Blowing up the Death Star

Tags

Achilles heel, bogey men, Brutalised, Death Star, defiled, Depression, flower offerings, gravitational field, gut instincts, Incense, jasmine, light therapy treatment, Mantra, Meditation, nurturing, PTSD, Sanskrit, self-love, Skywalker, space junk, Star Wars, supta virasana, Trauma, use the force, yellow daisies

It was something about my face…of course, that’s where most of the physical damage was caused. And so, after leaving work on Thursday I did something that wasn’t particularly logical, all things considered.

I found myself at a beauty salon, wanting some kind of facial treatment. It was money I didn’t really have or intend to spend, but I didn’t even think about it like that.

Ended up getting a peel and they also suggested this light therapy thing. Didn’t know what it was, but it sounded good.

You look like you’re in need of a pick-me-up, the therapist slowly scanned my face and eyes.

Yep… [and I’m REALLY trying not to cry].

I did though, but not while she was in the room.

Somehow my instincts knew this was a good idea. Someone soothing my face with beautiful products and massaging my skin while delicate music was piped into the room. Low lighting and glorious aromas. An oasis in the middle of the city, a level up from one of the busiest intersections in town (not that you’d have known it).

She finished with the peel and prepped me for the light therapy treatment. Little goggles on my eyes. Something positioned over my head.

It’s really, bright. It takes a moment to get used to it. I’ll turn on one light first, then the other.

Soooo bright, yep, she wasn’t lying. Although my eyes were tightly closed nothing was black – instead everything glowed golden-red. And after a few moments I thought that this is probably what consciousness is like when we’re no longer limited to a human form. Everything as one, so very luminous. It wasn’t scary, just really relaxing.

Later I cried some more while I dressed – me with my smooth new skin that felt and looked wonderful. Sure I was a little shiny, but I was going straight home so what did I care.

I cleaned my practice room – vacuumed and dusted. I read these posts by Nadine and Kerry – which were incredibly timely (thanks gals!). I cried a whole bunch more as I snipped yellow daisies (I think?) and jasmine from the bushes outside my apartment.

My yoga practice was very simple – some breathing and then a supported supta virasana (although with the bolster further away from my lower back so I could tilt my pelvis forward more than the woman in this picture).

This pose always feels like hell when I first lie back, but once I relax it generates the most open and joyous feeling – the supported version is awesome if you’re feeling fragile!

Then I felt more open in both the hips and the heart. It was time for my practice which involves a series of chants and prayers in Sanskrit, and generating love, gratitude, compassion and wonder. Some incense and flower offerings, mantra repetitions and then… sitting. Just sitting in meditation for as long as I needed to.

My altar, adorned with flowers

There’s a bunch of structured or form-based meditations I’ve learned, but that’s not what I needed just then. So I just sat, following my breath and listening to my body, relaxing deeply. I think I sat there for around an hour.

From this place comes information. I got the face thing, then. Five years ago, it’d been defiled. Brutalised. And then I’d allowed it to hold my shame and fear. I’d also grown an invisible mask that covered my eyes as well as my entire face. I didn’t want people to see me. I didn’t want to see them. I wouldn’t let anyone get too close, just in case they were dangerous.

But now I’d begun reversing all of that with a symbolic gesture of self-love and nurturing (gotta love those gut instincts).

Then I noticed a whole bunch of energy rising up in waves from my stomach to my heart. Many layers. Hello, Fear. Hi, Despair. What’s up, Grief? How-dee-do, Shock? Each one reaching upwards, evaporating and integrating and no longer weighing a tonne in my belly.

I’ve never really told anyone this: my meditation practice suffered a great deal when all of this went down. I stopped for the longest time and felt terrible about it. But how could I meditate when those things could happen to me?

It took a long, long time to regain that ground.

The problem most of the time was relaxing (impossible to meditate if you’re tense!) and closing my eyes (which made sleeping quite tricky), because behind closed eyes was where all the scary stuff lurked.

Which is why the whole light therapy treatment thing was SUCH an extra amazing piece of synchronicity because that light – so warm and golden – blasted away any last possible dark hiding place.

See? No bogey men here!!

So I continued sitting and breathing until I felt like all the shackles I’d built up were undone. At least right at that moment anyway. I did some closing chants, extinguished the candles and slept deeply. Dreamlessly.

I felt… much better. Calm, and perhaps still fragile but MUCH better.

