In search of santosha! THE VERY FIRST BLOG
Just like Thelma and Louise but with better hair styles and no husbands in tow. Getting the hell outta dodge in search of santosha! (My very first BLOG)
After my parent’s recent divorce of 30 some years, never saw that one coming, my roommates got killed in a head on car crash. I lost my job – one that I actually liked and was successful at.
Not just “a job” but a career in the wine industry. Who wouldn’t love those perks!? Next, broke up with a narcissistic boyfriend over text message. Ahhh, don’t feel sorry for him, his sister coined “narcissistic.” We went to Mexico and I discovered he hated swimming in the ocean, really?! He said he is allergic to the salt water, he gets hives! Well, that was NEVER going to work having so much love and respect for the ocean.
After Mex, we came back only to find my new alcoholic roommate was stealing from my personal wine collection and lying about it, flooding toilets and stealing bikes. So, with the help of my trusty side-kick; who shall remain anonymous for the duration of this blog, I will refer to her as Thelma - together we joined forces. If all of this wasn’t reason enough to “get the hell outta dodge,” I searched internally for the answers, mostly in Adho Muka Svanasana = downward facing dog, on my yoga mat and asked myself, “is the universe trying to tell me something?” Yep. I cried it out on my mat many times. Hoping people would not notice the tears, mistaking them for sweat. I cried not only from the heartache and shitty hand I had recently been dealt by a higher power or maybe my own residual karma – who knows, I’m not saying I’ m perfect. But, these tears were also because Julia McCabe my Guru and favorite yogi to date, was kicking my ass in moe foe pigeon and bird of paradise – bird of paradise my ass – mine looked more like broken flamingo. Finally deciding to listen to my own intuition – I will always do this now, making this a personal daily goal, I set out on adventure in search of healing and search of “santosha.”
Santosha in Sanskrit, the literary language of India, means contentment. Ahhhhh, contentment. Yes, you too can achieve contentment in life. I believe we can heal ourselves through yoga therapy, some retail therapy, a slight make over, volunteer work with baby seas turtles, a nice glass of vino, oh who am I kidding, a few bottles of vino shared with friends of course, traveling to beautiful diverse countries such as Italy, Croatia, Nicaragua -meeting and making new friends, learning about new cultures and languages, Spanglish is my new fav, and lots of chocolate -lots and lots of chocolate! All of which are a part of my recipe for Santosha. Yes, my own personal eat-pray-love mission. I'll talk more about this in my next blog.
My first task of "getting the hell outta dodge" suggested by or more accurately - demanded by Thelma was "move out of Whistler!" A small intimate mountain community in Canada's beautiful British Columbia Province. Small but internationally known, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics. I loved this place. Small town. Outdoor lifestyle. Snowboarding, skiing, mountain biking, volley ball, great restaurants, athletic men. It grew on me, like an old comfy sweater that you knew in your heart you should throw out because it was covered in lint balls, unattractive armpit stains but the longer you had it, the harder it was to let go - It was comfortable. I'm talking 10 years now. Thelma lived in the big City of Vancouver and she didn't really understand what I had going on in Whistler. She'd say.."you just like it because you're a big fish in a little pond." I think she was referring to my ego and thought I loved feeling like I was someone special but that wasn't it at all. I felt safe here. I like the fact that I could leave my door unlocked and see people when I was shopping at the local grocery store. The idea of leaving Whistler and moving to Vancouver set my blocked Chakras spinning, propelling me a tiny bit closer to santosha and after the move - being pulled by my hair, by Thelma, kicking and screaming, actually too tired to fight anymore -proved successful.
First order of business, I needed to stop by my ex's place. Did I mention we broke up via txt message? Yah, very similar to that Sex and the City moment where Burger broke up with Carrie by a post-it-note. These things really do happen! Thelma did not want me to go see him. She was worried we would get back together but I only wanted closure and the pizza stone he gave me for Christmas! We said our goodbyes, we cried, well I cried. Not sad I was loosing him but sad I was loosing his family - his sister, his mother, his father, Bella the dog, Oscar the cat. Sad but true. Closure. I got it. Next....
