The journey has just begun

Today marks the end of a nearly 10 month journey; tomorrow I start my new job.  I was fortunate to participate in an amazing yoga workshop today, led by a very dear yoga teacher, Amy Reed,  that truly served to mark the end of this journey.  It also helped that she opened the workshop talking about her very own 10 month journey which then of course made me think about my 10 month journey. And though this journey is coming to an end I am looking forward to the one that will begin tomorrow.

I really do enjoy a good journey, I love to travel and I love taking on a new adventure.  I have journeyed around the world twice (read about that here: Around the World Via Ship).  I have driven back and forth across the U.S. to move and roadtripped many times.  On those physical journeys I have always surrounded myself with people who were supportive, fun and all around good company to accompany the journey I was on.  Those journeys are not unlike the one I was on recently.  Though the purpose of this particular journey was not to reach a physical location, it certainly was about traveling, seeking and reaching a destination.  There were many twists and turns in this journey, many hilly roads and obstacles to overcome but I did indeed reach my destination.  I did this with the help, guidance and support of the good company that I chose to keep.  Like many journeys you take often you  head out in one direction thinking you will end up in one place and instead you venture elsewhere, veering off course not where you thought you would be but exactly where you are supposed to  be.  I was lost in September, very, very lost, and it took dedication and patience to arrive where I am right now, exactly where I am supposed to be.

It is 10pm at night right now and I just finished hanging things on my walls in my new apartment, the finishing touches I feel necessary to make it feel like home and ready for what new journey lies ahead of me. The amazing journey I have just taken deep inside of myself has allowed me to emerge more ready than I could have imagined to start this next journey.  We are always traveling somewhere, we are always on a journey and  sometimes we are just not aware of it until something grand occurs.  Revel in life's journey, be present to it, learn from it and you will emerge better from it.  I certainly did!

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." ~Lao Tzu

Good enough for now

How are you? Good enough. How are things? Good enough for now. This is the answer that I have recently been giving to those questions that come in as just a passing hello. And not in a way that is bitter, angry or even said with sadness, but rather hoping to come across as being content with where I am right now.   I have always been someone that when I ask how you are I care and will make sure I have time to hear the true answer.  I am also someone who will be as honest as I can when responding. 

Is good enough for now good enough?  I have been contemplating contentment versus happiness.  And is ‘just being content’ OK.  Because really good enough in my book equals being content.

When I went to India some years back with a good friend we found a moment of silence and calm amidst a very hectic and chaotic trip.  We were having a meal at an eco-village and my friend turned to me and asked what I was thinking or how I was feeling and I said I had an overwhelming feeling of contentment.  She asked, just contentment?  I think of this conversation often and really contentment is a great place to be.  On some days this includes extreme moments of happiness and on other days the contrary may be true.  But all in all base line contentment really is all that is necessary and I believe we have the power to define that as we choose.  If you take your mouse and right click on the word contentment right now the second synonym that appears is happiness.  And if you right click the word happiness the first synonym is contentment.  To me contentment is a state of feeling comfortable, safe and joyous (see I did not need to use the word happy).  All of these things I have felt these past two months, almost more so then I had felt in the year prior (particularly once I figured out that I would be OK financially).

Yoga has helped me to just be in this state of contentment.  Allowed me to honor what comes up in the moment and breathe through those difficult times.  Yoga, both the physical practice and the practice I take off of the mat, has helped me to achieve this contentment at a time in my life when I would have thought that contentment would be unachievable. 

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” 

~ Lao Tzu