“There was a bus accident last year and 10 out of the 44 people died because they didn’t know where the emergency exits were”

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a bus, but this is the first time I’ve been on a bus with a safety briefing.

“It is Australian law that you must wear your seatbelt in any moving vehicle. There are significant consequences if a police officer comes onto the bus and checks the film, which they do…occasionally”

Oh the seatbelt thing. I had forgotten about that. Each bus seat was equipped with its own seatbelt. Its origin was on the right side, which felt awkward. Maybe there was more comfort in a left originating seatbelt in a vehicle I was not driving because as the Uber driver indirectly pointed out, I still have some lingering issues with control.

The stumbling in the driver’s speech implied that he was speaking through the microphone from his ego, not from truth. Establishing the power dynamic between patrons and conductor. Or maybe he just really wanted to emphasize his point.

“You must read the luggage weight rules. If they are not followed we will ask you to leave the bus and that would really put a wrench in your travel plans”

The threats continued. It made me laugh, then I considered why he was feeling like his messages needed to come from a defensive perspective.

As the bus rolled on, I felt optimistic again. I had turned things around the day before, after a few hours of internal unleashing of swarmed bees followed by an hour of frustrated dumping of unprocessed emotions. As I hammer typed what I was thinking and feeling to my kind and receptive friend, I noticed I didn’t really feel these things I was saying. Well, maybe I felt them, but I didn’t think they were true.

Two days prior, I had realized part of what had been so limiting for me. It felt freeing, but maybe it loosened up some other thoughts that came out in tantrum form.

I had been trying to write down a script for an upcoming presentation at a medical conference I’m attending in Bangladesh. I had originally decided to speak about the topic I always talk about: primary reflexes. I know this topic by heart. When I present, the autism kicks in, and I speak with passion about the one topic I know a huge amount of information about.

I felt stuck. I was seeing person after person who had built up retreats, was teaching other people how to manifest and speaking all around the world about topics that people really wanted to hear in the spiritual category, and I was still…preparing to do that.

I sat down to meditate. I needed to decide who I wanted to be and the life I wanted to have. I imagined myself on stage, teaching people how to heal themselves, teaching people how to open themselves up to allow their intuition and life purpose to surface naturally. I saw myself taking people into the mountains, to teach them how to work with their own energy and connect to the energy around them.

I got up and realized I had an opportunity right in front of me to start being this new person. How obvious. But sometimes the fear sits on your nose like thick sleep mask. I got to work changing the topic for my presentation.

“There will be no taking of elicit drugs on this bus. If you do, you will be getting off of the bus at the next stop, even if we are in the middle of nowhere”

He was still going.

Back in the apartment, the idea cloud over my head was buzzing. All of the information I had ever learned about the new topic was zipping across my field of view like desert sparrows as their nest is threatened by an innocent nearby walker.

I needed to move. I took out the heavy, blue bike my friend had leant me. I had gotten many compliments on the bike since I started using it. I wondered if it was the bike, or the energy of the person riding the bike. This bike was old, but I was really appreciating using it. It felt freeing to have my own transportation.

I zipped around the neighborhood. The streets were wide and so quiet. I thought about the organized chaos of Mumbai or of riding in NYC. The feeling was the same, busy or not. I turned into the park and the grass called to me. I parked and stood barefoot on the short, turf-like pitch. I sat. The grass reminded me of a time when I was 12.

I played on a premiere soccer team at that age. My performance was really good before I joined, and significantly worse by the time I was cut from the team. I was told repeatedly how poorly I was performing during the course of the two years I stayed on the team. I saw 12 year old me and realized she had associated “being cut” or “failing” with “not being good”. I saw immediately the false neural connection that had shaped so much of my life after that point. I was cut because I allowed myself to become something that wasn’t who I was, and as a result performed poorly. I wasn’t bad. It had nothing to do with my ability.

I talked to myself, and reminded myself of the reality of the situation. She understood. We decided together to do things our way again. I cried in the park, for all of the time I had lost because of a simple inaccurate perception.

We went to the swing set and climbed the supporting posts to the crossbar. We stood up. That’s how we liked to play on the swings. We stood on the center of the seesaw and rocked it with our feet. We ran at a tree and did a backflip off of the trunk. That one was new. I guess we were expanding.

“Please don’t stand up on the bus without holding on. You WILL fall, smash onto the metal plates on the floor and delay the entire trip as we wait for the ambulance to take you away”

I rode home in high spirits. I was in charge again. My success was based on my performance, not if I was good enough. The truth was, I was always good enough, or always had the potential to be. I remembered back to my last bike ride in Auroville. I had had a similar realization then, and I was on an even crappier bike. At that time, fear was the only thing standing between me and success. Now, it was my effort. I was happy to see the progress. I’ve upgraded all around. I wonder what will happen when I get home to my modern, well-kept mountain bikes.

I arrived home. It felt like me to talk about the new topic I picked. I sat in the chair with the laptop and clicked away. The entire speech flowed out of my fingers in 10 minutes, then, I practiced it and it was exactly the length I had to keep it to. This was feeling like alignment.

As I made the transition from my realization to integrating it into my being, my thoughts whirled and emotions stirred. I didn’t realize why I was feeling so strange. When I’m integrating a new part of my being, reactions come, but I can stand back and see them at a distance. As that tantrum my lovely friend entertained came on, I felt a lot of distance. Distance doesn’t mean that you don’t feel it, it just means that you aren’t consumed by it. It doesn’t feel like a part of you anymore. Sometimes it just needs to get out.

Since then, things have been lining up again. Last night I came out of the hot room that has become a temporary writing cave to a beautiful rainbow, sunset and rainstorm on the balcony. Il balcone, in Italian. Learned that this week.

The air cooled, just in time for my long walk. 6 days along the western coast of Australia. I saw the clouds. Felt the breeze. Everything was going to be alright.

“We have had luggage policies for 25 years and no one wants to read it, because…who knows, who cares. Well we have been enforcing it for the last 8 months”

This morning I organized the energy for the day. I lined up a ride to the start of the track, an awesome sandwich, an uneventful walk to the first campsite and a really good sleep. I set intentions for the walk.

And now, on the bus, as the driver makes the safety announcements for the third time, I feel excited. I’m ready to spend 6 days with myself, shedding whatever I need to shed, and gaining whatever I need to gain. Bring it on, universe.