Different But The Same

What we carry home from the places that change us

I wake at 7am already regretting the decision to leave my bed after only six hours. But I know my future self, who wants to resume the rhythm of her “normal” life, will thank me. Gently tugging the decrepit blind cords of my windows, I reveal a pale pink skyline over the Olympic mountain range. I eagerly grind my Oaxacan coffee, deeply inhaling the caramel aroma. Carefully, I unwrap the cellophane of my chocolate bar, a gift from our Oaxacan chef. It’s the only food I have in the house.

After watering the zinnias my dear friend left for me on my doorstep, I sit down to write. The first thing that rises in me is the afterglow of the feminine warmth I bathed in all week. Deep gratitude for the power of women to meet, share, connect, and express through our eyes, hands, voices, tears and laughter. Pride in our ability to immediately create a shared container of trust and safety that allowed the formation of deep bonds.

It was hard leaving that container. Slowly one by one we peeled away from each other back to our corners of the US but still connected via our Whats App thread, pinging in my hand. I sat down on the plane next to a woman (always a window seat – I’ll sacrifice bladder comfort for view as long as I am able). I asked her if she minded if I raised the blind.

I noticed she had kind eyes and sensed a depth to her. Within minutes we had shared personal details about our lives. She was a former body worker and coach. Like me, like us, in the middle of a career pivot, a plot twist. We had the quick intimacy and solid eye contact reminiscent of the women I had just spent my week with. It was as if I was still on retreat. When we exchanged numbers, I smiled to myself. The interaction felt like a wink from the universe.

As I sit at my dining table, reaching for nouns, verbs, and sensorial descriptions, I reread my journal entries from the trip. I recall how my arrival in Oaxaca was a shock to my nervous system. My penthouse bedroom in the villa sounded like I was sleeping in the middle of a freeway compared to the utter silence of my island back home. My body jolted every time a car backfired or a firework went off. I quickly learned fireworks are a constant chorus of celebration in Oaxaca. No colorful sparks on a darkened sky. Just a big bang.

After exploring the town on foot a bit the next day, I realized there was nothing dangerous happening out there. I wrote, “It feels good to be able to maneuver the town by myself, to trust my brain to find the way, my body to carry me.” That night I slept much better and my body felt more at ease.

Back at home I notice I feel rejuvenated. Like my whole body has breathed a sigh of relief. Simultaneously though I feel my shoulders creeping up around my ears, the familiar ache below my left scapula. I feel different…but also the same.

Excitement and creativity bubble up inside me about launching my business. About the larger act of becoming. I feel lighter, more trusting, more held by the energy of the world. If I can go have the experience I had in Mexico, then I feel more optimistic about what is to come. I haven’t had this feeling in months.

But I also notice the familiar machinations of an anxious brain. One that tends to hyper-focus on potential fears, worst case scenarios. What if my business fails? What if my body can’t keep up with the demands of what I want to build? What if I can’t make enough money to take care of myself? What if I never find love again?

Since coming home, I’ve already felt impatient about my to-do list. I’ve fretted about the windows that need washing, cursed the afternoon fatigue I hoped had disappeared in the sweat lodge, sat down to reconcile my budget but got distracted by football.

Then I looked in the mirror and noticed my skin looks better than maybe it ever has, despite a three-week period. At the gym I had the usual thought, My back needs to look stronger. But it was followed by an unfamiliar internal whisper, Just be whatever you want to be body.

These voices exist in tandem. The old ones haven’t gone completely quiet. But there are new ones answering back. For six days I participated willingly in the language of release. We breathed things out. Sweated them out. Swept them away with herbs. Let thick white smoke carry them off. I left each ritual wondering, Am I different yet? I reached inside myself for evidence of change. And yet, apparently no one had informed the knot beneath my left shoulder blade that it had ceremonially been released.

I joined a group of women vowing to stop apologizing, people pleasing, hiding their intelligence and success, caregiving at the expense of their own wellbeing. We learned to whisper, then shout “NO!” Use it as a complete sentence. We learned to say, “Thank you, now bye” and “You can fuck right off” to people and coping strategies that no longer serve us.

But I also knew that for all the work I have done on myself, all my practice around assertiveness, just days before the trip I had lain silently through a massage that hurt badly enough to leave bruises on my calf. I wanted to tell him to ease up. I didn’t. I stifled myself again. I know too much about the trajectory of change to believe big change happens overnight. But I also know that just one degree of change, one small choice, can make a difference.

There’s a part of me that wants only the “different.” But I know I don’t need to leave myself behind in order to evolve. I didn’t leave the retreat with certainty about my life. I left more capable of imagining a future I want.

The future is fantasy anyway, we learned, so why allow our negativity bias to write the story?

Today I will drive myself to the gym. I will drink my spirulina smoothie. I will write. I will watch Love is Blind: Netherlands. I will probably nap. My shoulders will probably creep towards my ears again. I will work with my body and trust it to carry me.

For six days I was steeped in feminine care, warmth, and love. I have come home carrying some of that concentration with me.

The women held me. Now I practice holding myself.