Biddy's Boots #4
Rishikesh, India
6 June 2022
As each new year dawns, I like to select a guiding word for the next 365 days. I like how it often supports me in moments of challenge and decision-making, brings perspective in times of need and reflection, and gently aids in my growth.
In 2021, I chose the word trust with the idea that I’d be traveling. Trust the process of the experiences I find myself in, trust that things will work out as they should, trust the path I am on in micro and macro levels. It evolved into lessons and practice in trusting myself including all of the latter. In moments, last year was difficult to accept particularly in the beginning: there I was living a cushy life in Haga-Haga, prospective travel plans were looking dismal and I was without a job. I certainly had to practise the art of receiving and quieten the inner critic so that I could truly enjoy and receive this incredible gift and simply, be. The utter privilege of it does not fall on deaf ears here. But when life gives you lemonade on a hot summer’s day, relish ever sip right? Much easier said than done in reality but I think I eventually got there for the most part.
The deep conditioning of what success should look like, to be constantly striving and busy was something I had to really dig deep to undo and allow myself to enjoy this once in a lifetime opportunity: spending time with my folks and living at home for the first time since I was 14 years of age, no staffroom meetings, no Afrikaans stories to mark, no Cape Town traffic – just nature, family, the odd adventure, and all the time in the world to do ..what? Yikes. Many friends have commented that my current travels sound like a spin-off “Eat Pray Love”, but I think 2021 in Haga might have been that for me. I truly had to surrender to the process and space I found myself in; to fully trust. And shewee, did 2021 deliver. With that quiet mantra on repeat, I can look back over those 12 months and count an immense number of blessings, opportunities, and adventures that have unfolded and would otherwise have been rather unlikely if it weren’t for the trust.
As we welcomed in 2022, the word courage emerged as my new one for the year. Courage, pillared with commitment; courageously committed at times. Courage to travel, to expand my offerings; commitment to bettering my skills, to my studies and diligently absorbing the new ideas and thoughts. But mostly, courage to choose kindness, to listen to others and the courage to speak what is true for me. Courage to follow my dreams and the commitment to really put them all into action. Courage to stand up even- especially when it’s hard. Courage to have the difficult conversations, to be vulnerable and honest yet kind and gentle.
Here I am almost 6 months into the year and 6 weeks in my travels and all I can is ‘pushkar, be careful what you call in’. Looking back at my first 10 days in Nepal, those days demanded my courage more than what I was comfortable with. And there were 2 specific situations where my intuition was waving her hands, raising her eyebrows and clearly saying “no bridgie, no”. Swoop into India, and let me tell you I am not sure what could have prepared me for the incessant, relentless stares and hustling. Again, many a situation where my inner voice was quietly whispering and again opportunities that called me to step up. In the short hindsight that I have, I can clearly see that I was and am being called to step up. I have been given several opportunities to trust my gut and have been asked to have the courage to listen and act upon this guidance.
I am also getting better at saying my prayers and trsuting that I will be taken care of, and the more I seem to trust, the more I see there is never a need for me to worry.
I'll leave you with some words from Gary Zukav’s Seat of the Soul:
Courage is the most important of all virtues because without courage one cannot practice any virtue consistently. We can be kind, generous, just, courteousand merciful sporadically, but to display those virtues, consistently, calls for an enormous display of courage
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