August 24th 2019

Reading time: 10 minutes, 7 seconds.

I wake up in the morning, my body clock tells me the time. Even if I wanted not to wake, I still wake. My body tells me: it is time. It took a few days to get to this point with a super loud alarm clock my sister would strangle me for, but then 3-4 days later, the body already knows. Every day at the same time – so easy.

SHARING

Gurudev says: when you share something, it looses power. If it is a secret, and it is spoken, it loses its power and leaves you. If it is something precious to you, kept inside, it grows and enlightens you from within. That is why I wait before I write, until it grows in me so much I cannot but share, when it all matures inside of me. I also have my bad secret secrets, but I share them skilfully, so I am free of them and no one gets hurt. At least that is how I perceive my actions in the world.

Today I shared a burden of guilt on my chest to someone who was able to take it easily. It made me really free. All the bad things we do or have been done to us, the pain that comes with it, gives us so much depth. The pain can bring sadness with it, but if we drop the sadness and stay with the pain, the pain will slowly dissolve. The sadness is our own creation, we choose to keep it. Another amazing pearl of wisdom from Sri Sri (Gurudev) is: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Easier said than done, I guess. How to let go of the sadness? By choice, I tell you. The only thing that blocks us from letting go of all the emotions we so selfishly keep to ourselves, is that we do not really know how. We struggle.

To live a life of spirituality for me is a direct result of the early part of my life being a really heavy and sad one. No one to blame for it! It is how it is. Me being a little more sensitive only makes my life’s events more difficult for me to digest. If I think back, it took me years (and I guess this is just another growing up experience for all of us) – it took me years to come out of blaming my parents for all my life’s experiences. Not for the war, or the divorce, or the moving from place to place, not because of all the previously mentioned events – but for how I felt about them happening to me. All my emotions and my states of mind had basically two people holding responsibility over them: my parents.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

I just took such a long time to get out of pointing fingers and start looking at myself as the responsible one for how the experience of my life was and is influencing my state of being. At that exact moment, I wished to come out of blaming, but had no idea how to do that. I resorted to turn the blame on myself. At the time it has already been a bit late, as I was a full-blown drug abuser and alcoholic. Just added to the list as more things I blamed ‘life’ for bringing on me, still not taking any responsibility for what I was doing to my body, my mind, or how I behaved to my partners and friends and family.

I will tell you, my dear, that even today I do not take full responsibility on many occasions. It takes time for me to see that I am truly the creator of all that comes to me. And even if I had not known that I was the creator myself, that is no reason not to take responsibility – not for what happened – but for how it made me feel and think. That is entirely mine. No one can take responsibility for my reactions, for my thoughts and my feelings. Yes, they are mine and mine alone.

I came to realise how the habit of taking proper care of myself, of my body, my mind, my emotions and my state of being has not yet reached a level I could be proud of. I am 37 years old. I have been meditating and doing yoga and other practices since 2005. Soon to be my 15 years anniversary of mostly being surrounded by people that are into health and happiness, good habits, cleansing techniques, healthy food, environmental care etc. etc. etc. Most of my friends even before that time were and are activists for human rights, artists, meditators. I can say my environment has been only supportive for me to adopt fully only good life habits. Yet, every single day I wake up in the morning, it is a new day and a new struggle to keep discipline for my own well-being.

I am the embodiment of opposites and extremes. I can keep a strict restrictive diet for months. And I can eat pizza for months. I can dream of staying in one place for years, and move house five times in a single year. 

PLANNING

Whatever I plan will take another direction from the expected one. I think that maybe there is no point in planning any more.

Quoting myself from the other day:

When you feel so free to go wherever and do whatever at any time, it becomes difficult to make decisions. That is where the ‘sadhana’ comes in handy for me. No matter what, I have one thing that is always with me, my personal spiritual practice. It gives me clarity, when I really need to make decisions, I make them and I do not regret them. Whatever I decided and did, I stay with it and then see what will happen. I never wish to go back on my stupid and crazy and sometimes even very smart decisions.

Anyway, do you think you ever really decided anything in your life? You might think you have, but in the end life will take you by the hand wherever life plans to take you. It may happen that sometimes you made a decision in alignment to where life was anyway taking you – and you got the illusion that you are the decision-maker.

Everything works in opposites – we have absolute responsibility and are creators of our own lives and at the same time: life slaps and hugs us however it wishes to. Absolute control, and absolute surrender – at the same time, all the time. Wow!

