In order to find yourself, you need to lose yourself first.

The arrival from Nepal back home was accompanied by mixed feelings and emotions.

Physical exhaustion and already settling longing for what I had left behind, facing reality to which I did not belong, unacquainted path I found myself on with no knowledge nor guidance how to maneuver. I felt lost in the presence of a dissonance between the person who left and the one who came back. Not many words were spoken in the days to follow, living in an unspoken space between me and those around. I think nobody could comprehend what actually happened. Nobody had a rehearsed script or a user manual to follow in an event of a rapid and unexpected “landing on water”. The impact was gigantic: the communications which have always been unrivaled and a real crown jewel in my closest relationship all of the sudden got shuttered and replaced by anger and disappointment on both sides. I knew I finally got all the pieces of the puzzle I had ever missed yet without the image of the picture I wanted to create. The other side had the picture of me and my role meticulously painted for years yet it was starting to lose its splendor and was falling apart before our very eyes. The universe designed a sneaky experiment to test what I was meant to stand for. The secret was revealed yet the key was yet to be found.

We cannot peruse both safety and freedom simultaneously. Caution and courage are mutually exclusive. The power lies in Personal Purpose – which allows us to follow what truly matters, especially in the face of difficult circumstances. Mine was still in its infancy, however, I already felt the sense of passion and conviction. It’s so easy to lose the sight of deeper desires when feeling bound by disapproval and lack of understanding. We are so accustomed and taught to define our identity and well-being upon gaining approval and meeting expectations of others’ while dismissing our needs and wants. It is not than uncommon to want to retreat back to safety. Yet our soul is not interested in safety. The soul knows what it’s yearning for and it’s unwilling to compromise. It has been leaving us clues in the form of all the irritations and frustrations. In all these emotional triggers we can find invaluable lessons if we are only ready to learn and to have the courage to maintain the discipline of attention to the subtle way our soul calls. Most of us possess that deep sense of something unfinished in our lives despite being overly successful. It is not unusual to discover what really matters to us and be totally terrified. To run away and to pretend we’d rather not know.

We encounter all kinds of fears related to the adjustments required in our lives if we pursued a new direction. We scrutinize our perceived inadequacy and the possibility of failure. We see the clash between what others expect from us and what we have learned to expect of ourselves. Choosing, although comes from the heart, is tough because it demands of us more than a mere agreement or wishful thinking. It requires accepting at that moment all the risks that the choice involves. It means letting go of the ‘need to know and how’ and trusting that all will be discovered along the way. When choosing, we experience a powerful dose of anxiety. The source of angst comes from the internal structure of our beliefs about what is possible, how the world works, and/or what we need to become in order to be worthwhile. Those beliefs are the most significant obstacles in crafting what we want. The more we resist the change, the more frustrating and stifling our circumstances become. Much of what we consider to be communicated — judging, criticizing, blaming, labeling — promotes separation rather than connection. “We may not think of ourselves as violent, but in essence, anything that causes separation is a form of violence.” When we have a harsh inner critic, we are being violent to ourselves. Nothing will ever happen or change without an effort and intention. No one is going to come with a magic wand, as only you are your magic wand. The only subtle difference is that miracles do not happen with one soft touch of a magic wand, you are in charge of your own miracles.

I am still in the process of reconciliation between the “old” and “new” me. The “old” one has shaped me and has given birth to an unpolished and raw version of the person who I am on the path of becoming