I’d never before felt the pull of this date or tied any meaning to it. September 29^th has not once been circled in my calendar and I’ve never held on to it as a marker of what happened. Perhaps because I was trying to forget, I’m not really sure.

BUT this time around I wasn’t allowed to let it pass by (thanks tiny but accurate voice of intuition!) and I think that MAYBE… this is truly the beginning of my freedom.

Maybe it’s time – maybe I’m ready to no longer think of myself in relation to what happened, y‘know?

I suspect that to be able to say I am truly healed; this thing that happened has to become unimportant to who I now am. It can’t be a reference point for everything that happens moving forward and I can’t continue to orbit around it like it’s the center of my being.

Sure, for a long time that’s exactly how it felt. Like I was just space junk held in the gravitational field of the Death Star (i.e. the trauma, the PTSD, the depression, the memories of What Happened).

And somehow, the realisation of this milestone date, and exactly how far I’ve come in that time, not to mention some timely and amazing facial treatments (including all of that LIGHT!) were the killer shot, right in the Death Star’s Achilles heel.

Just like young Skywalker, somehow I found a way to use the force and blast that sucker… totally disabling its ability to destroy anything anymore.

But… I could be wrong. Time will tell I guess. At the very least, this is the beginning of the end of it all… Just like the end of my PTSD flashbacks, I’ll wait and watch.

In the meantime, I can’t believe how much better I feel. Possibly this is akin to how my old Self felt once upon a time, not that I can remember Her too well…

But it’s been a REALLY long time since I felt this good.

~Svasti

(With apologies to those who don’t get my geeky Star Wars references!)  😉

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Plans not resolutions

Tags

Ayurveda, dance, decorate, fitness, gardening, Health, Inspiration, joy, kirtan, New Year's plans, New Year's resolutions, Retreat, Thailand, Yoga

I went a little nutty last night. In part, I blame the fluey cold I’m slowly recovering from. But also, I blame that song that is apparently still haunting me on occasion. Haven’t heard it in ages, but yesterday at lunch I wandered into a supermarket to buy some pistachios and what do I hear? Yup. That dang song again! I’ve been hearing it for two or three years now, whenever big change is happening or about to happen. *looks around suspiciously*

I got home and had a sudden fit of de-clutterisation. Okay, that’s probably not even a word. But I’ve been living in my apartment for just over a year now and truth be told, I hadn’t really finished unpacking. My second room which is currently my practice room (I know it sounds fancy to have a room just for yoga and meditation, but it’s not exactly a very big room, okay?), has had crap piled up on the eastern wall pretty much since I moved in.

So I sorted the things I needed to throw out from the stuff I needed to find a place for. I was ruthless! There’s a couple of pieces of pseudo furniture in there, too: a small filing cabinet and my little sewing machine bench/table thingy. Plus a box of books and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ve simply neglected to assign to a cupboard or other storage spot. And I do have plenty of that, at least!

After several hours (where did the time go?) I had much less stuff in my practice room. The filing cabinet has been re-homed and I think once the books are gone, I might just have to deal with my sewing machine living in there. I’m cool with that… I’d also managed to free up some space (as yet unused) in the wardrobe in my bedroom and I even found more clothes and daypacks I don’t need that I can donate to charity. Somewhere along the line, I ended up with a lot of daypacks!

All of this has to do with one of my plans for 2010, so it’s good. Very good. I’m not trying to like, distract you here. Or myself. In fact, last night I was very focused. Not bad for a recovering sickie.

Anyway… like I said a couple of posts back, I don’t really like the word “resolution”. It’s too loaded and generally speaking, when people make New Year’s resolutions they often don’t last.

So instead, I like the idea of New Year’s plans. I figure if I can work out what I want to do, I can make a plan. And plans are things I can put it into action. Also, a “plan” sounds more like something I intend to do than a resolution.

And really, it’s kind of exciting because like many things for me right now, it’s the first time in years that I’ve even thought about making real plans for myself! Ending up in yoga teacher training last year was a bit of a happy accident – it’s not like I thought it through.

But this year… I feel like I might just have possibilities.

