Hello, invisible audience,
Long time no write. Let’s just say it’s been a hell of a
year for me, one filled with a lot of introspection, grief, pain and growth. If
I haven’t lost you yet, I may lose you soon; this is a post about showing my
new self, and she’s a little bit different.
I’ve had a series of epiphanies in the last six months or
so, and they culminated in a need to escape to somewhere that I could hear
myself think. That place ended up being Yasodhara Ashram, a yoga retreat and
study center near Nelson, British Columbia, on Kootenay Lake. It’s beautiful
here, and a good place to contemplate life’s bigger questions with other people
searching for the same thing. At the same time, it’s exhausting; you’re in it,
all the time, everywhere you look and whatever you do. An intentionally
spiritual community like this one is focused on seeing what is behind the
everyday and mundane; the people here are looking for meaning in the smallest
task and the largest life questions, and I am no exception.
The ashram is set up in a way that makes you confront your
coping strategies, reassess your communication tactics, and to teach you to
watch your interactions as if from afar. If you’re working with someone and
their leadership style rubs you the wrong way, why? Why are other peoples’
stratagems antagonizing you? What does your reaction say about YOU?
Needless to say, the types of questions that come up are
worthwhile, and shed everything in a new light. I bawl my eyes out or at least
wipe tears off my face nearly every day.
Fortunately for me, this is not a strange thing at the ashram; someone
told me when I first arrived that anyone scared off by tears would leave almost
immediately.
I love it here, and I also hate it. I keep waiting to get to
the bottom of all the emotions I feel and why I feel them, but I’m beginning to
realize that this whole personal growth thing is a lifelong challenge. As much
as I don’t ever want to stop growing, I look at the residents of the ashram –
people who have been asking themselves the hard questions for years – and I
catch myself thinking, “They’ve been doing it for so long, haven’t they reached
the bottom of their well of life’s questions yet? Could there really be that
much MORE to look at; a whole lifetime’s worth?”
Well, the answer is yes. Of course the questions change over
the years. Of course life becomes different as you go. Once you uncover one
emotional barrier, dig it up and break it apart, you realize it was just
covering up a bigger, deeper one. While I enjoy all the things I have learned
about myself and can see how that knowledge has enriched my life and my
relationships, it sometimes seems like I will never get to a point where I will
be comfortable with who I am.
One of the things they stress here is the ability to love
and accept yourself just as you are at this moment; not the person you wish to
become, but who you are, in all your humanness. This seems to go against my
very nature. I have realized that I berate myself for things I don’t know; I
expect myself to perfectly perform tasks I have never even tried before. It’s
amazing I’ve ever tried anything new. I think this is the reason I haven’t
written you in so long, invisible audience. I am uncomfortable in this new skin
I’ve been growing into, and I don’t know how to present the new me perfectly,
in a way that will make her loveable and appreciated, in all her humanness. I
don’t know how, so I officially give up. Here she is: the new Morgan. This one
has had a hard year, and found it almost impossible to talk about. This Morgan
just realized how little her life’s choices have had to do with what she really
wanted, and a lot to do with what she perceived others expected of her. This
Morgan is unsure where her future is going to lead her, and terrified and
exhilarated at all the possibilities. The new Morgan wants your support, but
doesn’t know how to ask for it. This Morgan wants to emerge, but is still
apprehensive at the thought of stepping out into the light.
A couple days ago, a friend of mine was found alive after
going missing on a family hiking trip. The fear and grief of thinking he had
slipped, possibly hit his head, fallen into the lake and drowned made me
realize yet again how short life truly is, and how important it is to live your
life authentically. The miracle of finding him alive – although beat up and
still with a long way to go to recover – has strengthened my resolve to let my
new self emerge while there is still life to be lived. So here she is,
invisible audience. This Morgan believes that life is a miracle, and every day
needs to be treated as one.
Love and miraculous kisses
Morgan
