Do you love watching those TV programs of people looking for houses in some exotic location with an exceptional view of the ocean? Living in Michigan in the winter makes this so enticing!
We decided one year to rent a condo for a couple of weeks in Playa Serena overlooking the Pacific in Panama. The sea was like bathwater and a perfect backdrop to promote overseas living.
The first few days were wonderful, until one morning while drinking coffee on the balcony, I heard myself say “she’s late walking her dogs today.” It was then that I was showing symptoms of early onset boredom!
In reality, there was little to do of any consequence once we’d completed the local tourist “attractions” if you can call them that. A vacation is one thing, but hardly a stimulating lifestyle.
I’ve just returned to the US after spending two weeks in my original home country, the UK. Now that I’ve lived half my life there and the other half here, it’s interesting to reflect on my early experience of moving to the US and how that relates to the whole concept of looking for a “new place” to change our lives.
About a year after my arrival here in 1979, I began to notice that I had recreated myself in terms of personal happiness all over again. The things that worked for me still worked, and the things that didn’t, didn’t. I found myself living in the same box with the same barriers.
Shortly after this realization I was introduced to the EST training. EST is Latin for “to be” as you perhaps already know. The course was quite a commitment in money at the time and very confronting. It involved spending two weekends secured in a hotel room where very strict rules applied, even restricting when you could go to the bathroom. You realize later that this unreasonableness was part of the process.
After making that commitment, I suddenly found myself getting weepy with relief. I’m still not sure exactly why, but my early days in the US had inevitably been lonely. After six months. I would meet nobody that day that I’d known for longer. Being lonely is one of the most sole destroying feelings one can have. So I suppose I was looking for something to open up my life and committing to this promise released a number of suppressed emotions.
In the event the training, as it was called, changed me. I experienced what Dr Joe Dispenza describes in his work of how the thoughts in our brain govern the body chemistry that creates the feelings in our body. Est, was a process that allowed me to re-wire my brain but my body was still connected to the old circuits of feelings of fear as I confronted my barriers.
Over time, these connections between mind and body were able to re-wire themselves to allow me to live in my new and expanded box.
This probably sounds like a load of whatever to many of you, but the undeniable lesson I learned from changing countries is that we create our own reality and our own story of who we are. So be aware when tempted by the promise of new and greener grass, it will take more than a change in location to resolve emotional issues such as loss or unhappiness.
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