Searching for Balance

After a fun day Surfing

There are ways in which the universe connects people to their needs if they are specific about what they need and are open to receiving what they asked for. Me, I have been working very hard to both. I have put out into the universe what I want and seeing it manifest is sometimes tough because I think it should arrive in blue packaging but it arrives in red packaging. Really I need to have no expectation on the packaging.

I have just finished this book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. It is a fabulous book of a woman who has divorced, broken up with her lover and then decides to take a year for self discovery. In Italy she learns to indulge in pleasure through food and learning Italian which she has wanted to do for a long time. In India she learns about devotion at an Ashram looking at aspects of herself and finding a spiritual calm. In Indonesia (Bali) she wants to find a balance between the worldly indulgences and her spiritual devotion where she finds love. The way it is written is how she experiences certain situations, the mental conversations and all the emotion involve. I loved this book and much of her process is at some point how I have felt: over analyzing relationships, not allowing my ego to control me, indulging in beauty for the sake of it being available are just to name a few.

Since November my goal for my last 6 months in country is to really enjoy being here in all aspects: work, peace corps, exploring, relationships with people here, fitness and most importantly not to let things bother me so much. I can do what I can do and that is all. I don’t want to consistently change my plans because someone needs something, I can say “no” or “that time or date does not work for me” or “do you have an alternative date.” I have been planning to do this 28 day boot camp for a fitness program and I don’t want to keep putting it on hold or getting though 4 days and then something comes up. I told the universe I want to do this and all appointments or activities need to be after 9am. I want to have the motivation to get up when my alarm rings. So far it is working and when I said I could be available at 8am I internally remembered my commitment to myself and rescheduled for 9am.

I have also really wanted to become calm. I seem to have gotten into a habit of reacting instead of responding. Again I let the universe know this is an area I want to rehabilitate. I got a message from a coworker stating the regional director for DSWD wanted sample cards for Valentine’s Day. Let me just say the card making livelihood project has become a thorn in my side since my suggesting it and I have become a scary crazy person whenever the director and card making come up in the same conversation. Already that day a decision was made that we need to focus our efforts because we have been working in crisis mode for production. Our new goal is to have 3 types with three versions. After the second text satanic flashes of frustration were tearing through my body and my coworker was still up in arms. I shifted my mindset, did some deep breathing, reminded myself the evening was beautiful and this was not a big deal. I worked very hard to bring myself into some semblance of calm. I repeated to my coworker everything would be fine and we would come up with a solution. By the time dinner was over I had my solution, I would send a letter to the director about our livelihood project. In this letter I described the challenges of the Christmas card making and how our new system would be more efficient. I described the time and energy involved in skills development for the young artists while sharing how they have grown and improved. By the time I finished the letter and sent it off for proof reading my heart rate felt as if I was never upset at all. I know I have full control of my experiences and perception and I am making this a reality.

I am living in a wonderful country, having amazing experiences: hiking volcano’s, surfing, watching the reenactment of the crucifixion, staff Christmas parties, riding on top of jeeps soaked to the bone, eating snake (very boney) and duck embryo, playing patentero against RSCC kids and loosing, and finding family in friends. Life is like being at school and the universe our principle, there to support us when we ask for help.