How you feel affects your big life choices.

 

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." ~ George Bernard Shaw

 

Creating yourself from space vs. creating yourself from feelings. Let me ask you:

Have you been letting "how you feel" affect your big life choices?

Here are some big statements:

Every place you live contributes to how you feel.

You create your life based on how you feel. Most times.

And the people around you, the home itself - all of it is making you feel a way. Right now.

This is going somewhere good.

Go for a ride with me?

I'm sitting at the kitchen table of our latest AirBnB home.

I am sipping coffee and listening to Luna watch iCarly in the other room. My eyes flicker to the clock. I realize that I am "way off schedule" according to me. I'm loving the rest and relaxation this choice has brought me. It's already 24 hours in and has calmed my body and my world. I'm typing these words to you to share the enormity of the epiphany that came from the last 9 months.

We moved house yesterday.

Andres and I have been in Canada now since Valentine's Day. We moved into our second AirBnB yesterday here in London, Ontario.

Last night was a family night of ribs and potatoes, Netflix and robot-building, unpacking and getting settled - all at the same time - in a space where we could all just... be.

It's big enough but still cozy. It's updated and warm. And I am still amazed at how much the environment, neighborhood, and home affects me.

There has been a lot of conversation between Andres and I about our time in Latin America.

There are feelings.

We are making forward choices here. Here in North America, especially in our hometown of London, ON, we are facing places we knew and who we were. We are seeing the changes in ourselves from who we were.

And in our own ways, we are navigating our way around regret.

Both of us look backwards. We see the people we were and the resources we had before we left Canada (right before the vaccine mandates). We wish we still had those things. Coming back here and re-establishing, we are facing ten's of more thousands to get us back on par with where we were.

Looking backwards is definitely a trap.

But the other day, it kind of hit different.

I was listening to a podcast somewhere. Wouldn't it be nice if we would save the links that create the epiphanies?!

And during the 'cast, I realized that "this was so hard" was the story I kept running over and over in my mind. I kept looking at that time as a hard time. A brutal time. A wasteful time. A time to be discarded and written off. A PTSD trigger.

In the same moment, I realized that I could create it into another story.

The truth is, that if when we left, I had seen that 2 year adventure as a way to grow, and, I knew I couldn't get that change any other way, I would have embraced the cost. That change would have been priceless.

I started that adventure thinking that it would be great and we would get richer and everything would be a party. So, the unexpected self-development through what actually did occur felt like a beyond. A shock to my system. Something not-wanted and bad.

I did ask the universe for some big things inside of me. Total receiving. Total awareness. Total consciousness in this lifetime.

(I can't even imagine what it takes to be able to do total consciousness in one lifetime. That is the awareness of all good, all bad and all ugly without judgment. Big, strong consciousness muscles.)

With all that in hand, I'm working with myself now. I'm developing the view that we had a big, grand, Latin adventure. It cost us a lot but also made us who we are.

It's a new neural pathway, but it's starting to take.

But, with all that inside work, one big thing I'm noticing is that it's easier in a home that works for us.

When we first arrived to ye old North America, I landed us near Atlanta Georgia. I didn't put two and two together, and know that "near" Atlanta, Georgia means you're staying in the suburbs. And that that means you're still in Latin America.

It turns out that from Miami up the coastline is the haven for that part of the world.

And let me pause and defend this country and these people for a minute. Because I am aware that most of what comes out of my mouth about that gigantic part of the world is pretty negative.

I LOVE that country and those people. I am married to one.

As a whole group, they are generous-hearted. Artistic. Service-oriented. Kind. Hospitable. Loyal. I had some of my most life-changing epiphanies in Colombia. About what is available to a person and how a person can live. Also, the earth there is sumptuous.

However.

It is not an easy place to live. Ask my Latin American husband.

The flip side of all that hospitality is that everything, everything (except for coffee and pandebono's) is hard. Every process. Every decision. Every single thing, is hard. Finding someone to trust is a lifelong process. Corruption, lies, and deceit are the norm. Many learn to lie and get around and keep their world small. Different skills are required to live well in those countries.

