths that make us human.

Unexpected contentment

It’s funny how a little planning can change your perception. I came up with a routine the other day, that enables me to enjoy my free time, do yoga, and also feel productive. The little step of making a routine has changed everything. However, I must say, J’s news the other day of coming home earlier than expected probably helped as well.

In general this weekend went much better than expected.. So much so that driving to a friend’s house to celebrate her birthday on friday, I had an overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. How funny, I was happy and peaceful here in northern Quebec, alone. On top of that, I was going to a social event, something that usually gets me on edge (I’m a sever introvert at times – especially when J leaves). And, add to that I was driving to a part of town that I don’t know very well, without the GPS (because J has it). That alone would have sent me into panic mode before. The feeling of peace and contentment followed me throughout the weekend. May long weekend, the weekend I was afraid of, ended up being a weekend surrounded by peace, and great music. I have even started compiling a list of songs for my playlist to India, and have even chosen the song that is to be my theme song for my journey, my anchor (I will reveal that later).

If someone were to ask how does yoga help you off the mat, this weekend would be one of those examples. The overwhelming sense of peace, of a deep knowledge, even when it can’t be explained, that everything is as it should be, and finding peace in that. Looking back to even last year, this would have been impossible in my life. Now it’s unimaginable that it ever was a different way.

The weekend I dreaded was filled with joy and contentment. Don’t get me wrong, I miss J terribly, and every noise I hear outside I secretly hope its him returning home to surprise me (I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that 🙂 ) but I have found peace, where before there was only chaos and confusion.

This morning, while I was doing my yoga practice, something the instructor on my downloaded session said struck me. I was doing moksha yoga, and the instructor was talking about the importance of the breath in yoga:

This is not about the pose you are in right now. It’s about life. This is about traffic jams, arguments, stressful situations. Can you take this peacefulness you have created with your breath into your life.

Can I find peace in chaos? I think I can, and I have. At that moment (we were in warrior 2) I focused on my breath, I had a faint smile on my face (as the instructor had suggested) and I knew I had found it, not only in the pose, but in life – this weekend.

The importance of this moment is beyond my capacity to explain. This was my goal setting out this year. I did it. I found peace, and I am genuinely happy, at a time a few months ago I would have sworn that I would be filled with pain and anger (due to not being posted). But this is not the case, and I owe it all to yoga. On my mat I have found peace but I have also found strength, and knowledge within myself.

And I know, life is not this easy, there will be times that I will falter and I will not breathe, but instead react to a stressful situation, or a traffic jam, but I now know that there is another way, and I believe that I if continue down this path, this awareness will become more accessible to me. For today, I am very proud that I got through the weekend happy and content. I am grateful for everything I have learned on my mat, and I am ready to continue on with my journey and see where the rest of the year is going to take me.

When something can go wrong IT WILL – but don’t worry, breathe and do yoga!

You know how things go wrong at the most inconvenient times? Like forgetting to put washer fluid in the car only to find that on that specific day there is muddy water everywhere? Well, military spouses go through a test phase every time their spouse leaves for a consecutive number of days. He could prepare everything for his departure, and the house can be as organized as ever, but once he is too far to help, things will fall apart. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, this phenomenon has hit most military wives I have spoken to. It’s just a fact of nature. An example from the past is when J was in in Afghanistan and the cops came to his condo looking for the previous owner. It was 7 in the morning, I had just prepared my coffee, I was in my robe, and I heard a very loud knock on the door: “police open up”. I’m not kidding. Try explaining to two cops that the owner is your boyfriend who is not here at the moment, and that the person they are looking for no longer lives here. That’s just one random example.

Well, J has been gone now for almost a week (out of six) and:

1. I mistakenly put too much oil into my car (after having an extensive tutorial and training by J) making my car useless to me for three days. Thankfully I worked across the street at the base for the two work days without a vehicle. The Saturday I spent at home (I’ll discuss that in a bit).

2. For the first time EVER I got locked out of the house. I had to sadly watch as my very confused cat wondered why I wouldn’t come inside, waiting for a locksmith, only to find that he opened my door with a credit card (I’m not kidding) and charged me 80.00 to basically break into my house.

I want to be clear, I am not complaining here. This is just a fact, once the spouse leaves, the remaining person will come across random fluke problems that had never occurred before.

The surprising thing about all of this, is that a couple of years back these two events would have led to a lot of anxiety, anger that J was away, and overall negativity. But instead, the Saturday I was locked in the house (I live on base and the nearest anything is 8km away south, or 10 km away north) so walking for groceries was out of the question) I cleaned the WHOLE house. I even put on calm music from songza and attempted an active meditation while cleaning. It was a great day. While before I would have panicked that I was locked inside, I took the opportunity to clean and be introspective.

When I got locked out of the house, I had a similar reaction. Of course, having a friend with me helped, but even then in the past, I would have returned home exhausted and depressed due to the events of the day. Instead, I didn’t let it affect me. It was just a random thing that happened, and letting it ruin an otherwise very nice day would have been a shame.

Don’t think that the irony of one day being locked in my house, and the next being locked out has been lost on me, because it hasn’t. In both circumstances I was limited to what I could do, something that would have sent my world crumbling down before.

I believe that there is a lesson here. I think I lost my way in yoga. Not to say that curiosity is a bad thing, but i let that curiosity consume my practice, and lost site of the journey. Yoga has taught me many things, and I believe these two experiences were meant to happen because I needed a reminder: you don’t do yoga, yoga remakes you.

In these particular situations, I insinctively breathed through the problem, and instead of panicking or having a fight or flight response, I remained calm and looked at the big picture: these were not end of the world problems, they were inconvenient, but not horrible. Instead of wasting time and energy worrying and being angry, I took the opportunity in both examples to remain in the moment. Just like that quote on Facebook says can you change anything? No – then why worry?

Lesson learned universe, lesson learned 🙂