Holà friends and family from a coffee shop in beautiful sunny Puerto Escondido! I have been here three weeks now, working remotely and training/practicing Movement under Jonathan and Mariana Fletcher, students of Ido Portal, at Movement Mexico.

So much has happened in that time, I truly don’t know where to start. Since last writing it has been two weeks and in that time I’ve started to experience this place deeper. The Movement experience is getting into a groove, and the community is starting to feel real and very sweet. Friendships are forming, in and out of the Movement world, for me. As I had deeply hoped for… I feel myself falling in love with this experience!

Multiculturalism

I’m starting to understand better what my surf instructor David meant when he said he loves Puerto for its Multiculturalism, because in every social gathering I’ve been in, it’s impossible to guess where people are from. I’m sharing meals and movement classes and yoga classes and outings with people from Mexico, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Denmark… People are speaking English and Spanish mostly, but also other languages from shared home countries. This place seems to be a hotspot for international tourists – some vacationing for short or long term, some working remotely, some building new lives here. Many entrepreneurs and creatives.

I am reminded a bit of how much my world expanded when I left California to go to school in North Carolina. That experience opened my eyes to how big my own country is, culturally. I had known nothing of the nuanced cultural dynamics of the East Coast, and started learning about it only by being out there.

Similarly, I’m starting to realize how ignorant I am about geography, global history, global cultural dynamics… and it’s humbling as well as inspiring! I love hearing stories from these different people about their upbringings, their lives back at home, and experiences they’ve had while traveling.

I love being reminded what a joy it is to learn about the world. Meeting people from different places naturally inspires my curiosity. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet on Spanish language classes or Salsa lessons, but I feel the call and feel it coming. I sense that all languages and dance forms carry their own stories and histories… while I’m here I want to be touched by the story of Mexico, of Latin America. I already feel some of it, some of the spirit of this place. I feel welcomed.

Kissed by The Spirit of Mexico

Speaking of the Spirit of this place, permit me to share some wonderful norms of this gorgeous foreign land…

First – When people greet each other, they embrace and give a kiss on the left cheek. I am so completely enamored with this custom. It sets the tone for everything when you start with saying hello and giving and receiving a kiss 🙂 And it feels heart-warming and friendly and romantic!

I was shy at first, accustomed to respecting people’s space (a remnant from my own culture), but have now embraced it and joyfully greet others this way whether they are locals or not.

Then there is of course the language and the dance and music. While at first I felt intimidated by the foreignness of these things, now I feel something intimate about it… deeper than enthusiasm, I feel an actual longing and desire to know and feel. I feel like I have forgotten, or never truly known, how to speak in my own home tongue with flair and beauty. But… La lingua Español es muy romantico, no?? Maybe the voice of this land can stir my voice and heart to a new kind of life. Maybe her dance can bring alive my body.

Last night I went to my first salsa gathering. It was hot and sweaty and beautiful. I feel this deep hunger to be on that dance floor, to learn the steps, to unlock my hips and feet, the same way I hope to relax my tongue and learn to roll my rrrrrrr’s.

As I write about this I see that in this moment I am very much wanting to shuck off some kind of stiffness I’ve been living in, stifled in. Some kind of rigid form my life has taken that has sucked the life out of me. Coming to Mexico was the beginning of breaking out of a cast I built for myself, something that had a function of helping me heal in some ways… but has become an intolerable cage.

I guess that’s a great segue into the real news of the week…

Big News… Digital Nomad Emma quits digital job!

Oh my gosh, I am literally laughing in this coffee shop as I write this. LOL!

I am quitting my job.

I did not know it would happen so soon. I was planning to take a month-long sabbatical starting in February, to take that time to do some healing and introspection and make a plan for my exit strategy, and then return to work with an idea of how to phase out and what to go into next. But truthfully, even as I was forming that plan in my head, I was already miserable about the idea of going back to work afterwards. It felt like a dark cloud hanging over me. And I knew that… even if I took a month long sabbatical, I would be too weighed down by that heaviness to actually dream about what’s next for me.

Still, I held that plan, and I took the plunge into the digital nomad journey and came here.

Then I started working… and while I did, multiple things happened that made my misery about work feel increasingly intolerable and unacceptable to me, including seeing myself act like an asshole to a visiting friend and people around me (which has happened on multiple other occasions over the past two years), and just straight up running out of energy, at times being unable to participate in the things I actually came here for.

Last weekend it culminated in being out with a fever and in bed for a day and a half. That almost never happens to me and was a clear signal from my body.

Sad, Stressed-out Emma… 😦

Ah, this was an unfortunately common experience over the past two years.