And so without further ado, I present my current list of plans. Some things will change for certain. They always do. But for now, this is what I’d like to make happen in 2010:

• Daily practice – yoga, meditation & pranayama. It’s time to build and explore.
• Continue with group personal training sessions for cardio fitness and being social.
• Build my jogging up so I can once again do 5km easily.
• Start teaching yoga classes and continue throughout the year. Current plans are to approach HR at my work and see if I can run a class in our boardroom. For starters.
• Continue studying Shadow Yoga (which might be the next YTT I take on). Next week, I’m doing an immersion: 5 mornings in a row of 6am classes. I can’t wait!
• Retreat in Thailand in October/November – It’s the final retreat in a seven year program we’ve been doing. Yup, seven years of spending 2-6 weeks a year in retreat. Except for last year, when we had a bye.
  Special note: this year is open to non-students. We just started doing that last year. If you’re interested, let me know and I can send you some information.
• Investigate all different kinds of yoga – I want to experience as many different styles and teachers as I can! There’s always my Guru and everything learn with him. I love Hatha and Shadow Yoga, but I want more! So I’m going to visit a range of studios to see how other teachers do it, and what else might resonate for me. To kick things off, in February I’m going to the Mark Whitwall weekend that Nadine Fawell is organizing.
• Get an MRI for my shoulder – that dang bike accident is still bothering me and one of my friends in Sydney very sensibly suggested I get an MRI. I simply don’t think of those things…
• Find a local Ayurveda doctor – I’ve tried a couple down in Melbourne but haven’t found one that I really like. Yet.
• Lose weight – seriously all the yoga, cycling and personal training I’ve been doing has not helped me lose weight. I tend to think it’s a side effect of depression and I know if I keep up the consistency, it will happen. But for now, umm… still working on that.
• Learn to cook better – I don’t have a great attitude about cooking just for myself. And I don’t think of myself as a good cook. Those things have to change. I’m thinking of cooking courses, and simply inviting more people over for dinner. I have cookbooks and perhaps if I create situations where I need to cook for others, it’ll start flowing a little easier for me?
• Travel before or after retreat – maybe see more of Thailand or go to Laos or Cambodia?
• Date/find a boyfriend – doesn’t have to be the love of my life, though that’d be nice! Just y’know… some practice would be good!
• Get real with money – It’s not something I’ve been great at, but I’m on a saving/cost-cutting adventure where possible. Less eating out, less erroneous spending. More saving money so I don’t end up broke the other side of retreat.
• Get more joy in my life every day – finding more ways to invoke happiness for myself. The following points are all directly related to this! Not that some of the above mentioned aren’t. Especially yoga, of course.
• Stay involved with the kirtan group – I love what’s happening there.
• More involvement with the writing group – I haven’t been to another writing group meet up since the first one. Shyness is part of it. So was having almost every weekend taken up by yoga teacher training!
• Do a bike maintenance course – learn how to do more than just fix a flat tyre for myself!
• Course to learn to write a novel – I feel like I need some structure and support there.
• Do some dance classes and/or head out to some salsa nights – I love to dance but it’s been a long time since dance was a regular part of my life. That soooo has to change!
• Decorate my house MORE – including framing some prints that’ve been waiting for EVER, re-staining my bedroom furniture, making some curtains, and decorating my practice/yoga room (hence the de-clutterisation, folks).
• Experiment with gardening – I’ve only ever grown a few herbs and this year I’d like to try growing some veggies. Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, snow peas etc. Nommy things to eat. 🙂

Yeah, so that’s sorta it for now at least. There’ll be edits, new additions, deletions and I’m sure, things I haven’t even considered yet. But it does feel good to be starting the year with some idea of what I’d like to do with myself…

~Svasti

Rising from the ashes

Tags

Auroch, Dross, Fears, Fylgia, Moving house, Norse mythology, Odin, Ragnarok, Refinement, Rune poems, Runes, Trust, Ur, Vidar

Dross comes from bad iron;
The reindeer often races over the frozen snow.
~ Rune poem from the Younger Futhark.

This above poem belongs to the rune Ur, which is associated with the god Vidar – son of Odin – and supposedly the only survivor of Ragnarok (end of the world) in Norse mythology.

Vidar is one of the strongest warriors in the Norse pantheon.

His fylgia/totem animal is the auroch, an extremely large type of cattle. They roamed the plains of Europe before they were hunted to extinction in the 1600’s.

This is one of many versions of such poems, and they’re something I’ve studied for many years now.

So I’ll lend you my interpretation: Dross comes from bad iron – refers to sword making, and how, in the process of refining and strengthening the sword, the metal is purified and what remains must be cast off in order to forge the strongest of weapons. And: The reindeer often races over the frozen snow – travelling over snow is easier once it’s hardened. You can move faster, more efficiently.

