Off She Blows...

OFF SHE BLOWS - THE WRITING IS HAPPENING...

...the currents flowing. She is observing it... I am observing it.

What resistance is in my life? What does it mean and feel like to resist - where does resistance manifest - and why? What is the action behind my purpose - does purpose have everything to do with resistance? Purpose and resistance, intertwined and dancing like some interesting work of tie-dye art blowing in the wind. What alleviates these currents, allowing them to flow heavily and naturally rush out, like a river at high tide? And what prevents the flow? Are you building walls and dumping sand into the river, eventually constricting the water flow or blocking it entirely?

I question as a way of working past my blockages. In feeling resistive actions occurring, I stay aware of what they are so that I can actively move myself past them. Movement is key.

What obstructs the flow? Buildup.

I’ve always respected what "feels right", which is usually (in my Sagettarian perspective) what would allow me the most freedom - it is what I can say, with confidence, that I have been doing for the past decade. It is what I am doing now. For a while, in my head, I correlated freedom with ability to travel, and to do exactly what I felt was fun in as many moments as possible. It feels good now, as I reflect, to be looking at my life path from a different perspective. Rather than always looking for the fun way out, I'm looking for the freedom. Long term freedom - long term enjoyment. Living in the freedom - by creating the atmosphere for free flow and movement.

To overstand the concept of freedom, requires thinking about it in different ways.

Freedom is defined as both "the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved" and "the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint".

The other day I had a revelation - a dramatic and immediate shift in my mind. A change in perspective. I sat in a meeting discussing what we always discuss and feeling what I always feel when I am doing this work - fulfilled and happy – like its my pleasure to be contributing to something larger than me, being an active, positive part of the community, making people and therefore the Earth, a healthier place. We went over dates that I would be missing of upcoming events… all the events intriguing me. At all these events I would be creating clientele in the work I love to do, building my own business (that has repeatedly allowed me to travel however I’d like) and networking with the top people in the plant-based community… and all the while, I was thinking “Man, why do I have to be gone? I don’t want to miss out on these opportunities and the growth that is happening... and that I have helped cultivate to begin with this community.”

In that moment I realized that the only person pulling myself away from those events was me. Resistance. This was the first time I noticed the illusion of an idea of freedom I had created, actually obstructing the view of "real" freedom. It became clear that this was an example of resistance in my life.

At this point in my life - a few years out of college and in the beginning stages of understanding cultural literacy - I had felt out what I thought a life of freedom would look like for me.

I have been intentional in most of the moments that had been happening the past few years – I've always tried my best, at least - practicing intentionality and active manifestation. So I know that I intentionally create the flow that I feel. But even in this knowing, I have observed resistance to certain things… things like “setting down” (something I really don’t like about the term “settling”) and being in any sort of relationship that limits what I can do, where I can go, etc. Work, romantic, parental/familial, ya know.. all of them. I actively disliked the idea of anything or anyone having the capability of trapping me somewhere, making me do one thing, etc… I have a very strong declination from the traditional American life, in which I imagined living in the suburbs, married to a man with some kids, feeding them processed foods, enrolled in a school system that sucks and fosters little to no creativity, catalyzing bullying... all the while having some boring vanilla sex that leads to something very similar to what I have heard many in my grandparent’s and parent’s generation talk about as a sexless marriage.

Its not always the case, but it is what SO MANY of us have grown up watching around us...

Society tends to “trap” people, I’m not about it… perpetuating an unsustainable government system and economy that is killing our planet and fellow humans – no thank you.

Sooo.. bottom line, I've held some fear within my self at the idea of somehow slipping into this routine that most people around me still continue to get fall into, or choose out of ease… and yes I realize some people really like the idea of living like that, but so many don’t live sustainably happy (or contently) and yet are drug into it, continuing to perpetuate it. Nobody wants to do what they don’t want to do but somehow end up doing it.. At least that was what I saw growing up in middle-class suburbia and within our interestingly twisted society in the early 1990s-2000’s.

