Breakthroughs Can Be Lengthy Experiences, Not Only Singular Moments

// Retroactive post in EOLcommunity from JUNE 26th, 2018.

My trip to LA for EOL & More has been incredible. A part of me feels like I should wait to say what’s on my mind here until I have a chance to sit down and make a ‘proper full post about my experience.’ (And I love that.)

Right now I am still in Los Angeles, having extended my trip so that I could experience WCS and have a chance to integrate what I felt (and spend more time immersed in “that feeling” before being tempted by the old ways of home).

As I’m sitting here on my last full day of LA, it’s nearly 2pm and I haven’t left the house yet. I feel pressured to “go and see LA.” It would be great to explore and pickup a souvenir or two. But right now, I don’t want to do that. I realized in my post-meditation video that “me going out to see LA” was more of a fear, not a genuine interest.

(Why hold onto the belief that just because I fly to a different part of the world that I “should have to” explore that place?)

If I’m going out and “seeing the world” while completely disregarding seeing myself first, then I am living out of fear.

If I’m going out into LA to look for a souvenir for family because I feel like I have to, because I’m afraid that I might get some flak for “being in LA and you didn’t go out and go see XYZ and/or didn’t buy a souvenir” — then I’m not listening to myself first and not living from a place of love.

I didn’t meditate much at all during my trip here, which I’m okay with because I got to spend so much time dancing WCS and meeting/talking with incredible people from EOL.

(Although I think it would have been helpful for me to acknowledge that I needed some time to myself – even just 10 minutes – before jumping into hanging out. — But what happened was still the best thing, because that was “in purpose” and helps me to recognize, even more, that it’s best to acknowledge myself and my intuition.)

But that means right now, the best thing for me to do is – quite simply – to not go see LA.

It’s me making the choice to recognize what I need for myself and taking the (in)action that my heart is saying is the best thing to do – right now in this moment.

As I look back at the past week, I realize, I didn’t necessarily have a “big breakthrough” at EOL. It wasn’t a “flip of the switch, holy shit change.” But I have changed because of my experience.

My breakthrough has been a week-long breakthrough, an experiential shift in my nervous system in learning “you got this. You got you.”

And it began the moment I made the leap and bought the flight.

i.e., the breakthrough began the moment I made the choice and went all in. All in on me.

Having never solo-traveled like this before, getting to LA was part of the breakthrough. Navigating the city. Connecting with people at EOL. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do the exercises, to say hello…

Each one of those individual moments are reinforcement that I can trust myself. And that I have the capacity to figure things out and manage even in a world of uncertainty.

(So much for not having the time for a ‘full proper post,’ ha. Weird how that works out when you just sit down and follow that little voice that say, ‘just start writing what’s on your mind right now.’)

Thank you Kyle and the EOL Team. And thank you every single one of you I’ve connected with at the event. More to come, I’m sure. 

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Photo by Tara
The Spare Room / Public at the Roosevelt Hotel