Ah… enough with the metaphors!

Things have turned another corner again, and I’m feeling goood!!

The great news is – I’ve finally found a new home for  myself. I move this coming weekend from my temporary digs in deepest darkest Suburbia-Urbia, to a central, close-to-work-suits-my-needs-flat. I’ll be a 35 minute walk from work, or a much shorter push-bike, bus or tram ride. I’ll be living close to the city and my Melbourne friends again too.

I’m gonna retrieve my worldly possessions from storage, and start the process of setting up what will be (I think) my nineteenth place of residence. Let’s  hope I get to live in this one for a while, although with my track record I won’t hold my breath…

This marks a turning of the wheel for me. When I packed up my life back in June, I was also closing the door on the last few years. Symbolically and literally. But it hasn’t been easy. And sure, I know its not the end of the road just yet. But it is the beginning of the end of the reign of terror that Andre brought into my life, which I allowed to remain and flourish.

My new home is, interestingly enough, in the same neighbourhood I lived in when I was assaulted. Just a few blocks away. And I’m okay with that. Really.

My story however, is far from over.

I’m still not done posting about earlier parts of this story, and I haven’t quite gotten around to talking about my experiences on retreat in Thailand that allowed me to release so much of the pain I’d been holding onto. But without a doubt, I will…

My fears and issues still exist – especially around letting anyone get close to me – I’m working on ’em! There’s still alot to do, and many things that need changing.

I’m reconstructing my life again, but not necessarily in its former shape. And I have all the tools I need, for now anyway. I have an income, I will soon have a new home. I have some great friends in Melbourne, Sydney and around the globe. And even some I’ve come to know and begin trust via my blog – you folks know who you are. Muchas gracias!

Something important I’ll be doing in the short term is taking on a flatmate. I’m renting a two bedroom place just big enough to share. I could afford to live there by myself, but the extra cash will pay off some of my debts faster. However this is more crucial for another reason.

Whilst in Thailand, I spent some time getting to know one of my yogi brothers better and we talked a great deal about community and the social benefits of having a flatmate. Which got me thinking. Its very easy for me to live as a hermit. I kinda enjoy my time alone just a bit too much.

But I don’t think that’s helped my healing process at all. When you live alone and choose who you let in the door, its very easy to keep everyone out.

In doing just that, I’ve built up walls of concrete, marble and steel around my heart. I needed protection at the time, but now no one can get in. Even today, its not easy. I simply don’t trust most people. Sure, I look and act friendly enough, but just try scratching the surface a little…

Regardless, I need to try because I no longer want that experience. So I need to break down my current patterns. Starting with learning to share a home.

For I don’t just want to break down those protective layers, I want to open my heart wider than it ever was. To grow beyond anything I ever thought possible.

So this is not back to the status quo. Its the beginning of a new direction.

~Svasti

Monsters in the closet

Tags

death, Dreams, Drink Me, Fake tan, hallway monster, heart break, imagination, loo, Mad Hatters Tea Party, monsters, Queen of Hearts, super powers, wenches

There’s method in my madness, although it may be utterly unintelligible to others, or even to my own good self.

One of my many, many quirks is this – I’ve always considered my imagination to be a secret weapon, kind of like a super power.

As a young child, I had a wildly over-active mind, full of ghosts and goblins and invisible people. Who knows, perhaps some of them were really there? Anyway, two main night-time fantasies persisted, around the concept of monsters.

My monsters looked a little like Sully (see pic) although perhaps a little scarier.

First – I had this idea that when us kids had gone to bed, my parents took off their ‘skins’ and underneath they were really monsters. I never thought they wanted to kill us or anything, just that they had another ‘face’ we never saw.

Second – there was a hallway monster, who wasn’t either of my parents. And he was really scary! He hung around outside my bedroom door which meant he was in the way of me getting to the toilet. I learned I could have a ‘conversation’ with him, in which we made a deal. He could be outside my room all he wanted, except when I needed to go to the loo (Aussie word for ‘toilet’). And since we never formally crossed paths, I figured it worked. 😉

As I graduated from monsters to real life fears, I found different ways to use my imaginal powers. I had endless horrific nightmares from the ages of 10-16. I dreamt not only of my own death, but that of almost every person I knew. I’ve been at my funeral many times over in my dream world. Some of the dreams I dreamt of others were frightening. Like the one where my sister was beheaded and no matter what I tried I couldn’t stop them…

In response to my night time terrors I actively imagined all sorts of things. I had this theory that if I dreamt or thought of it first, it could no longer come true in the real world. In this way, I protected the people I loved because I’d taken away horrible possibilities by thinking about them already. Weird, I know!