DATING STORIES

I have recently moved from my safe space into my very-not-safe space. Exposed to just life. Without big plans, saving the world, and serving humanity. I am figuring out how to earn more money, how to pay rent, how to interact with new people. I have a network of dear friends and spiritual family, but I also meet completely new people. I also interact with so many people on a daily basis, just coming out of my house. I somehow feel less inhibited to talk to anyone in any situation – post office, bank, shop. As if these people were my friends and family. It is a shift for me, I feel more comfortable with people in general.

I am also meeting people, let’s say kind of dating. Meeting people that are interested in dating, and seeing where it takes us. I met someone who could really be a new buddy. A younger person, a refreshing openness of mind and heart. I also met someone else, who I really liked. Or I might have liked who I imagined this person to be. I have mad intuition, and I just know when things are not right and it takes me a little time, but eventually, when I stop being obsessive, I can feel exactly what the doubt in me was about. In this particular case, the someone is engaged with someone else. I had felt this instant connection, like an old acquaintance, from another life. You know how some people you just connect to instantly, and some who have been your friends for years, you maybe never come to that level of connecting/understanding.

The whole story was just insane how much energy was spent on it. You ‘recognise’ someone, and you just want to become an essential part of the other person. So, on the metaphysical/emotional side, such a connection, such easy understanding with practically a stranger. On the other, practical/material, who is this person really? Did I truly ‘recognise’ or did I just wish to?

One more person that I met seemed obviously perfect, but there is something I cannot quite pin-point about it all. I know it has nothing to do with the other person, I feel some distance from myself and cannot quite pin-point the reason behind it yet. I’ll let you know when I figure it out! (see end of this blog)

I still have no idea what all happened and why, I just realised so many things about myself in the process.

I LEARNED SO MANY THINGS

Firstly, I fall in love in a fraction of a second. I connect to people so easily, on a certain level. I can instantly imagine spending my life with the person. Yes, I start projecting my desires on the person in front of me. Secondly, I got clear plain confirmation that my intuition is spot on. Just accurate, in detail. I can know how the person feels, how they will react and what they are hiding (if they are hiding something). Thirdly, people like me at first sight, because I am smart and funny, for sure, but also they have not experienced meeting someone so instantly easy-going and honest. It attracts them. Even though they might not even know what it is, they feel drawn to me. Realisation number four: if someone actually likes you does not mean that is the right person for you.

I wanted to meet ‘ordinary’ people. Not activists and artists, just people, with ‘normal’ lives and jobs, just living the life, without big ideas, goals, saving the world and so on. Someone who I can talk about music, art, and psychology. It gave me calmness to realise there are so many different people in this world, but it also left me empty.

I can connect so easily, yet the connection I am looking for seems not to be so worldly. Maybe that is my mistake. I wish for an out-of-this-world connection, yet tangible, real. 

All of these thoughts and ideas about what I want are just that: thoughts and ideas. I had a lot of time to think about what I want, and now I am meeting people, and it is becoming more clear to me what I am really looking for. On the other hand, as said before: complete surrender and complete control, at the same time.

BALANCE

I have no idea what this life of mine has in store for me, but I do know now that it is guiding me to maintain balance in everything. Balance between the spiritual and the material, balance between work and rest, balance between searching to meet someone and allowing life to surprise me.

Time to take rest now. I have been so active this August, and it will continue for quite some time. No holidays ahead for me, as things are looking now.

Love you readers, really love you all. I cannot emphasise enough that I am totally available for you, and how being available for others makes me a happier, more fulfilled person. I am recently understanding that to be there for whoever might need me requires me to do many things for myself. That is another balance that is slowly starting to work out for me. So, on that note, I am going to get some extra sleep this night: 7,5 hours in comparison to less than 6 hours per night, every night since close to a month ago. I will tell you how I manage to stay alive and actively functioning!

September 5th 2019

Reading time: 7 minutes, 0 seconds.

Time freaking flies!

INTUITIVE ANATOMY

Still, I will give August a little recap, because it was eventful. It started with me assisting and attending a program called „Intuitive Anatomy“, by the ThetaHealing technique. Sounds cool right? Well, except me always being in the business of self-exertion, because I worked AND attended the seminar. I also did learn a lot. When I say a lot, I meant a whole bunch a lot. What was probably the most interesting for me was how I was interested more in the body and its functions than the beliefs that each bodily system carries. My favourite bodily system is: skeleton and bones. Very, very interestingly, this is where I have the most pain throughout my life as well as currently. Bones are structure, and structure is safety and stability. Of which I know nothing, less than Jon Snow himself.

