It’s my last day in Bali and I’m sitting by the pool in my villa, the frangipani trees providing me shade from the hot sun and trying to process and reflect on the last 3 weeks here.
I really had to face my shadow side in Bali. So many things came up that I know have been holding me back in reaching my full potential. Mindset blocks around lack mentality, believing i’m “worthy” of luxurious abundance, feeling the need to do, do, do, and be busy all the time in order to feel worthy and productive, equating my busy-ness with my worth, never feel like i’m doing enough or that i’m doing it “right”, feeling guilty for doing it my way instead of trying to be like everyone else, wondering if everyone is having a better time than me or if i’m a weird loser who likes to be alone…just lack thought after lack thought.
What I’ve learned is that PLEASURE and doing what FEELS good is our absolute fucking birthright. Society has conditioned us to feel like we need to accomplish and achieve in order to be successful, but the TRUE success and true creativity lies in the nourishing rest and the ability to let go, truly surrender, and relax into the divine flow.
THAT is alignment.
I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface in the infinite wells of pleasure and abundance that lies for us to access.
I felt myself vibrating at the frequency of pleasure and knew that anything I wanted to manifest is possible and felt like the happiest and most beautiful, sensual person in the world.
I also felt myself get too in my mind and feel really sad and lonely and overwhelmed at life and a bit lost and wanting to go home.
My best days were when I indulged in the LUXURY that life has to offer whether that be lounging around in bed naked all day, giving myself orgasms and meditating and stretching my body and writing to my hearts content and creating simply for the sake of creating, and discovering new artists like Alexandra Franzen and Liane Moriarty and just lying in the sun and swimming whenever I want, eating delicious and nutritious vegan foods from the various cafes around Bali, going to ecstatic dance and feeling at home in yoga classes, and of course sipping refreshing coconuts and watching the beautiful sunset.
My worst days were when I forced myself to “work” thinking that I was going to come to Bali and be like all the digital nomads and really expand my online business and thinking that I was a complete failure because I wasn’t doing enough work and wasn’t moving forward with anything and just felt like “why am I even here” and even thought about going back to the 9-5 grind because it would be “easier” than having to face my mindset blocks alone.
The true beauty is in clipping off the strings that hold us down and letting ourselves float freely in the flow of life.
I learned how to surf and while my first lesson went terribly, I got better and better with each lesson and communed with my mother ocean and rode her waves and felt like a bad ass mermaid goddess.
I reconnected to what it means to be a mermaid – the divine feminine being bursting with life and living from a place of abundance, pleasure, sensuality, creativity, relaxation, and total freedom to go with the flow.
I also learned that it always looks better on Instagram and we must stop believing Instagram is real life. People have curated their lives to a T. Especially being in a place like Bali where it is SO popular on Instagram and I know I had been salivating at pictures of Bali for monthhhhhs and just being so jealous of people that were there and daydreaming about spending days on the beach with coconuts in hand instead of at work.
In reality, this place is beautiful and divine and feminine but it’s just a PLACE. Your happiness lies within your ability to access it within yourself and no place or trip or relationship or anything else will give that to you.
I find it quite stressful to “capture the moment” and it truly takes away from the pleasure of being in the moment.
I find it exhausting to get “the perfect shot” and found myself being taken away from experiences in the moment because I was thinking how cool it would be to have a picture to show the moment.
I was literally swimming underwater with sea turtles and feeling like a magical mermaid and was stressing about how I wish someone could take a picture for me so I could share it. Then, I didn’t get my shot because hello, I couldn’t take my phone underwater with me, and then was getting jealous of people on Instagram for getting good pictures when I knew I had just experienced it for myself.
I learned that I can literally have anything I want. It is all possible. Not just for me, for anyone. You can have anything you want.
If I want to be a traveling yoga teacher in Bali, I can totally do that. Is that what will bring me joy right now? I’m not sure.
After India, I was literally thinking that I would go home for a couple months and then go teach yoga in the Philippines.
And now I know that if I WANT to do that, it is 100% possible. Do I need to do that? Not necessarily.
I’m not sure what this next chapter in my life holds with my move to NYC post all the travels. On one hand, I feel scared because I feel I’ve made the leap and “broke away” from the 9-5 grind that I was kept in the trap of for years and I don’t want to go back to that. I am scared of falling back into the cycle and don’t want all of these insights and realizations I’ve had to go to waste.
I met this yoga teacher on a boat going over to the Gili Islands and I was telling him that I was going “back home” in a few weeks.
“Don’t say “back home”. Never back. Only forward” he replied.
I’m not going back home. I’m only going forward.
Onward and upwards my mermaid loves.
Life is truly paradise and we are so lucky we get to experience it.
ALSO, in this new period of recognizing rest for creative nourishment, I’m offering 60 minute creativity coaching calls as a space for you to explore what is holding you back, set your creative goals and intentions for 2020 and really just have SPACE to be supported.
If you sign up before Dec 9th, I’ll send you my unblock your sacral chakra creativity guided meditation so you can connect back to yourself before the craziness of the holidays begin.
Schedule your call here: http://www.calendly.com/leyavandoren/60min
Sending love,
Ley
Mermaid Musings 