Moving into adulthood, my terror became that of heart break. I would seek to expunge the ‘last memory’ of being somewhere special with ex-boyfriends/partners by taking myself back to those places whenever I could. So they no longer held any fear or sadness and once again became ‘just a place’.

It seems like another lifetime ago that I had these funny ideas and ways of handling my emotions.

The exception is dealing with the ‘Andre’ stuff.

I’ve been near and around where he lives, but not by design. It wasn’t so long ago I figuratively dropped my lunch when my therapist asked me how I’d handle things if I ever did come face to face with Andre again. I’ve never purposely sought out any of the places I’d spent time with him.

But tomorrow night I’m going back to the ‘scene of the crime’: the club where we first met. And that’s because my good friend L and I are going to a fancy dress party!!

Hence the fake tan. The reality of my costume involves a fair bit of flesh on display and my beautiful Thai suntan has faded in Melbourne’s lingering Winter.

The fake tan is also a thin chemical layer of protection. Something between me and… the spectres of ‘past-Svasti’ and ‘past-Andre’.

Actually, I’m not really going there on purpose to exorcise ghosts – its just there was a party on that I damn-well wanted to go to! And I decided, after three years I’m way past ready, damnit!

L knows the deal with all that stuff ofcourse, and we’re both there for each other in the good chick friendship kind of way as well as the – let’s be dirty little stop outs kind of way…

Logical brain says – I don’t expect he will be there. Ofcourse he won’t be there. I know he won’t be there.

Fear says – but what if by some freak happenstance he is there?

Shut up says my intuition. Its just not gonna happen, okay?

I’m going over to L’s place after work tomorrow. We’re picking up our costumes on the way. At her place we’ll primp and preen, do hair and make up, help each other into our outfits and drink outrageous amounts of vodka.

The theme is ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’. And we’re going as wenches at the Queen of Hearts’ court. Ofcourse! There’s a red velvet corset, a short, sassy bustle-y skirt and some stay up fishnets coming my way. And a faux black velvet hat. Plus accoutrements.

Should be a hoot. I really and truly don’t party like this very much or very often. Must be the arrival of Spring – both L and I decided it was time to let our hair down and then the party came up.

Actually, I’m so darn toey that I’m just hoping there’s fun with some tall, dark ‘n’ handsome Mad Hatters – and I betcha anything if I opened the “Drink Me” bottle, there’d be some short term amnesia involved…

~Svasti

P.S. Jay – no rude remarks about the number of posts I’ve made this week please!! Yesterday’s came out of nowhere and so did today’s. Sometimes a girl’s just gotta write…

P.P.S. I’m still in a little bit of shock that I’m actually gonna post this to my blog…

Hormonal warfare

Tags

Anxiety, Desire, Eye contact, Happiness, Hormones, Intimacy, Positive, Red wine, Senses, Sensual, Sex, Spring, Tapas, Waking up

I’m like a little seed, dusty and dry but full of potential. A seed that’s been sitting in the garden shed in the dark for a very long time. Waiting. With no reason to think there was a way out from that unnatural yet safe place I’ve sheltered in, weathering the storm of recovery.

Perhaps the change of season has something to do with it?

For rather suddenly I feel exceptionally alive! It’s Spring, not yet Summer. But the weather is becoming reliably warmer and more beautiful. There’s a flavour to the air. A warm caress on the breeze. Cascading blossoms of every colour to take in with the eyes and nose.

It’s almost like I’ve never used my senses to engage with the world before. Not properly. Not like this. I can feel every hair follicle on my head. No situation is without intense sensory involvement.

Could it be… could I be… finding some happiness? Possibly really waking up after this seemingly endless numb-out?

There are difficulties still, but they take center stage less and less.

However there’s one issue that currently looms larger than any other.

Sex. Intimacy. Or the lack thereof. I posted about this topic a few months back.

Once again comes into view. The first trigger was the boy who’s recently been paying me some attention in a coy kind of way.

That situation created a lot of anxiety for me. I didn’t know how to respond at all. Especially if someone’s not being up front. I can barely hold a decent conversation with the guy, as sweet as he is. I guess that means it’s simply not right anyway. Surely if it was, it would be much easier. That doesn’t stop the anxiety running ten to the dozen though!

