It was hard leaving Maui after my last retreat ended.
Hard in the way falling in love is after you’ve been hurt. The way you want to trust it and say, “Yes, come on in,” but you are afraid and that but I am afraid wells up in your throat like a stone, and you can’t speak for it.
And although you are happy, you are also sad because you recognize this feeling of having something and yet not trusting you have it.
Not trusting that it’s a thing to be had. It’s a football rushing at you, and you’re going, “I got it! I got it!” and then, “I don’t got it”. All at once. If that’s possible.
The stone in your throat is hard, as stones tend to be (especially stones in the throat), which is the place things often get stuck, even if they aren’t stones. Even if they are people.
Stones and words and anger and all the rest. All the things.
Before we ended the retreat, the girls gave me a necklace to say thank you. One of the most beautiful necklaces I have ever seen, and as I held it in my hands, I thought how I shouldn’t look up at them because I probably wasn’t reacting in the way they expected of me (Tears? Emotion?), so I kept looking down at the gold chain, at the purple stone, at my ugly hands holding this beautiful gesture. Don’t look up, keep looking down. Don’t ever look up. (No tears? No emotion?)
Well, no. I wasn’t there. I was looking down on it all. A million hours passed, and I finally looked up, and they all had tears in their eyes and were nodding thank you.
There’s been a mistake. This can’t be for me. I shall float away and keep looking down (no tears, no emotion yet.) But I look up, and they are still there nodding thank you in the most knowing way, as if we have known each other our whole lives and this moment was simply a confirmation.
There’s been no mistake. The necklace and the thank you were for me, so I put it on and touched it repeatedly. Sharp and smooth and tiny enough to fit in my fingers. I pressed hard into it to pull me back into the yoga room there at Lumeria. But still no emotion because I didn’t trust my body was sitting there on that floor or that the floor wouldn’t cave in.
So many things we think are mistakes. So many mistakes we think are things.
When they’re not. They are hallucinations. They are non-existent. Or maybe they are just long gone. Over and done. Maybe they once were things, but they have longed since stopped being things and now are just that happened once or I turned left instead of right.
I turned left instead of right, and there I was at Lumeria in Maui leading a retreat with a gorgeous group of women, but if I’d turned right, I would’ve been __________.
That’s right. A blank space. Who knows. So many blank spaces.
Look right there. There’s one. And there. Another!
Not mistakes. Not things. Just that happened. And then that happened.
It was hard leaving because I was afraid to leave what we created.
Then, just like that, one of the girls said she had a letter to read. She had written a letter to the group, which was moving and brave and lovely. She turned to me and said, “Jen, your dad would be so proud of you.” And just like that, emotion. Magic. Just a few words and the idea of a man long dead in his physical body and bam! I am re-rooted back into the world as if I had always been there.
A double rainbow appeared after we finished our closing circle, and we all ran out onto the lawn and pointed and snapped photos and cried a little because it was, again, like falling in love. What if we never see something this beautiful again? How can we make this stay?
I am afraid that was it for me. I am afraid that I will never have that again. I am afraid that. I am afraid.
On the plane, where I do most of my writing, I sat wondering if I turned right instead of left would I have even been to Maui? (Who knows but, most likely, no.) Would I be on that plane sitting next to a sweet but loud nut-eating Russian couple? Could I have asked the pilot to steer us back, and, if he agreed, would it have been the same? Could I stay as safe as I felt that week with all my women during my retreat? (Probably not.)
I felt for my necklace and repeated, “So many things we think are mistakes. So many mistakes we think are really things,” and my necklace lies over my heart and doesn’t move or suggest it knows the difference so I decide to make a list. Mistakes and Things.
Mistakes:
– Dropping out of college with one year left after I had won an award for having the highest GPA at my school within NYU (Oh, that’s a thing. Things and accolades and this and that which I think makes me me but, in reality, is just a thing signifying nothing.)
– Filing taxes for the wrong year.
– Saying yes when I meant no.
– Saying no when I meant yes.
– Saying nothing.
– Saying too much.
– Overpacking.
