Embracing Uncertainty

Life is full of uncertainty.  The quality of one's life is directly proportionate to the amount of uncertainty one can live with. And yet, for me, uncertainty acts to bring up all the usual fears. Fear of the unknown causes me to waste valuable energy and over time puts a negative spin on my perceptions and life.  I know many people who correctly embrace uncertainty with excitement and take it on as a challenge.  My natural tendency is to focus on what I lack -- that special man, hair that cooperates the way I believe it should, a perfectly sculpted body (according to my ideal); blah, blah, blah -- instead of all that I do have right now.  I strive to change my perceptions to positive from negative.  I'm just saying...

My fears of all the uncertainties keep me stuck.  I might live a more secure, safer life, but how about its quality and richness?

I had planned my move to Italy for 4 or 5 years.  I did all the legwork -- tons of research, extra jobs to reduce debt, hours and hours of dreaming what my life would be like in Italy.  After a few years I had done the research and was debt-free, but I had excuses as to why that moment was not the right time to make the move.  Then one day after a series of incidents, I had a moment of clarity.  I would turn 50 the following year, and I got scared.  But this time I was scared into action.  I did not want to get to the end of my life and wonder what if.  What if I had moved to Italy?  What would it have been like?  How would my life have been different?  What if I went to Italy and changed my mind? What if I decided I prefer Italy as a vacation destination instead of a place to call home? What if I allowed my fears to keep me stuck in a place I didn't want to be? What if I lacked the courage to make the move?

In that moment of clarity, I realized that I did not want to be on my deathbed and look back with regret for not having followed my heart, my dream to live in Italy. Wherever you go, there you are.  So here I am two and a half years later.  Each new day brings with it new experiences. I still marvel over the beauty that surrounds me:  the art, the food, the culture, the people, the pazza ("crazy" -- I am being polite using the word for crazy) language.  Yet life in Florence, Italy, is far from perfect. Some of my experiences are not how I imagined they would be. There are many life lessons still to be learned. My work in Italy is not yet finished; therefore, I intend to stay.

Letting go of some control, I packed my bags and moved to Italy.  I had so many questions unanswered.  (Not the way I used to do anything.  I had to have everything figured out first.) I moved here with faith that, in time, everything would fall into place, doors would open, I would survive.  That faith in my future redeemed my decision many times over.  Of course, money remains scarce.  I wonder whether I will have the means to survive this month, or next month, but somehow I do. And then I go through that fear all over again the following month.  (Hmm, I wonder when I will  learn that lesson.)

My progress and growth are slow.  Sometimes so slow that I do not recognize my forward movement, that things do come together, doors do open, life here does work out.

I began to teach yoga classes two months ago.  Yoga is important to me and has been an integral part of my life for several years.  The teaching, though,  is new to me, and I am aware I have much to learn.  But this opportunity to share something about which I am passionate excites me. Even more than that is the precious gift of students who like my teaching style ... and return for the next class. Together we laugh, we sweat, we stretch, we build strength, we do partner poses, we open our hearts, we Om, we unite.  Two Sanskrit words come to mind when I reflect on the hour or so I teach: sangha ("community") and samadhi ("complete absorption, bliss"). I get lost in my teaching.  By "lost" I mean I get in a zone where my head shuts off, mostly, and I teach from my heart. I realize later when I reflect back that I have lost sense of time, I am completely absorbed and enraptured in something I love. During that brief hour or so, my world is perfect.  I have no problems.  I am completely full, fulfilled.  I am love.  I realize that what I experience is a state of WHOLENESS, a form of meditation, bliss.  Fully charged, not lacking a thing.

What surprises me is that had I not embraced the uncertainty and my fears -- leave the USA, come to Italy, settle in Florence, and reach out to everyone, friends and strangers alike -- this opportunity to find myself, to be happy never would be mine. So perhaps peace and serenity can be found in not controlling every last detail, instead letting go and embracing uncertainty.

