It is that time again when the world is ablaze with all sorts of retrospections and New Year resolutions. I am joining in for the ride with my first ever retrospection of the year gone by and setting my main focus for the coming year.
I have travelled to and lived in Hawaii, San Diego, Las Vegas, Canada, Texas, Yucatan Peninsular of Mexico, New York, Azores islands of Portugal, London, Ibiza, Barcelona, Toulouse, Paris, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney.
I have enjoyed 3 vastly different live-in relationships. I have deliberately chosen to leave my first love “for the sake of personal growth and spiritual development”. I have argued with and swore at my partner for the first time in my life. I have fallen in love and lived with someone without being able to speak the same language. I have also for the first time fallen in love with someone and my feelings were not returned. All were incredibly rich, unforgettable, most rewarding and profoundly life changing experiences but unfortunately not open for exploration in this blog with regard to the privacy of the other parties involved.
I have attempted to remain single twice this year. Once by being totally closed off to any male interaction and after that failed almost catastrophically, the second time I have attempted it through dating and noncommittal.
I have discovered the absolute joy of dating having done this for the first time in my life at the ripe old age of 26. What a profoundly different way of relating instead of moving in with someone from day one which has been my usual pattern up until now.
I have discovered one of the most fiery passions of my life in cooking. The cooking adventure started with a simple 4 second recipe of my beloved hummus and hasn’t stopped since then. I have since been dubbed a mad professor in the kitchen and have taken over the cook role in the last household I live in which is a stark contrast to my previous belief of 26 years that cooking is boring, takes too long, and is best when done by someone else.
I have discovered and delved right into raw cuisine. Having done 2 months of 100% raw food purely following internal voice of my body wisdom without having to involve will power or restrain myself to this particular diet, which was an amazing experience in itself. Right now I am eating mostly raw at home and seafood and other yumminess when I am out so the percentage breakdown between raw and non raw fluctuates depending on the intensity of my social life throughout the months. But removing any external influences, all by my lonesome I always naturally opt for raw. It is a wonderful lifestyle which I am forever grateful for discovering.
I have finally successfully outsourced my business which came about through breaking my laptop of the island of Ibiza and not having anywhere to take it to have it repaired. I physically could not do any work myself and was forced to outsource every single task. After a few weeks of that it struck me: “Waaaaaait a minute, I have not done any work for a several weeks and the business is still ticking over nicely, some parts are even thriving beyond belief. After 5 years of *trying* to outsource I have finally done it! Wooohoo!..” Having looked back across my life and seeing a pattern forced me to conclude without a shadow of a doubt that anything bad, anything at all that happens to me which someone else might label as “negative” is always a necessary step towards someone extremely positive. So from then on I get ridiculously excited when “bad” stuff happens as I can’t wait to see what “good” stuff it is going to lead me to.
I have discovered the absolute joy of having girlfriends in my life supporting and encouraging me on a daily basis which I have never experienced in the past decade (aka my whole adult life). I now can not imagine life without them and wonder how did I ever survive before.
My whole introverted lifestyle was turned completely on its head and I transformed into a complete social butterfly being constantly out of the house, having no time for sleep or having no “me” time whatsoever, constantly out doing something. It was an extreme although a necessary experience and I am looking forward to brining more balance into this area in the coming year.
I have found my purpose in life which I knew of for several years already, but just didn’t know what it meant until this year. If anyone ever asked what I believed was the meaning of my life, I had an answer “To Experience” but didn’t know what it really meant. But this year I shed a tear having read in one of the astrology books that in this lifetime I realised at some level that my passions are way to numerous to contemplate mastering them all so instead I consciously opt to experience many things in life and contribute to the larger body of humanity by sharing my many experiences and inspiring others through it. The joy of finally being able to stop looking for my purpose in life and start living it is impossible to convey. And since the Universe is continuously blessing me with endless amazing experiences, I am placing my focus on the second part of my purpose, which is the sharing of those experiences with others. I have since taken my blog to the larger public beyond my friends and family and emphasised sharing of my feelings and thoughts aside from the facts of what happens to me every day.