Things:
– My necklace the girls gave me upon leaving Maui.
– The airplane I am sitting on.
– The book in my lap.
– The glasses on my face.
– There are too many things in the world to list them all.
I feel for my necklace and think if it could grant me one wish, it would be to hear perfectly. Then I think I would like to change that wish to I would like to be here perfectly.
If I am here perfectly, I can see that dropping out of college wasn’t a mistake, but it was my left turn, and if I hadn’t turned left I would be _______.
And the filing taxes bit, eh. The IRS will figure that one out.
The rest, the yeses and nos and the overpacking, aren’t so much mistakes as they are ignoring my gut in the way I used to ignore my hunger. I hear you, and I don’t care.
It was hard leaving because I am not yet perfectly here.
I worry. I send vessels and ships into an imaginary future stockpiled with fears and toilet paper and anxiety.
I worry that I will never have this again.
This being what I had there on that island. That it was a fluke. That there wasn’t a group of women who flew from all over the world connecting in the way everyone dreams of connecting, or maybe there was, but it was a blink, and it will never be back as things we love sometimes choose to do. I am happy. This is working out. You are alive. I love you.
Then Poof! up in smoke. That’s what the things we love sometimes do, as unfair and crappy as it seems (and as it is). That’s what the life we love sometimes does. It just goes.
And yet and still, I am happy they gave me a necklace with such texture because I can press it into my thumb and have it bring me back on the same ship I sent off into the future with toilet paper and regret. The necklace can send me sailing back into my seat on an airplane with the smell of nuts in the air.
I keep looking at the letters everyone wrote me this morning. I had everyone write down the 5 most beautiful things they saw in each person, so each woman left today with a pile of letters.
The one thing in every one of my letters, the common thread of beauty that all the ladies saw in me, was one word: Inspire.
I can’t go anywhere on this airplane. I can’t float away because I am already floating up here in the sky, and I am trapped next to the Russians in my window seat, so I must sit with that word. Inspire, inspire, inspire.
What does it mean? I ask my necklace like a crazy person.
I actually didn’t think I was crazy until the necklace answered back. It said, “it means keep speaking your truth, and you don’t need a degree from NYU to inspire.”
Now, did the necklace say that? I don’t know. Maui is a sacred and magical place, and they bought it there, so maybe it did? Maybe I need to suspend my disbelief for moments at a time so I can get over the I can’t believe they mean me. I can’t believe this will last. I can’t believe in my own happiness. I can’t believe this is my life.
Maybe I need to suspend my disbelief and let my necklace remind me of its heritage. How it traveled through the hands of some gorgeous women who love me as I love them. How it hung in a store, and, when it caught their eyes, it spoke to them. (So they told me.) “It literally spoke to us, Jen.”
Maybe my necklace isn’t a thing at all. Maybe it’s a reminder that happiness is possible for those I love fiercely and me.
And maybe, when the necklace is gone, however necklaces go, the reminder will remain: That I deserve to be happy. That I don’t have to be afraid.
That one day, some incredible women whom I led through a life-changing journey, walked into a store in Wailea and wiped the sand off their feet so they could find something to thank me. A thing, something, they said knowing they would never find that thing, so they wrapped up their love in a purple stone on a gold chain, and we all understood that it would never go up in smoke.
I would love to hear what you are ready to no longer be afraid of. What you once gave weight to and are now willing to release?
All my love xo,
Jen
Jennifer Pastiloff was recently featured on Good Morning America. She is a yoga teacher, writer, and advocate for children with special needs based in L.A. She is also the creator of Manifestation Yoga® and leads retreats and workshops all over the world. Jennifer is currently writing a book and has a popular daily blog called Manifestation Station. Find her on Facebook and Twitter and take one of her yoga classes online at Yogis Anonymous.
Jen will be leading a Manifestation Writing/Yoga® week long retreat in Tuscany July 2013 as well as a writing/yoga retreat with best selling author Emily Rapp (whom TIME magazine voted as having one of the best twenty-five blogs of 2012).
*Image courtesy of Simplereminders.com