And I’ve just begun to realise how often I go out of my way to avoid eye contact with men I don’t know.

In that respect it was tough starting my new job, in which I have to deal with new people every day at the moment. New clients to talk to regularly. Some of them are men. It’s been a swift learning curve though, so I’m grateful for that.

And yet… gawd, there are periods each day where I’m totally and completely overwhelmed by my desire to be, erm, getting it on!!

I have the hormones of a teenager.

Except for one very minor blip, there’s been nothing on the radar at all in the last three years. So I’m apparently stuck in this way a little… because I can’t wilfully lift out of this issue with the same effort I’ve applied in almost every other area of my recovery.

I’m afraid of getting what I want, and I want it badly… but I also don’t know how to get there. And if I do get there, I’m not sure if I’ll feel safe and secure.

Amusingly, I think all that sexual energy is being sublimated into other areas of my life. I nearly lost it completely over dinner with friends on Friday night. Granted, we were eating some of the most delicious tapas I’ve had in years. I was also drinking some pretty spectacular red wine… it was very intense and sensual.

I’m just grateful for the mercies of meditation practice that help redistribute the rest of that energy!

~Svasti

Tear it all down

Tags

Change, Job, Life, Moving, Travel

Today is the beginning of some huge changes I’m making in my life.

For a long time things have been very much ‘same-same’. No changes. No movement out of the ghetto I’ve been sheltering in.

Despite everything I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to lose weight (I know this is energetic/emotional). I haven’t been able to move forward, meet the man of my dreams. I haven’t been able to put the past in the past. I have been unhappy with my workplace situation. I haven’t been having my regular deja vu experiences – which are like signposts to me that I’m on the right course in my life.

Then earlier this year, I had mystery shoulder pain to deal with. Once I finally figured out what that was all about and started therapy… well that’s when all these changes started to snowball. My mother went into hospital for her third surgery in twelve months and at the same time my 93 year old grandmother had yet another fall, and was moved from her ‘independant with much help’ life to life in a nursing home (which she hates). I was also having a minor anxiety attack at the huge rent increase the landlords wanted on top of another pretty decent one six months prior. And then the news about my boss being inflexible with my holiday leave.

Ofcourse, at the same time that all this stuff has been going on, I also started this blog and decided to wrestle my darkest experiences into words and publish them on the interwebs.

Suddenly, nothing was ‘same-same’ any more!

In fact, it was big decision making time. I stopped seeing everything that was happening as a disaster and started tuning in to the Grace of the situation. And I realised it was time. Time to tear it all down.

There are various people to whom this quote is attributed (Einstein, Franklin etc):

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Nothing had been working the way it was. And I wanted things to be different??

So… I came to the conclusion that its just time for change. As my good friend L said, Well, you’ve been saying nothing is changing in your life, so isn’t this a good thing?

Right. Right!! Yes, it is a good thing. However its just a whole lotta change all at once. But taken one thing at a time, its not so bad. And actually, I couldn’t be starting therapy again at a better time really. My therapist, H, has been an amazing support.

So I did what I had to do for both my mother and grandmother. I handed in notice on my rented flat, organising to stay with my folks for a little bit before my overseas trip and for a while when I get back. And I quit my job without another one to go to.

As another one of my good friends JM would say – I’m taking a running leap and trusting that the universe will be there to support me.

So far, so good.

I’m moving this weekend. This afternoon in fact. And even though I despise moving and packing, I’m doing a damn fine job on my own! I’m leaving my work on good terms. I’ve even been told to take whatever time I need to go to job interviews. I have a second interview next week for a job that I’m really interested in, so keep your fingers crossed for me. And in a week and a half, I’ll be going overseas for five weeks on my yearly yoga retreat.

My parents are taking care of lovely Cleo the cat whilst I’m away. And when I get back, I fully expect to either already have a job or get one pretty quickly. The market for my industry is on fire at the moment!

So yeah. I could have chosen to let all this make me weak. But instead I decided to surf the wave of change, taking control, riding high and proud. It has actually been very liberating, especially at the time when I’m facing my worst demons.

Its a very strange thing to not know what your future is going to look like. I mean, none of us really do, but we generally kind of have an idea. We know where we live, what our job is (if we have one). We generally know what life will look like in a couple of months from now. I have not a clue.

And its the most excited I’ve felt in years.

~Svasti