STEPPING OUT...

My wallet went on an adventure while I was in Spain teaching… this is the third time in a matter of months that it’s happened. Always being one for asking myself why, I have been contemplating my forgetful and careless attitude towards the thing that provides me with the resources to travel and live. If I consider what it represents to me, there is security as it holds my bankcard, my driver’s license and my travel card. It holds the key to accessing my money if I am not in Ireland and it gives me peace of mind and provides a sense of safety. No matter where I am I won’t be stuck if I have my wallet. So how do I keep misplacing it? It has been stolen twice and its most recent journey saw me leaving it in a hire car that a student was driving in Spain, and not noticing for about four days after she had left the retreat and was back in her native Germany. After an hour on the phone I found it was safely in the hands of the car hire company, some three hours away from the retreat centre, and after some organising and coordinating, it is currently making its way back to me via Spain and Belgium. It will have completed more air miles than I have on this trip and   been entrusted to people I both know and don’t know on its path back to me. It's almost as though I am forcing myself into believing and trusting that I have support no matter where I am, who I am with and what I am doing. 
 
"Not all those who wander are lost..." 
JRR Tolkien 
 
For the first time in my adult life, this year I feel secure; secure in my home, my work, and myself and in whom I am becoming. I am amazingly grateful for the life I have created. I feel very lucky with the family that surrounds and supports me, my wonderful students who appear in the most random of places to say hi or take a class with me, my friends who constantly have my back and encourage me, and the opportunities that appear seemingly out of nowhere. What I have created really struck home with me earlier in the month as I sat in a circle with my friend and co-teacher and the students who had joined us on our retreat in the Cliffs of Moher. It was a very powerful week and as we were bringing our yoga ceremony to a close, it hit me that I had created this. It was me that had suggested the retreat and asked Mel if she would be up for it and it was her and the retreat centre's agreement that made it happen. At the same time, it also felt like it was signifying a change in direction for me within my teaching and with who I work with. 
 
I have achieved the career goals I set back in 2013. I am teaching retreats all over Europe and leading teacher trainings while also feeling  rooted in my hometown. I realised this week that it is time to step up and to step out. Just like the time I was nearing the end of my corporate life, there has been a voice, a gentle push to move forward, to shift again and allow my direction to take a slightly different path.  There is resistance to it. We are told to listen to the messages that the universe sends us and over the last six months there has been a never-ending buzz of encouragement for me to do more of my own thing and to not be so reliant on others. It’s been a challenge and I feel I have been in a boxing ring doing ten rounds with the same thoughts, fighting them, resisting the change and wanting to remain in my comfortable box, even if only for a little while longer. 
 
I haven't written my blog in months, my meditation practice has been intermittent, my home yoga practice hasn't really been there this year and while I can blame being injured; it's an excuse. Being on my mat and in my meditation means facing the voice that has been saying "hey there, remember me?!, it's time to step out again..."
 
Returning home after nearly a month of being away teaching really got me thinking. For the first time ever I felt ready to be at home, to have some time in my apartment to land and arrive back to familiar things. And yet there was a feeling of apprehension landing in Dublin. I know that there are areas of my life that are changing, which means not everything will be as familiar. With change there is letting go and can mean stepping out into something that doesn’t feel so comfortable. There is a request from the universe to trust, to surrender and to allow myself to be held so everything is not so completely planned, so completely decided with no room for the unexpected. And therein lies the lesson with my wallet… I am almost forcing myself to recognise that I will be supported. There may not be a visible path as to how things will flow but there is a safety net and I am able to trust in something much bigger than myself. 
 
Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. 
Robin Sharma 
 
I feel as though I am in the middle lane. Life is good and also very messy. So I am tidying and decluttering as I go, saying yes to the things that are a "hell yes" and letting go of the things are a “not sure” or a “no”. I don’t know what the outcome will be. I have ideas and, honestly it feels exciting and nerve-racking, as I don’t have a clue where it will lead, but if it’s anything like the journey my wallets have been on this last year, it will be one heck of an adventure and lucky for me I have just the right shoes to make the leap ;)