A two-week full-day program, where I discovered how people who you would expect least to connect to, somehow you do. Where I learned what it means to not rest enough and to work too much for too many projects and people simultaneously. Did I learn, though?

At the end of it all, I felt relieved, exhausted and brainless/calm. It was really a mixture of so many things, that in the end I cannot even say what exactly would be the feeling or takeaway that I would point out. I learned a lot, about the body, about myself, about others, about my life, about what I want and I what I really need.

In this time, on ‘rest’ days, I went to see my granny with my sister and her boyfriend, and that day was such a relaxed and lovely experience. I even had a swim, my second swim this summer. The other rest day I spent travelling as well as working.

TEACHER TRAINING

As soon as this project was finalised, I travelled to Germany that same night. I walked into the Black Forest whirlpool, again in the role of a course assistant, usually, I was more an admin assistant for the Art of Living Teacher Training, but this year I spent more time in the course itself, as the teachers’ assistant. I really recovered from my tiredness quite soon. As Katina says: the Ashram provides. It did provide for me.

I meditated a lot and spent more time in the course than I have in the previous years, and could really feel how my energy was going higher and higher. But then, too many days of sleeping too less finally got to me. I did so much yoga as well, that I later realised was really bad postures for my broked spine. My spine is not really ‘broked’, but it is kind of wonky. Less sleep, wonky back, too much exertion in yoga postures. And on top of all that, every day a little more sugar to keep me up.

Me, doing Yoga I should not be doing at the moment, August 2019

Copyright: Julia Righes

The energy was so high, that it was mostly like flying through the day, just making it till the evening, getting totally recharged in unforgettable parties, I ever only saw with YES!+ people (18-30 years of age sober/straight insane dancing and enthusiasm).

But. The accumulated tiredness and lack of care for food and sleep got to me eventually and I broke. My body was in so much pain, and my whole nervous system kind of collapsed. It was so strange, because people know me as being so strong. And I was! Until I was not anymore. I just caved in completely. I was hurting physically, I was hurting emotionally and my brain was fried. The first thing I did was call mom, as she did not pick up – who you’re gonna call – ghost busters! I called my sister K, and she yelled over the phone about people not instantly flying to the moon for me. She knows me too well, and if I am crying out of physical pain, it means it is really extreme levels of pain.

I don’t know if this is something to be proud of, but I was told by a physician that he rarely saw such a high pain tolerance, and that if I would ever actually complain of pain, that he would really be very worried. At the time I thought it was cool, but not truly realising the gravity of the situation.

WHO CARES?

All sorts of strange situations happened, through which I understood a few things:
– People will really care, and people will not care – regardless, I should know that everything that is happening is somehow benefitting many people in many different ways. Everybody learns from a situation, everybody gets what they need.

– When in need, I need to ask for help. Even if I do not ask, I need to know to accept it when it is given. Relax, let go and allow nature to take care of me. Without worrying whether I have money to pay the needed treatments, without being ashamed about what people will think if they see me weak, without pushing myself to be strong, and to be better and just allowing my body and mind and heart to take what it needs, and in this case it was rest and care.

I got cared for in so many ways. I was driven, people called doctors for me, gave me all possible treatments, comforting things and food, hugs and support. I even had a beauty session, to make me feel better and a nature and cake photo-shoot! Wow. Nature never leaves you to suffer. Even when you are in such pain. And remember, my pain tolerance level is high and I am saying I am in a lot of pain.  

There was so much pain in my body but also in my heart. I felt all the stress and worries from the previous 5 months just had to come out in those two days. I was also quite high on pain killers, tried them all. They have various effects, some really make you feel high in the mind, and some just take away the physical pain.

I had to allow others to see me in need, to see me weak. To let them care for me. They could also see how different things were without my presence. I thought that was also a good perspective for everyone to have. How things are when I am not around.

The pain was a tiny bit little less, and I was still getting treatments till the end of my stay and managed to play guitar in that time, my arm cramping up during the strumming.

But I made it, because I am STRONG, as my little nephew says through his clenched teeth.

BACK TO LIFE

I travelled back home, slept, rested and came back to daily life, after a month of such an intensive time. Daily life is also quite busy now, and on top of the work, I have another mission to attend to: healing my wonky back. I managed to do a lot of things in a very short time, and in one week saw a specialist, and did tests and am seeing the specialist again next week and probably start physical therapy as well. The Gordana Express, all aboard!