We had to kick my jerk-face roommate out..."but where am I going to goooooo?" he cried all pathetically as we stood face to face steam coming from my ears! "You stole thousands of dollars worth of wine, I don't care - it's not my problem!" I also confronted him about the theft, the blocked toilet that he let overflow and run out into the dining room leaving bits of dried toilet paper stuck to the floor boards, and a missing bottle of lotion I found on his bedroom floor and greasy lotion fingerprints on my bedroom door handle....eeeeewwwww, need I say more?!?! "It's not my problem!!" I yelled back again. That was my breaking point, we all have one. One of Whistler's finest police officer's stood by ready to assist if shit hit the fan, literally, no pun intended but it had it the apartment floor. Poor guy put all this belongings into his car, I did have pity for him. Everything he owned, it all fit. Isn't the saying, the less you have the less problems you have? In this case, it's not true - the car he loaded his things in, he couldn't drive it away because his license was expired. He was an alcoholic. That's just sad. Shaking my head with the memory of it all....I'm happy to have moved on from that roommate nightmare.
Thelma and I packed all my things into boxes in between reliving the recent confrontation, laughing our asses off. In order to make this move I needed to sell some things, and more importantly, I needed the money to pay for yoga teacher training. In the midst of all the madness and recent job loss, I decided to rethink my career by joining Julia McCabe in Nicaragua for her yoga teacher training. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a yoga teacher but I knew that yoga was part of my survival guide through my parent's divorce and break-up. Anytime I felt disconnected I would go to Julia's class. Sweat it out. Cry it out. I was fully unaware of the internal transformation that was happening. The healing had already begun and I wasn't even aware of it. Shakti energy was shaking things up, stirring it up. The universe had drawn a tiny line in the sand and it was left up to me if I would see it and follow it. Nothing is random.
Thelma and I organized everything in a matter of a few days to have a moving sale. I couldn't have done it without her. We bought hot dogs and pop to sell by donation to assist with proceeds for my training. After selling most of my belongings - which was a bit sad and overwhelming, a few of my close friends helped clean up and pack the Uhaul; we then hit the open road just like Thelma and Louise; windows rolled down as the warm summer air-cooled the sweat from our foreheads from our hard day's work, music blaring. After arriving safely in Vancouver, driving a big Uhaul isn't as easy as one would assume - but we made it! We Come across the Lion's Gate Bridge, almost tasking out people's side car mirrors - Thelma yelling at me to quit texting and checking my FB on my iPhone. What? We made it!
Thankfully, two of my best guy friends greeting us with open arms ready to help unload, together we tackled a small but full Uhaul truck packed to the tits like Tetris. You really do learn who your true friends are come moving day. I rewarded us with wine, pizza and of course, chocolate! I decided to count the money I made from the sale - $2,800! No way, just a few hundred short to pay for my yoga teacher training! It must be fate.
As I laid my head on my pillow the first night in Thelma's apartment, her spare room, just big enough to fit my queen bed and a few pieces of furniture, it was cozy and only minutes from the beach. I could hear the sea gulls and wondered "wtf are they still doing up this late?" Not as peaceful as Whistler. As I laid there I struggled with a lost and empty feeling - maybe it was indigestion from the wine, pizza and chocolate? Anyway, I was trying to ignore the feeling when I heard Will's voice loud and clear. Will Blunderfield, an amazing yoga instructor and healer once said in class, - as I laid on my mat in Savasana his words spoke to my soul ..."in life, we need a purpose - a passion, without this we feel lost and do not have contentment in day-to-day life." From that day forward I knew I needed to find a new purpose in life. This was the beginning. In search of a purpose. It was now. Time to create my own soundtrack.
A friend recently said to me ... show me how to live your life, I'll play the sound track daily. Over the next few blogs, I'll tell you how I reached Santosha and what it took to discover a purpose. It wasn't easy. But I'm here now. ...ahhhhhhhh.
-Louise