Struggles

I have been here a full week now and I am barely starting to slow down to Island Time. Another interesting struggle I have experienced is learning to be in charge of the kitchen. YIKES……… Yes, apparently I am good a this (probably because of my Navy experience) but this is so uncomfortable for me. To be honest, I didn’t come here to be in charge of anything, and I really desired to work on the land. However, this is where I am needed at the moment and to be honest again….. I could really use learning how to cook, prepare food, and be more compassionate with people on a leadership level so I have accepted the challenge.

This is really interesting for me to do because this isn’t like the structure I have been used to for my entire life. In the Navy you give orders, people follow them. I am not working with Navy people here and I am doing my best to remember that I don’t want to live my life being dominant over others and I am working to learn to be softer in my delivery of information. I will continue to improve each day while I am here - this I know for sure.

So, another lovely thing that I am experiencing here is not having a car. Since I don’t have a car, I don’t feel the pressure to go and explore or drive around to places. The beach is within walking distance - it is rocky and jagged, however, I manage to get in the salt water in a tide pool spot. But, when I get up in the morning it feels really good to step outside of my tent and walk under the stars to go to my “job” which has been working in the kitchen thus far. We have a yoga temple that is on the property, we have a hot tub, and everything is kind of open air like our dining area and relaxing area. It is a lovely feeling to be so connected to nature and I am thankful that I was living in my camper for such a long while before I came here, because it makes the transition to living in the jungle just that much easier.

We are still in rainy season here, so there is a high level of humidity. Snails/Slugs are constantly crawling up the walls in my ten as well as last night I had two frogs perched up high in my tent. I talked to them for a bit and they sing VERY loudly at night time. I had to be appreciative of them, otherwise, I could have been very frustrated with their loudness. At night it is a symphony of wildlife that serenades me to sleep and as I sit and write this morning at 6:30am there is another symphony of birds that call the day to life. We have no television here, and I feel miles away from society.

We started our community course yesterday and we learned how to silently communicate with each other. During the opening exercises, I cried tons. My whole life I have held back my emotions in order to live and survive in the environments that I have been in. When I feel safe and comfortable with healers and people, the flood gates of healing are open. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I understand not only am I here to learn new ways of being and living around people, I here to heal. There is a great saying I heard from a therapist “If we don’t allow our eyes to cry tears, the tears will find organs to cry from in the form of disease.” I truly feel that disease is due to lack of healthy expression of emotions. Human beings are here on Earth to experience a wide range of emotion and if we are not encouraged or supported to feel and release these emotions they get stuck and cause tumors, and other forms of disease and discomfort.

We have our community course for an entire week. We do our chores and work hours in the mornings and we start our course at 3pm. Each person shared why they are here, and what they are working on in their life. When we get beyond the surface of each person we can see that every person is struggling with their own inner battle of loving themselves, grief of losing loved ones, past hurts, or patterns of living or believing that don’t serve them living a healthy life. I am so grateful that we got to hear each person share such intimate details and I love that we are in a non-competitive environment where even the men are supported to be vulnerable, share their emotions and heal from the toughness of life they have endured.

Believe me, when I say that I have been challenged on so many levels of living with so many people. My first instinct which is very normal for me was “I’m Leaving.” I felt this way because I have always found it is easier to walk away from relationships rather than work on myself and actually learn to be in relation with people. This has led me to live a bit of a lonely life and I don’t want to continue to live my life not able to effectively communicate my feelings. I want to learn how to listen to others needs, and how to be softer and more caring at personal level. I am happy to learn how so shed the layers of armor I have built up over the years that protected me in my life and got me to this point. Those layers of armor served me well, however, It is time to blossom into a new chapter.