And so small worlds are the norm. Suspicion and doubt are rampant. You are in a pool of kind artists and some of the smartest minds in the world. But, you are also in the ocean of not-enough. Of scarcity.

And can we be honest with one another?

There are easier pools of energy than that.

Which is why I told Andres that I needed to "go back".

Of course, I assumed that almost any big city in the US with trees and dirt would be similar. I lumped the country into one big gigantic pool.

Which, it turns out, you can't do.

I saw a reel the other day. It was from a Brit. He had taken it upon himself to live in the USA and find out why few Americans had passports or traveled. And in his words, "It's because they don't need to. The USA is huge."

So, to lump the USA into one sentence is untrue. Every nook and cranny of the US is different. The USA is massive. And different parts of it draw different segments of the world. From Miami up the coastline, you have all Latinos from everywhere.

So, translation: where we landed was still very, very intense.

Even with access to a network of furnished, easy-to-access corporate rental apartments, it didn't help much. Stressed people filled the complexes we lived in.

How do I know that? Because for the last month, I've been in a very different country and noticed how much my stress levels went down. I had no idea how stressed everyone was until I got here.

Canada feels different. It's a socialist country. It's organized. The taxation provides enough money for things here to feel much more predictable. In that predictability people feel more relaxed.

But, even in London, Ontario, Canada there are easier places to live.

When we first arrived, we landed in Downtown London.

Downtown London is full of older, heritage homes. People have bought and split them into 2 or 4-plexes. They are old. Most people have not gutted and outfitted their homes, adding new insulation and windows.

Translation: they're cold. The floors are not even. The heat is centrally controlled for all units. They don't each have their own. And, you have noise from all other neighbors.

They also exist in the part of the city (like most other cities) where there is a much, much higher percentage of drug-addicts and homeless people. And even though there are many efforts being put into gentrifying the area, the entity activity and energetic reality down there is... something.

Which I didn't know until we moved to where I sit now.

This little home is in an area called Lambeth. It, like most suburbs, flows into London. But, it has older 1950's homes, bigger yards, and borders farmer's fields.

Translation: there is lots and lots and lots and lots - of space. The people here are older and care for their homes. There are parks everywhere.

As far as places for bodies go: this little area turns out to be top of the list.

And so I conclude with this:

The last 9 months have been MAJOR change for me. I've changed countries. Wrapped up a huge loan. Brought my husband to a new country. Started his immigration process. Realized we couldn't stay down there. Changed countries again. Came back to a country where I didn't know we were going to be. Started my immigration work (again), and looking at building roots here. Gone through (and still going through) stage 4 peri-menopause and living in a very intense body.

Everything is so different. I am so different. As you know, I have been looking at dropping and changing it all. My certification. My desire to travel the world. My connections.

I've been creating myself.

But here's the thing:I sit in this house. Its energies. I feel different than I did 3 days ago in that other house. And it's got me looking at how much where I live has been affecting my life choices.

I hesitated to tell you that. I have prided myself on being "above" feelings.

Heh.

So.

Today I am wondering how my life choices will change as we, I, stay here in this home. How much more possibility I will "feel". How much that "feeling" will affect what I want to choose. How strong I will (and do) feel. Clearly, I have been feeling a lot, and giving myself the space to choose from those feelings.

But today, here, in this space and as "new me" - I am also wondering something different.

Yes, I've been feeling a way. But now - can I go beyond that? Can I make choices from a different space? A sensing space? Can I stop holding myself captive to the past (even yesterday) and choose what is going to create the world and the future I want to see? From sensing?

With the contribution of this new house and this new space - I get that I can.

And I'm thrilled to take you along on a new and different - ride.

I am not going to hold myself to being consistent to yesterday. As best I can, I am going to give myself the same freedom I would give you -

To be the you now. The changed-by-your-latest-epiphany you.

And to choose what's going to form and create the future you want to see - now.

I wonder what's next?