I find gratitude for this fear, nonetheless, because it drove me away from this “typical” life – and into something dramatically different. I became fearless about persueing life on the other end of the spectrum. At 21, out of college, working for myself teaching yoga, and then going around the world to work and explore, and landing with my own business at 24 in Naples, Florida, growing an edible landscape and swimming in the ocean every day. And now almost 26, with another 6 months of travel under my belt, networks of community all over South Florida, the world and the capability, the trust that I am about to make waves… I am ready to put this experience and these tools to use.

Back and forth I have gone -

In and out of different jobs and ways of making money…

Always with the same purpose – to help heal the earth and be a positive impact on people –

...but never sticking to one thing, getting good at something and moving into the next accomplishment, creative venture, idea, that happens to manifest easily for me.

I went from teaching kids, to teaching yoga and into plant-based cooking… now dabbling in social media marketing website building and helping build a plant-based organization and permaculture. With additional extended travel time scattered throughout the 5 years since college...

This is why is flutter back and forth between wanting to travel and wanting to ground down somewhere;

Those travels have been the most valuable learning tools… enabling me to put the mindfulness tools and my ability to be present into real-time and in real social situations. They've made me socially intelligent and really great in conversation and being positive energy around people.

The work scenarios that I have landed push me out of my comfort zone and test you – in real time and with real people. It matters - and that makes you try your best… I am always intentional in these moments.

The people I have met throughout all of this and the support I have found is enveloping and abundant. I have learned to trust the universe entirely…. Whatever larger Source you vibe with – if you are putting out positive energy… true and authentic vibrations, all the right things will happen and you'll be taken care of. (I know it may sound out there if you don’t feel connected spiritually, but imagine a feeling of love in your body… that feeling like a larger source of energy --- if you can connect to that feeling and act from it, you are taken care of… by that feeling, by that energy flow. )

Anyway… I digress… back into it. I am writing to somewhat solidify (test the waters, some would say) in how it feels to think of basing myself from South FL, sticking around – maybe reshifting my mindset from entirely nomadic, to grounded in a place but with the ability to move around and travel as much as I’d like, and see what grows from that. Rather than traveling to Asia for the new year and into 2019, deciding to begin my year teaching a Lifestyle Transition course to people and helping to build a huge platform of plant-based peeps that are eager for support and love, and success.

I feel really honored that I have flowed into these relationships and for a long time I felt that I still had other things to learn and that I would learn from traveling, prior to “settling” somewhere.

I guess what has shifted in my head is that fact that I am choosing to live in a way that fosters EVERYTHING I want and that is sustainable in and of itself. I don’t need to go anywhere else or look for any other type of variation of work to create the life situation that I have yearned for… I have been creating it. I want to be close to my family, eat well, do what love, have the ability to travel whenever I want, be able to afford to have a family in the 5 – 10 year plan, and feel full of purpose.

I can build something, I have been building something, and its blasting off. I don’t want to miss my opportunity to jump onboard… (not even that it would be missed, because if that was the case then obviously it wasn’t the thing that was meant for me…)

Knowing in my heart that this is the right time to jump i,n so that I can work to fulfill a huge purpose that I know I have and be the change that I want to see in the world – obviously this is my time.

I have been flowing with absolutely powerful and amazing women and humans, lovers, friends, family…. I feel equipped to be living in a more grounded way overall, so that I can venture out from a place that is entirely me and full of life vitality and purpose… continue making my dreams come true.. in an entirely new and adult, independent, intentional and blessed way.

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Written Oct. 12, 2018

**As I edit and submit these entries into the online world I reflect on the internal and external changes that have transpired since I first began writing. It is a beautiful journey to be able to retrace, and a blessing.

These entries will compile some sort of wacky book - or potential book, of a journey I intentionally set myself upon in 2013. Ultimate bliss - in the form of purpose, contentment and ease.**

With love and peace.

-- Amanda