India travel update

India travel update
Photo by Deepak H Nath / Unsplash

I have been in India for two months. I have been not reading anyone’s social media updates. I have been not working on the audiobook. I have been not doing any content marketing. I have been not working on my podcast project.

Over the past two months in Kerala I have been re-examining fundamentally how it is that I relate to the world. I have been imbibing culture shock. I have been allowing myself to be changed by meeting a living guru. I have been exploring the relationship with place, I have been learning about the history and practice of yoga. I have been practising my kung fu. I have been reading the works of Swami Vivekananda.

The craziest thing about publishing a memoir when you’re 28 years old is that every week it feels like an entirely different life.

I came here with this idea that I would have so much time to focus on my work without the distractions of my regular life. Instead, I’m finding that the distractions exist in my mind, regardless of where I find myself. 

My laptop died and I got it fixed and then it died again. A divine sign really I should not be trying. I should not even be trying to get any work done. The only work that I should be getting done is the inner work. In this moment, any outside turning is clearly distraction.

I’ve been lucky enough to get to give bodywork here, to explore, practice, work on people from all over the world. To connect with them, devote myself to helping them find themselves. The sort of somatic integration work I facilities with Tuina and craniosacral therapy is an ongoing discovery, an endless source of fascination. It is great to do it here, to get to work with so many, to feel so many new connections. One of my patients told me the other day that during the session he was able to connect to grief about a particular injury for the first time in 15 years. I feel blessed I feel privileged to be so near to peoples hearts in this work.

I’m in India another five weeks. I’m staying at Amritapuri ashram for that time. The internal journey is precipitated, high speed, like getting a passenger seat on a rocket ship.

What happens next, who’s to say? It’s nearly 40 degrees Celsius every day. It rains a little bit every night, the heat breaks, every storm is a gift.

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