The Unknown Zone

Thanks Eunja for the title. I sit here paralyzed, unable to move, frozen. Why? Is it a fear of change? Is it fear of the unknown? As part of getting ready for my journey, I decided to give everything away instead of putting them in storage. I had a moving sale a couple weeks back and was able to sell most things. I have a few things left that I plan on trying to sell through another moving sale. The moving sell was exciting; people were coming through and I got to barter with them. Yes, the New Yorker in me came out and that felt great. Interestingly, I got to meet some fascinating people through this sale. I met two ladies from India. The first gave me some recommendations and tips. We had a great conversation. She ended up buying a candle from me for 20 cents. Woohoo. I think she felt obligated to buy something after our great conversation. The second lady must have preached to me for about an hour. Telling me how she left Hinduism for Christianity and that there is only 1 God. Through her life choice, she had to lose her family. I really felt for her and she warned me that tons of people will try to convince me that their religion is the right one for the path to salvation. I thanked her also for her tips. I can’t remember if she bought anything, she must not have. Well at least I had two great conversations and wonderful tips to remember. So, once the sale was done, I just looked around my home. All alone in a somewhat empty house. Suddenly it felt like this is really going to happen. I am really leaving, but then I got sad. I don’t know why, but the excitement changed into fear and sadness. To know that you are leaving everything and everyone behind even if for a good reason is scary. Change is inevitable, change happens everyday. Without change there would be no life. The alone thing that is certain is change. But why do so many people fear change? In my work, I see people who know what they need to do whether it is leave an abusive spouse, quit alcohol or drugs but yet they are paralyzed and can’t do what they need to do. Why is that? I know deep down in my heart, with every fiber in my being that this is a journey that I need to take. But yet, I have procrastinated and have not done what has needed to be done so I could have left already. I should have been gone in September, but now it is November and I am just finishing up most of the things that needs to be done. I closed down my private practice, so I have so much time on my hands but I haven’t been progressing in my move as I should. Today, I took my car to get an oil change and to see what why it was making this crazy noise. I decided to leave the car and walk home to get some exercise in since it has been some time since I’ve done yoga, belly dance, run, or any form of exercise. On my walk I saw two caterpillars’ at two different points. As I looked at those caterpillars’, I thought about how this insect will go through a metamorphosis and turn into a beautiful butterfly. But before it can be this beautiful gift that is flying free and peacefully it has to first crawl the earth and go through this change. I then thought about my journey and just maybe going through this journey I too will someday soar and feel free. Isn’t that why we are on earth? To be great, to know our infinite wisdom and to be free. Not to be held captive by life, work or poverty.

Beginnings of my spiritual journey Pt. 1

OK, so I decided to start a blog cuz a lot of friends, family and coworkers are asking me everyday about my upcoming journey. So, they all want to know why I am going, how I am doing it and when I am leaving. So let me start on the why I am going. But before that let me say that I am hoping to get a lot of followers. This blog thing is new for me, but I figure I'm gonna have a lot of stories and I might as well get used to blogging now. OK so as you see the ADHD kicked in and I went off on a tangent. So, back to my story. Why I decided to go to India and Argentina. Well, I've always wanted to live out side of the country (USA) and see what it is like being somewhere else; but why now? Well, I am 35 years old and have been in a series of relationships but still single. I could say they were bad but really they weren't. I think everything I have been through has been to lead me to make this decision to travel. I have met some great people, but they were not ready to commit. As I had to do work on myself, I realized I was not ready to commit so I attracted men who were not ready to commit. This gave me an excuse to focus externally, get mad at them and now focus on myself. Stay tuned for my book on relationships. At the end of my last relationship (last summer 2008) was when I decided to leave this country. I was so in love all though I never told him, but when he broke up with me I knew something had to change. I keep entering the same type of relationships with the same endings. The definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting new results". I said it is time for me to stop this insanity. The leaving the country is more so that I can stop, sit back and exam myself. Figure out who I really am and what I am looking for. Sure I can do that here, but why when the world is so huge and there is so much out there to learn and to see. At the same time that I was going through my relationship stuff, I was going through slow spiritual growth. I am a very anxious person who can not sit still. My friends know that I always have like 3 jobs, travel all the time and still have time to hang out with them. They always say "I don't know how you do it". Truth be told, I don't know either. (Is it ok to bring the IM/chatting lingo into blogs? I hope so). Focus Renee Marie. So back to being anxious....I know being here I can not instill the discipline I need to sit quietly and be introspective. Oh, I was going to bring up meditation. So I started looking into relaxation techniques to help me learn how to relax. That is when I decided to look into meditation. At first, I bought a book on how to meditate, but I didn't get very far with that because I wasn't disciplined enough to do it on my own everyday. So, I started looking for places I could go to for meditation(free of course since I wanted to try and do it everyday and that would get expensive). So the free places I found were Buddhist centers. Lo and behold I started visiting 3 Buddhist centers. I finally settled on 2 that I went to fairly often. Eventually I took refuge and became Buddhist. In addition, I learned Reiki and started doing yoga. So all of these spiritual things made we want to grow more spiritually which led me to decide to go to India. This and the fact that I read Eat, Pray, Love. Reading about Elizabeth Gilbert's stay in an Ashram made we want to have that experience. Well I am going to the Black woman's version of Eat, Pray, Love. Stay tuned for that book too. So, why Argentina? A coworker of mine would always say this joke to me when I go to work in such a great Indian accent even though he is from Iran. "You are going to India to find yourself , then you are going to Argentina to find a man" Hey, not bad if that happens. So why Argentina? Well I have to say for 2 reasons: the Argentine accent and the beef! I want to learn spanish and I want to have the Argentine accent. Stay tuned for how I will accomplish this trip, where I will be staying, etc. I plan to continue this blog with videos, pictures and more stories for my family and friends to share in my story.