I have jumped back on the motorcycle after 3 years off it and this time around it is a much more intense flow ecstatic experience for me every single time I ride somewhere. The presence and immediacy of surroundings, intense vulnerability and complete merging with the vehicle are impossible to convey.
I have really taken my passion for dance to the new level. I have danced in the living rooms with others and by myself which I was not able to do before. It all culminated with me dancing in public one morning on a pier with my ipod headphones on to the delight of the morning joggers and dog walkers. I have finally found and immensely enjoyed a dance workshop that encourages my self expression and does not stifle it like many others I have tried do. I now dance at home almost every day and really enjoy the self expression, physicality, fluidity and flow of it in a weird way, it feels like having sex with myself.
Speaking of sex, for the past 26 years I accepted and embraced all characteristics of being a Scorpio, but the sex thing just did not make sense to me, never felt like a strong area of focus, drive and emphasis. And I certainly never saw myself as sexual, seductive or alluring. But now I can happily say I have come into my true Scorpio nature and woke up to the joys of it. Hooray! 😉
I have also awoken a dormant talent for surrealistic poetry and have written a few for my dear friends. Just holding a subject in my minds eye and writing what comes without censoring or trying to rhyme, pure magic.
I continued my love hate relationship with my yoga practice. Going full speed for 1 month almost every day, then forgetting about it completely, then being pretty much forced by an internal persistent, growing ever so loud, voice to restart it again.
I have made really good friends with my intuition and acquired a few divination tools, mostly favourite being John Holland’s Oracle cards, which I use to help me at times when I do not yet quite trust my internal voice or get confused in trying to distinguish intuition from intellect.
I have had my three most profound spiritual experiences of my life.
My 10 day silent Vipassanna meditation retreat was an awesome experiences on many levels. 10 days offline for what felt like the first time in my life. No books, no talking or communication of any kind. They said it will be tough, I found it pure joyful holiday for my introverted soul – being surrounded by people and not having to talk to them! I have had a physical experienced of my body being nothing by pure vibrating energy, I felt energy coursing upwards through my spine, I released some age old kalapas and met with one of my past lifes. It was great fun and even though I wasn’t going to do another one, I am starting to think about it again.
With the help of the most wonderful guide I have met my spirit guides and got to review and relive my past life and transition period. It was incredible, I am running out of superlatives by now and all I can say is “Wow!”…
My third and most phenomenal and life changing experience which very few people knew about until now was taking of Ayahuasca. Nothing I can say here is going to come close to describing the experience so I am just not going to say anything at all.
After years of searching and trying I have finally found a meditation practice that suits me with my hyper active brain activity. It took me many courses, books and CDs to find this one, but it was all worth it and the feelings of clarity, zen, balance and well being are my ultimate rewards.
My style and with it my confidence and sense of self were completely revamped making me feel like an incredibly empowered self assured and worthy woman.
I have helped more than 300 entrepreneurs in developing countries by loaning towards their business and personal goals on Kiva.
In between those incredible highlights, the rest of my year was filled with glorious sunsets, loving and supportive friends and family, incredibly inspiring Facebook family, paradigm shifting conversations, life altering books, amazing culinary experiences, breathtaking landscapes and numerous adventures. It has been one hell of a year, I can hardly believe my own memory!
The two things I chose to dedicate 2010 to were: giving and living by following my heart and not my head. These two decisions have led to me receiving more than I could possibly imagine and consciously contemplate and having and celebrating every single day being filled with joy and ecstasy of living.
In my fridge cleaning enlightment moment the other night I was given the 2 things I need to dedicate year 2011 to. It was scary thinking of ramifications of these back then, it is scary committing to these in public now but here it goes: unconditional love and radical honesty… My mind is pretty open and warped with the life experiences I have had so far, but it explodes and refuses to function when I attempt to imagine how 2011 is going to be for me so I am just going to let go of trying to imagine it and let it unravel on its own accord. Another astrology book I have says my “destiny” years are 18 (the year I moved from Russia to Australia) and 27 (which turned 1 month ago) so to say I am excited about 2011 is one serious understatement…
I Love You.