As I arrived in Portugal, I saw this place as a place that people live, and not as much as a magical land of vacation, which was a formerly customary perspective. Quickly following was the reminder that my wandering soul will only be satiated by feeling whole without anything external. No matter where I decide to live, it will still just be a place that I live. Mountains, ocean, desert; all beautiful, but none of these hold what my souls truly desires, and certainly a vacation cannot provide it either. My soul wants to feel whole and to experience life from that state of being.

Part of this work of realizing wholeness, which is essentially a state of being satisfied with only what comes from within you, is removing the conditional behaviors I have. Two big conditional themes emerged quite quickly for me today. One related to the desire to have something new and one, an attachment to the past.

The former manifested today in the desire to have new clothing. I stopped in shops with beautiful clothing and even knowing I have no space in my pack for anything new, the pull to buy something beautiful was quite strong. I know it is tied to a lack of appreciation for what I have, but also a need to feel and appear beautiful to deserve love. This process of peeling away layers has been constant and fruitful, but there always seem to be deeper aspects hidden below what I thought I had stripped away. I successfully walked away from all of the shops without anything new, but the pull is still present. Being content with what I have is so important to me. I am glad to have this lingering tangled emotion be brought to my awareness in this way. I’ll happily be working on demyelinating this pathway.

The latter came in the form of being attached to my US phone number. It makes no financial sense to keep it, but the reason I felt compelled to spend the money to preserve this part of my old self surprised me. It was motivated by wanting to keep ties to the past. To be available in case someone wanted to reach out to me. If I changed my number, it is unlikely that I would send a “changed number” message out. I found myself feeling somewhat unworthy. Feeling like I should be available, as if I owe something to the ghosts of the past.

I am reminded in this instance that you only have what is now. Living by what could be (being available for old connections), in this case, would only result in wasted money for me. Once I realized this, I felt free. All of the ties and weight from having a bloated contacts list and thousands of text chains lingering around would be gone with one phone call and a new SIM card.

As I change, there is a natural flow of people into and out of my life. It is a dance. Hanging onto connections because of guilt, fear or a sense of duty, creates resistance and complicates the expression of the dance. So, what felt like a loss initially (idea of a phone number change) now feels like a wonderful opportunity to step further into my new life and out of my past.

Each day over the past two years has held many lessons which I’ve turned into initiations. Initiations are just opportunities to engage in activities and thoughts that result in permanent changes of the self. While in the past it was difficult to keep a vigilant watch of my automatic patterns and behaviors, it has become a part of my life as natural as breathing.