My Why

“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. 

When 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