.png)
Today I heard that it takes courage to re-invent yourself especially when it’s at a low point in your life. I think most re-invention happens at an all time low. Why would you change if things were going great? Why would you question anything about your life if you were feeling good? Honestly, for me, at the time it felt like there was no other option if I wanted to rise. Sure, I could have taken an easy way out and just slid downhill and not cared about myself or anyone for that matter. But that seemed like cheating and I always felt called to something higher than me. So at the end of 2016, I decided, or more like felt forced, to re-invent myself.
After a series of events, like losing my job, a betrayal of a dear friend, the breakup of who I thought at the time was The One, and coming to the end of my apartment lease in 2016, I left New York City. For good.
Now, it seemed like all of these things happened TO me right around the same time but when I look back, I realize they were all building up. Like the year before, I knew that I would no longer be living in NYC by 2017. I also knew deep down that I despised my job and wanted to do something with a greater purpose and needed to travel more. So in all reality, I manifested getting laid off.
And for the best friend, when we re-signed our lease to live together for another year, I knew that we shouldn’t. Of course, I didn’t listen to that inner voice and instead decided I was overreacting. I mean, we had such a great first year living together, what could possibly go wrong? So I blame myself mostly for allowing that friendship to unravel as it did. And the boyfriend that broke up with me, he never deserved the way I treated him. He’s a good, loyal man who lived too far away from me. We never really stood a chance, and I was too hopeful to believe that we actually did. So, naturally, it all fell apart.
Relationships of all kinds are fragile, so it’s of no surprise really. But at that moment, it was shocking. And it may seem all methodical and logically planned to leave the country, but it wasn’t. I had no idea what I was getting into.
In that moment, I couldn’t see past the boarding pass in my hand. I definitely leapt before I looked.
So with my one way ticket booked, I flew to Bali. That’s an island in Indonesia that seemed not all that appealing to me, but it was the only decently priced yoga teacher training in a warm part of the world during November and December that I could find. I thought I needed to do something productive but couldn’t bear the thought of staying where I had been living. So I found myself with 18 women from around the world in a bamboo shala on the beach explaining WHY I wanted to do a yoga teacher training….