I have both compassion and shame for the way I have treated people in my physical environment when I am managing this digital job. I’ve become short, impatient, demanding. I’ve done it to visiting friends, and I’ve done it to random people who happen to be in the space with me, like a barista who wants to play loud music or take a longer time that I expect to prepare some food or drink I ordered. To be in such a beautiful relaxed environment, and see myself get into a ball of stress that can not tolerate the normal fluctuations of the living world around me… This has felt frankly horrifying to me. Unacceptable.

I would like to apologize publicly for that now. I pray to have less and less of that kind of energy express itself through me, going forward.

Even just with myself, taking out what I see in my interactions with other people… I had a kind of terrible journey over the first couple weeks of being here. I wasn’t sleeping well, I wasn’t always able to be present in Movement sessions… impatience and rush was bleeding into everything. And in my heart of hearts I knew that I just didn’t have it in me to both do my computer job, and show up fully for the things I came to Mexico for. I was making lots of compromises, and it felt pretty painful to feel bound to choose to put my energy into something that was draining me, rather than into the things I love.

My best days have been days when I basically “played hooky” for half the work day, because I was able to move meetings around and condense my work for the day into shorter time… and then actually show up for Movement the way I would like to, both for the morning class session and the afternoon Open Gym session, plus to see the sunset. Days like that, if it could be like that every day… maybe it would be worth it to stay with my computer work.

But then there were days where I just had to be on the computer all day. All day crawling in my skin, feeling like “this is just not right for me”. But feeling bound. Feeling the edges of my cast, too tight. The bird, waking up to the fact that it is in a cage and desperately wants to fly the way she was born to. Again, intolerable.

Listening to the Message

Why is this not right for me? Only God knows. But it’s the truth. The message has been coming, and coming, and coming. And I have been listening but too scared to act. Too scared to quit prematurely. Too scared of jumping into the abyss of “I don’t have a job and don’t know what I’m doing next in my life!” Too scared of probably a whole vat of emotions that I’ve been pushing to the side while I “show up for my real life responsibilities”.

After I made the choice I’ve been realizing that I owe myself a serious amends process for forcing myself to keep doing this path that’s been so painful. I feel some deep grief for myself. For my inner being, who’s never felt comfortable and alive inside this Technology work. For my inner being, who actually does have a path to walk on this Earth that’s God-given and light-filled and purposeful… but who’s been trapped behind some persona that I pushed out into the world to try to survive.

And, to be fair, it did help me survive. Part of me was frozen after my breakup with Mathew and Seven Winds two and a half years ago, and completely frightened of the world. Actually, those feelings have always been there in me and I haven’t known how to face them. I felt naked, vulnerable, without “something” to throw myself into. Without some kind of path that I could show to the people in my life to validate “See, I’m doing something! I’m okay!” All while feeling deeply alone and suffering and out of my element… Lol. Guess that’s life! I hope (and, more excitingly, am trying to trust) that the skills and resources I’ve accrued during this stage of life will be repurposed towards a path that is better for me.

Even if not, it’s time to go. On some level it was wrong to stay. But it is okay to be imperfect, and on that note I am reminded of a Hawaiian saying called Ho’oponopono, which is actually a healing process all by itself.

I’m Sorry. Please Forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

A prayer I offer to myself, and to my Life, at this moment of transition.

I’m Sorry.

Please Forgive me

I Thank you.

& I love you.

Transition Time

So now I have begun a process, I am talking the talk… and need to take the steps, walk the walk, day by day. I wished to say “I’m done with my job, haha!” and be done instantaneously, but in reality there is a process to go through that takes time, and I sense that I must show up for it fully if this transition is to mean anything for me.

It’s important to take time to say goodbye. To offer words of appreciation to the people who have been with me inside this journey of working for Meraki. To give them a chance to say goodbye, as well. It would be a serious misstep on my part to run away too quickly, as though this place has been all bad for me. It hasn’t been. There has been a lot of beauty, and a very real growth process. Even if just for myself, I need to take the time to reflect and share, and to be caring about the way that I leave… tying up loose ends, handling the transition with care for myself as well as this company and its people. The relationships I have built during the last two years are real and can live on in a new form, even just heart to heart in the energetic space of our world. I guess what I mean is… I want to be the kind of person who leaves with a kiss on the cheek and a smile.

Next up: Deeper into Movement Practice

When more of my energy is freed up, I am hopeful that I will be able to go deeper into, and write more about, the learning journey my soul is more here for. To share about the Movement practice, and where those 10-20 hours of classes and open gym sessions every week are taking me… I am so curious what will happen. We will see.

I wish I had pictures of the practice to share here, but for now I will link again the Instagram for Movement Mexico… take a look if you are curious!

And another piece of news… I have decided to extend my stay here and commit to the full three months of Movement practice, a full trimester of movement study and community in this gorgeous place. Hooray!!

Thank you for following and I send you blessings… and more excitingly, besos besos besos!!!!

Muahhhh,

Emma