Finding Refuge in Change

How can we find refuge in change instead of succumbing to the fear of it?

“Remember, those who don’t ask essential questions don’t find what’s most authentic. The soul of your pilgrimage, the heart of your destination, disappears, will be invisible, like the Grail Castle if you are too afraid or too proud to appear as you really are at the moment—someone far, far from home, without all the answers, without the soul map to the city.” –Phil Cousineau The Art of Pilgrimage

I recently made a three-week trip to Colombia. While there, I explored Colombian art, culture, food, and dance. I traveled to the northeast and explored a beautiful coastline of La Guajira the day after a man was murdered in a village ten minutes away over land disputes related to narcotics trafficking. The following day, I think that I saw the men who murdered him row their fishing boats ashore.   

 I then traveled to the east, horseback riding through a beautiful mountain range, stopping at what appeared to be a house, where we were sold aguardiente, or firewater, an anise-flavored liqueur derived from sugar cane.   

This trip represented walking through some fears that had limited my life. I spent the better part of six weeks at the beginning of the year engaging in deep inquiry into this fear, and working through it with my mindfulness meditation practice. I was reminded that it is possible to find refuge in change. While in Colombia, I continued to work on letting go more fear that had previously limited my life choices.  

Upon boarding the plane to return to the U.S., I began to realize that I have outgrown my life. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I feel a greater sense of internal stability, but it feels like all of the externals in my world are being peeled away. They simply no longer fit.

I came home to knowing that I no longer want much of the life that I have created for myself, as pieces of it had been created based on fear and limiting beliefs. Prior to my departure to Colombia, an intuitive healer said to me that the next six months would be about completely starting my life over. I thought she meant that I would move again, but it was impossible to comprehend at the time the enormity of what she had said and meant. Something shifted internally while I was away, and by the time I boarded the return flight to come back to the U.S., I had begun to experience an understanding in my body and soul of what the intuitive healer had said.    

 I shed so many layers of fear and false beliefs that I must have shed some skin with it. I don’t even feel like I fit in my body any more. Ironically, I gained about 7 pounds while I was away, but I feel as though I shed 20 pounds of fear. What is this new me in this new 7 pounds? Inner stability? Courage? Fortitude? A more adventuresome spirit? It feels like 7 pounds of possibilities that I hadn’t previously been able to consider.

Terry Tempest Williams says, “So the question that I’m constantly asking myself is, What are we afraid of? I think it’s important for us to follow that line of fear, because that is ultimately our line of growth.” I have always been one to follow the line of my fear, but this time, the sense of growth and liberation is unparalleled to anything that I have previously experienced.

Williams asks, “How do we find refuge in change?” This is the question that I am currently living. How do I find refuge in this continually shifting external ground? I know plenty of people who would feel the external ground shifting and attempt to cling to it. I don’t want to be one of them. As frightening as it feels to feel so groundless right now, I want to ride the wave and see where it takes me.

I don’t know what comes next. Since I returned, what comes next has been as concrete as buying groceries, unpacking, walking Eos on the beach, and continuing to teach my online writing workshops. I feel an internal tear, feeling drawn in one moment to settle down somewhere and find home, and in the next moment, I feel an urge to sell or give away many of my belongings, put the remainder in storage, and travel for three to six months.

Interestingly, any time I have expressed this to friends, neighbors, or members of my meditation sangha, the consistent response has been that I am met with wide, starry eyes, and they all say, “Travel if you can do it.” Some of them even admit that they feel similarly. One said today that she just turned forty and has been asking herself, “Really, is this it? Is this how I want to spend the remainder of my life?”

I wonder how many people get up and do something every day that feels unfulfilling at best or dissatisfying at worst. Instead of being so afraid of change, what would it be like if we all made effort toward finding refuge in change? What would our lives become?

I don’t know where I will live, to where I will travel, or what work I will do wherever I go. I have created many choices within my work that I love. I work as a mindfulness teacher, coach, and therapist, photographer, and writer. I love working with people who want to drastically transform their lives—to attain more balance or a greater sense of well-being. I love documenting meaningful stories about people, land, the environment, food, and wellness, through writing and photography.

If you could travel to or live anywhere you wanted, where would you go, and why? How do you find refuge in change? You might consider using your mindful journaling practice to explore these questions. Please share your ideas here in the comment section. I’m looking for new places to investigate!