The Big Pause: Finding Your Home Within

Photo Credit: Lucia Dami

The invitation came swiftly for some, as I watched every “non-essential” business in Paris being ordered by the government to cease all business effective immediately. This came after Italy was paralyzed with the same order, on the heels of China and other countries affected first. And I watched systematically as the order hit the United States and beyond.

The invitation I’m speaking of is one that I build my work on, it is one I know intimately and guide women on a journey into - straight into, for eight weeks at a time. It is the journey into yourself.

When one of my students returned home to Bahrain from a trip to Cairo and was “quarantined” before anyone knew that word intimately I reminded her of the power of her words when she jokingly called it “house arrest.” She is deeply on the path into herself and has been relishing in this time of pause for the last six weeks.

I watched and listened carefully.

I heard words like “lockdown,” “confinement,” “isolation…” and of course, everyone using these words could feel the energy, vibration and power associated with them. It is impossible to see the blessing and opportunity, or “invitation” even, when you are being locked down, confined or isolated. More though, and especially poignant for me, is that the invitation given to every single person (thousands) at the same exact time was to pause, to be still…to go within, to do their part for the collective, and this is essentially, potentially, an incredible opportunity at face value.

Yet it paralyzed so many, and continues to do so.

I understand this invitation came with a great price for many, and this often times makes seeing anything positive extra hard. I have been in a place where I lost everything, where I had less than $500 to my name, where I was overwhelmed with fear and scarcity - I’ve spent many years anxious about finances, worried about how I will make it, and so on; this has been part of my heroine’s journey to overcome in this lifetime.

And each time, everything worked out for me.

These were the times that I found my yoga, dropped to my knees and felt the hands of God, started singing and opened my heart in surrender, cried so hard until I let everything go. And ultimately I look back at these times and I am grateful as they have become big teachers in my life, contrast to remind me where I come from, and a past that keeps me humble.

The invitation right now is to find your way into yourself, whatever it takes to go there, and to make your home within.

If this is terrifying, good. If this comes with great resistance, good. If this is the first time you’ve ever sat with yourself to the point of hearing your thoughts, connecting with your heart, knowing your desires, feeling your body, becoming aware of something new…GOOD! Every bit of this experience gives each one of us new information about ourselves, new awareness about ourselves.

And I ask you this, as I ask the students that I have the honor of guiding in my “Manifesting Love: A Journey Within” program: if you don’t know yourself, or can’t be still within yourself, or the thought of being with yourself is terrifying or negative in any way…how can you expect to be fully with another?

This unprecedented time is a time of great opportunity: imagine if every person comes out of this experience knowing themselves better, feeling more at home within themselves, imagine how this will contribute to the new world we are designing.

I hope the home you find within yourself is delicious, a sanctuary…it is not a place you should feel locked into, confined in, or isolated in.

The invitation is yours…