Even now, Sometimes I wonder, what have I done?

September is a time where I’d ordinarily be preparing for the start of the school year: welcoming new students; ushering back the old.  Nose back to the grind after six weeks of freedom.

But, for the second year now, not this September.

And it got me thinking about things I don’t do anymore.

At the end of the year, it’ll be 5 years since I left the UK.  And even now, I sometimes wonder, what have I done?  Of course, I have great days, but I have dark days too.  Days where I think I’m a failure: days when I think I haven’t really achieved much in 5 years; I don’t have much to show; I don’t have very much to my name.  But then, I turn the light on and think about what I have done, experienced and gained over the past 4 and half years.

I’ve had the courage to give up a career.  A career that I was pretty good at, one I excelled at, one that gave me security and a pension, but one that didn’t make me happy in the end.  And so, I had the bravery to quit and try something new.

I’ve lived in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Cambodia, and now Portugal.  I’ve committed to international charity projects training rural, local teachers; I’ve established my own charity; I’ve raised thousands of pounds to help feed villagers who are poverty stricken, and bought medicine to alleviate pain and suffering.  I’ve helped animals: I’ve volunteered at dog shelters and I’ve found homes for over a dozen street dogs.  I’ve met and adopted two beautiful doggy souls along the way who now walk at my side: Cassie and Mama.

I’ve formed life-long bonds and friendships.  I’ve lived and worked at a meditation & retreat centre.  I’ve experienced life according to the peal of a gong, not the tick of a clock.  I’ve started my days with sun salutations and ended them with fireside Hindu chanting.  I’ve lived in a village with red-dust roads; I’ve lived in a luxury apartment with a full sea view; I’ve lived in a traditional Khmer wooden house with mango trees in the garden.  I’ve met people from every inhabitable continent in the world.  I’ve connected deeply with human souls, mother nature and spirit beings.  I’ve held ceremony, learned meditation and returned earth-bound sprit to the light.

I’ve had my world-view turned upside down and inside out.  I’ve welcomed spirit in to my life; learned ancient healing techniques and practices; I’ve gained mentors and friends.  I’ve set up a joint spiritual healing centre.  I’ve embarked on new training, new learning.  I’ve put aside many of my prejudices and assumptions.  I’ve faced many of my shadows.  I’ve adopted new ways of being.

I’ve had the opportunity to understand what it is to earn good money and what it feels like to earn pittance.  I’ve had really dark days, but I’ve had the grit, determination and perseverance to get through them.  I’ve learned what it is to feel loneliness.  Panic.  Anxiety.  Grief.   I’ve plumbed the depths of me.  I’ve asked spirit to let me die; I’ve asked spirit to give me another chance.  

I’ve travelled to many countries and places.  I’ve experienced much love and fun and laughter.  I’ve had opportunities that I never thought I would have.  I’ve spent time in 135 million year old primary rainforests; I’ve seen wild orangutan; I’ve drunk coffee looking up at the world’s tallest mountains;  I’ve swam in tropical seas with giant leatherback turtles; I’ve drunk cocktails in capital city roof top bars.  I’ve prayed in temples, mosques, churches and synagogues.  

And I’m grateful.  I’m really bloody grateful. 

Why am I telling you this?

Because of perceived restrictions.  I could have stayed in a career that stopped firing me up and started to strangle me.  I could have stayed just because I was trained in it and it gave me security.  I could have stayed in a home that was my own, in rural Oxfordshire.  But it wasn’t my home to live in: it was someone else’s.  I could have stayed in a tropical island paradise, but I heard the call of adventure and growth from somewhere unknown, somewhere more difficult.  And so, perceived restrictions:  things that we think are immovable and unchangeable.  But actually, a lot can be altered, adjusted.  Sure, there’s some things that bind us, but there’s a lot we can free ourselves of.  And we can live in a freer way; an intuitive way.