Browsing Category

Costa Rica

Costa Rica, fear, The Move

There is no such thing as a leap of faith.

March 23, 2015

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Harold Whitman

 

IMG_0522If there is such a thing as a leap of faith, right now we are in the air: legs dangling, hair flying, eyes wide, hoping for a soft place to land.

To be honest, a single leap of faith would be a lot easier than this.

Changing your life – really changing it – requires more than a single leap.

It actually requires leaping – a little or a lot – every single day.

This started with us making much smaller decisions to change our lives. We changed our diet when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. At the time, that was a leap.

That decision led to us eating better and better and better. Each time was a little leap.

When we first let in the little inkling of the dream of moving? For us at the time, that was a leap.

When we made the decision? Leap.

When I quit my job, when we told our families, when we bought the tickets? Leap, leap and leap.

When we began deciding what to take and what to get rid of? Lots of little leaps.

When we packed our crate, our house, our bags? Leaps.

In the moments when we looked at each other and said, “What the hell are we doing?” (Many, many, times.) Big leaps.

And tomorrow at 11.25 when we finally take off? Leap.

And they won’t stop – because every decision, every choice, every time we do anything that takes us out of our comfort zone – that’s another leap.

My point? That every day we have a choice to make: the easy way, or the way that will take us closer to what we want. Every difficult choice is a choice that will take you closer to another. Every one is a leap of faith.

Leaps are relative. And they never end. Each one leads to another.

You can’t rush the process or see the way they will lead you. You can’t see how they will work out or whether or not it was the right choice. You can’t wish things sooner or ever know the outcome.

All you can do is leap.

😉

xo

 

 


 

hh2015badge250

Do you want to be part of a warm and open-hearted community of women, gathered around a virtual hearth fire? Would you like to join those women for discussion about spirituality, questions, self-care and magic?

Do you crave open, honest conversation about spirituality?

Then we would love it if you would join Sas Petherick and I for Heart and Hearth.

Alignment, Costa Rica

My Why

February 17, 2015

My wish is that others will learn to stop before I did, to take into account the limitations of their physical bodies and to take the time to listen to the yearnings of their soul.

It is in the taking care of ourselves we learn the ability to take care of others.” – Celia Lashlie, who died yesterday. 

 

meghan with wingsWhen we tell people that we are about to move to Costa Rica, the question is almost always, “What are you going to DO?”

No one ever asks us why.

Nearly everyone has gone straight to the fears of not-enough. They are practical. How are we going to pay our bills? How are we going to make money? How will we fill our days? How are we going to survive?

But no one ever asks us why we are moving.

No one ever questions the need to move away. No one ever wonders why on earth we would leave a really good job and move to a foreign country. No one ever asks us what the real reasons are for the move.

Because I think that deep down, everyone already thinks they know.

They think we are moving because this life – this seemingly perfect life, isn’t perfect. They think we are moving because we don’t want to spend all year working our asses off just so that we can spend two weeks in the sun getting over it. They think we are moving because we are running away from something; because we think that somehow life will be better somewhere else. They think we are moving because it’s sunny where we are going to live.

And in some ways they are right. But that’s not the whole story. That is only part of our why.

We are moving because we have had huge life lessons in not waiting until you are retired to live. We are moving because we know to our souls that life is precious and that taking care of ourselves has to be our highest priority. We are moving because if we are not happy in this seemingly idyllic life, then it is we that are the problem. If we are the problem, then no job, no car, no vacation, and no stuff can fill that space in our hearts. We are moving because when we made the decision to move, the holy yes that happened at that moment filled us with such peace, we couldn’t not listen.

We are moving because we know that our time and our health and our lives are the most precious things we have; so we are going to build a life that supports, celebrates and honours that.

So what are we going to do? We are going to listen to the messages telling us to move. We are going to get on with living our lives. We are going to create a life from scratch that honours our lives instead of our stuff. We know it’s not going to be easy, that we are incredibly lucky to be able to make this choice, and that anything could happen. But we also know that life is precious and we want to get everything we can out of this time around. So we are going to get on a plane and see where the next holy yes takes us.

We have no other choice.

xo

 “If we are identified with being married to a certain person, with a job, with our very body and life – that’s how deep it goes – there’s not any real peace or freedom because something in us knows that it’s all very fragile.  So we are always on some level kind-of tensing against what’s around the corner.” – Tara Brach

 

 

Alignment, Costa Rica

From the Ashes

February 9, 2015

When people let go of their clutter, the spiritual work can deeply penetrate. – Tosha Silver, Outrageous Openness

 

burning our stuffOne extremely short month tomorrow, we leave the UK.

I haven’t been writing very much because all we have been doing since my last post about stuff, is getting rid of more stuff. The amount of stuff two humans can accumulate over the course of a few years is absolutely absurd.

Stuff.

The question that has been echoing through our rooms and across our days is always the same: why did I keep this? And we know that no matter how carefully we choose, when we open the boxes at the other end, the question will probably be the same: why did we keep this?

Why do we keep anything? How does one thing – ordinary to all but us – end up on the permanent life list? How does one thing make the cut?

We have made the cut many, many times. Today, again, we ask: yes or no? Things that made the yes pile three weeks ago are greeted with a sigh of exasperation and a resounding ‘no!’

Why?

All I can think is that as we get closer and closer to the end of this life and the beginning of the next, we are shedding more and more layers of ourselves as we shed the stuff of our past. Security blankets, buffers, and the emotional baggage of our past life – so present a month ago – are seeming less and less like the new us. We can’t see how this thing – once so precious – fits into the new version of ourselves. As we pack, the new versions of ourselves are beginning to emerge.

And they don’t need this stuff.

Today we burned a whole lot of stuff. Old journals, paper copies of Unfurl, receipts, and piles and piles and piles of my notes and writing went up in smoke. The last thing that went on the fire was a package of Taos Sage. Putting it close to the edge so that it would smoke instead of burn, we smudged ourselves in the clouds of smoke, releasing everything we didn’t want to take with us.

I know that things will get messier and more complicated and more wrenching and more challenging before they get better. I know that it will get harder and easier to say goodbye to the items that have made up our lives. But I also know that no matter what, a month from now, we will get on a plane and begin the next chapter of our lives. No matter what, two weeks later, we will land in Costa Rica. And I know that no matter what, we will have chosen, consciously, every single thing that is coming with us.

And that feels really good.

xo