The diagnosis is a bit scary and the words ‘pre-operational state’ are not comforting, but everything else is.

Such a bump on the head for me, to really, really start caring about my body’s needs. I disregard myself all the time, for work, for others, for so many projects. And of course I love it, but it is all a bit too much, this lifestyle. I just need a tiny bit more balance in the work/rest equation.

It is also so beautiful to see how much people care and how much they can really help me. I am not the only one who can help others, people are magnificent with their talents and approaches and how much they can give to others in need. Absolutely lovely.

‘The divine dwells in every heart.’ – says G.

I am doing some treatments (ultrasound massage, laser healing and magnet) of modern medicine to help by back, and they are helping. I also had a few Ayurvedic therapies, because I am scared that the western machines are helping my tissues, but also ruining my aura – haha! It feels slowly, slowly better, and the journey continues. What also helps a lot is me being satisfied for everything that is and being grateful for all the gifts life gives me, every single day.  

Me in Rijeka this summer

September 23rd 2019

Reading time: 3 minutes, 52 seconds

FOLLOWING UP!

Exciting gazillion news, again! When I will not have news to share, it will be the end of this blog.

I am still doing my therapy for the back and in quite some pain, but not so much suffering, to be really honest. I am taking it well. I am also taking some Ayurvedic supplements and following suggestions about food and what to do to make the nerve less inflamed as well as the muscles less cramped. It’s kind of working. I can proudly say I am making slow and steady progress with ups and downs. I can now also exercise and I love it.

I also feel utterly helpless. It is silly, but I can actually not ride my bike, play guitar, or even press or hold things with my left hand. It is difficult to accept, to have to ask for help all the time. Luckily, other people take better care of me, than I do.

So, let’s move on to the news! I am actually dating someone. I wrote a list of what I thought was a perfect person for me and to be honest, this guy is 90% this person. The one from the first text of this blog.

We met on Tinder (a dating app), and instantly felt comfortable with each other. There is nothing like what you want and then you get that. It is that you somehow like the person, and then like many things about them, when you get to know them better.

I put him at a distance at first and it took me some time to allow him to come closer. I was quite cautious. It is all a very fresh experience, but let’s see where it takes us. It seems promising, but on the other hand, what do I know, I cannot really see the future…

As my back is creating me serious limitations on what I can and cannot do, a big project to travel far, work a lot and earn money is currently out of the picture. I had it all nicely planned out. August I spoke about, September to finish a job I resigned from, October in ashrams, November and December working in the USA, but now the America part is no longer happening, so I needed to restructure. America meant quite some cash, and I even considered to go and live in Switzerland or Burma.

I know, I know, but my ideas are quite brilliant! Burma, I would have gone and taught English and possibly saved some money. Switzerland (Lausanne) was a Western-world wish I have had for some time now, and also to brush up my French. And also Zagreb, after so many years coming here, I was planning to work part-time in a bar, a non-smoking, non-alcohol-serving patisserie, bakery, coffee-shop. But health has different plans for me. At the moment, I cannot teach yoga or organise events, because of the physical requirements. I can sit at home and do things on my computer, so that is what I’ll focus on. If you have some writing needs or any kind of marketing skills needed with a bit of design and/or website management – ping me!

And finally, big surprise – I am moving from Zagreb, this time it is Rijeka. My nightmare city, where I definitely never wanted to live in. Yet, what you resist persists, so Rijeka it is. The place I lived my darkest times. My first, and so many more times, getting drunk, getting the worst beating from my mom, worried for my sister’s well-being on two occasions, unhappy love stories and strange people, bullied at school etc. All this was so many years ago. Resenting a city is a strange thing to hold on to. So, here I have the opportunity to come out of all that. I will stay with my dear mom’s place, close to my new boyfriend’s place, and my sister Jelena’s and her partner and my nephew; my youngest sister, Eleonora, will be living in Trieste, that is also close by.

In the end, all roads lead to the place I least wished to be in. That is how it is! I have some ideas what all I’ll involve myself into in Rijeka, but let’s keep a secret or two for now.

Dudes, get me some online work, yo! I’m smart, hardworking and creative. 

Love you Zagreb and ‘OK, bye’ to You. Hello cold Germany and rainy Rijeka. At least I’ll be at the seaside, finally. Even though you cannot really reach the seaside in Rijeka, but who cares, as long as you can see the big blue Adriatic bay every day.

Ahoy to new adventures, again and again.

:neverstop:

A lovely present, from a lovely person. Saying: I believe in you.

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