Buon Anno 2011

 Out with the Old 

31 Dec '10

Duomo, Florence, Italy

A view I like

In with the New

New Year's Day 1.1.11

Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy

A new day, a new month, a new year, another new beginning. Always a good time for reflecting on the past and setting intentions and mapping our course for who we want to become and where we want to go.

I will say no more because I have work to do in creating my way.  

Nina Simone's Feeling Good

What are your intentions for the year ahead?

Buon Anno!

Dear Reader

We're coming up on a year since the birth of my blog. Still, the blog percolates; not entirely certain the direction I want to go, although some things I am certain about. One is that I want to write frequently and consistently. In looking at many blogs recently, a common trend I have noticed is the blogger apologizing for being away from posting for a length of time. Oh, please don't let me do that. I do not want to blog out of obligation to you, my reader. First and foremost, I write for myself, and second, you. This is tricky because my ego gets in the way. So I will tell you that I strive to post more frequently. So please do keep coming back; follow the blog; share the blog.

In fact, let me reveal a little secret desire. I'd love to see 2,001 hits on my blog by November 7, the anniversary. That's a high expectation, but it is possible. In fact, I can see it. A week from now I am looking at ClustrMaps on my blog, and I see the 2,001 total visits from various parts of the world since I started blogging last year. And you can help make that happen. Of course, it isn't about quantity, but it is a mini Bhavana of mine.

And comment, please!  Again, I write for myself foremost. But once again, the ego...  I love hearing from you, what moves you, what you like reading, what you don't, or to know whether anyone out there even reads my words.  So indulge me with a little ego-stroking now and then, but please keep it genuine.  Don't say it if you don't mean it.

My intention since inception has been to write honestly.  I want to get to know myself better through my writing and to take risks -- while allowing you to know me too.  On the Internet, that's an extremely vulnerable position because the Internet is infinite.  And this especially challenges the ego, my ego.  Like most of us, I have wasted energy and time worrying about what others think, their judgments of me.  Of course, I care and want to be liked -- or better yet, loved -- but in writing honestly, that means I want to write uncensored without fear of what you may think of me, whom I might offend, or what will come back to haunt me (good thing I have no plans of going into politics). Because few people have bothered to really know me, if I died tomorrow, perhaps someone would understand me. Perhaps you even relate to me.  

Some posts have been superficial and light, others educational and/or experiential, and some others more self-revealing.  I want to share with you my experiences of the place I love, Italy, and my personal evolution in leaving my corporate-American lifestyle to learning how to live a life truer to my heart, spending quality time with people I care about, eating food that's more natural and closer to the source and full of prana, feeling the wind on my face, my feet on the ground instead of driving in my bubble leaving my pod to go to a larger pod and having little human contact on a daily basis.  That's how I lived in Los Angeles; that's why I left Los Angeles.  That kind of writing isn't always positive and upbeat.  Many times it's about disappointment, disillusion, and sadness.  Or maybe it's the sadness and grief from long ago that I have yet to resolve; so it keeps reappearing as pedestrians in front of my car. Or the insecurities -- when I have a muffin top, I believe I'm no longer lovable -- and the addictions I battle, and the chatter that goes on inside my head that tells me I'm different from the rest of you, and I believe it!  So I still have a long way to go on my personal journey.

I consider a second blog, one in which I can cut loose and let that stuff out and maybe not confuse and scare you, my readers, and find men in white coats at my apartment door with a straitjacket for me to wear.  However, as a sole-practitioner, I never liked the idea of having two or more checking accounts -- one for personal, and one for business -- because to me, it's all one pocket.  It's all me, and it comes from the same source.  And that's how I feel about having another blog.  I'd like to keep it all one.  

Also, I'm moving away from signing my name at the end of each blog posting.  I'll use it when I blog from or about another location.  Otherwise, it feels redundant.

Eccomi (Here I am), still a very simple girl moving in the direction of living a simpler, less-complicated and more genuine life in Florence, Italy, one day at a time.

In Pace / In Peace