My path was really chaotic and wild.... once I managed to leave the UK I just followed my nose and my heart. Going wherever the wind would take me.
Starting with places I had friends living, I began to get used to travelling with locals, not tourists. This I found to be incredibly rich and expansive -- as I could really see under the covers to what was really going on. Learning from different cultures and blending into their real lives, not that of a backpacker which could be super similar from place to place -- with the same European faces asking "where have you been?"
In fact the worst part of all my trips was when I tried to travel with friends I knew from London. They were tired from too much travel, absolutely privileged and wanting to stay in expensive air conditioned rooms watching Victorias secret models on TV... you could have literally been anywhere. They missed the flow of travel and the magic of being present. Safe to say I didnt hang around with them for long.
To go with the flow...
I followed my heart and all that took my interest, this started with meditation, then photography, then yoga.... it took me right where I needed to be at the right time.
It took a while to unwind from the schedule of 9-5 western living.... to truly be able to find and nurture my interests. I felt punch drunk leaving the UK.... Leaving the culture, the massive collective ego and the stress and pressure. But once I gave myself time to just be and live, I really started to find my hidden artist within.
Art is Life. Life is Art.
I realised that I was creative after all, in the way I chose to live... and document my travels. I loved taking photos, got really good -- and lost so many amazing photos on old hard drives/computers. But this fed my soul. Just to be free and in awe and to create. To recreate myself away from the western cardboard cut out culture. Away from everything I once was.
The path revealed itself.
I flowed and found all that I was missing, and all that I needed to learn along the way.
With learning meditation, then yoga, then breathwork, I started to find a passion to share these gifts with others that I found along my path. Those who were interested, those who were struggling. I realise not many had heard of breath work, and I was so happy to share with new friends that had homed me and treated me as family along my travels.
New opportunities appeared...
As I travelled I would visit festivals along the way, and soon enough found myself drawn to healing areas and then bringing my breathwork. Starting in Guatemala when some friends had a red tent in a festival -- they let me hold a ceremony and it was powerful !! I then used photos and reached out to other festivals to say I had worked there (true but not officially). This gave me a leg up, got me noticed and got me in to some of the biggest psychedelic festivals in the world. It makes me laugh how people think its so easy, and act so entitled. I worked my way from the bottom. Never got paid for a long time, and practised for years with friends and myself without having the balls to charge.
But it was worth it in the end. All the hard work, all the brave and wild risks and chances.
It taught me so much those years without direction. And finally now I am settled back in the UK -- I can see there was a bigger direction after all, guided by something bigger than me.
I can see my path looking back, and it was purposeful after all.
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