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I’ve rested nonstop for almost a week straight, recuperating from the prior two weeks filled with traveling logistics, haphazard sleeping on 13+ hour flights, socializing in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people, and not having home cooked meals. I crashed hard when I came back home.
Bali opened me up, or I should say it gave me the space to roam more freely as a more open person who loves myself and friends more deeply and who has been jolted awake in fulfilling my own dreams again.
I took in the sounds, smells, and people of Bali without the pressure of needing to live life to the absolute fullest to take as much advantage for the quick week I’d be there, not knowing when I’d be back to have this kind of experience. I was living more slowly, I was actually present. That’s what that week in my life in that place called for.
Things went smoothly because I allowed them to be that way.
It opened me up to more happiness, like an Aussie woman interrupting a conversation I had with other retreat goers about relationships and flirting, to tell us that she was happy to see such happy and empowered femmes (I love when other people acknowledge someone else’s joy). It opened me up to people I just met being excited for me as I continue my Postpartum Doula training (something I’ve been scared about whether to pursue or not).
My usual motion sickness disappeared during the hours of riding in buses and vans getting around the island with 22 other people experiencing this journey alongside me. My usual shoulder pain was gone despite the 20 hour+ flight over there. There were no travel delays. I found the energy to do everything in the retreat’s heavy itinerary. I easily did scary things like jumping off a small cliff that in the past I would either hesitate for way too long on whether to do, or would pass on doing it entirely.
Things went smoothly because I allowed them to be that way.
What helped is that I walked into this experience with only the expectation of pole dancing. That’s why I booked this trip in the first place. I failed to remember all the other activities we would be doing which made everything else that much more worthwhile.
I paddle boarded for the first time in Bali! I fell into a rice field in Bali! I rode on the back of scooters in Bali! I drank dragon fruit smoothies while looking at the sunset in Bali! I got massages in Bali! I spent so much time showing all the skin, getting all the sun and showing that off in photo shoots with the most supportive people in Bali! I connected with new people in Bali! I did yoga with the view of the clear blue waters in Bali! I journaled to put my fleeting thoughts to paper and manifest bigger things to come into my life in Bali! I haggled in Bali! I pole danced in Bali!! I just existed and went with the flow in Bali!
Having this whole trip planned by someone other than myself was surprisingly ideal. It was the respite I needed and was a great manifestation of what I’ve been asking the universe for— more abundance, love, ease, and flow.
Maybe some think the Bali trip was my way of going on a spiritual journey— some Eat, Pray, Love shit— because of my transition-heavy year. When it was simply me taking advantage of the retreat announcement that immediately caught my attention early this year, reawakening me to my wanderlust and the joy of pole dancing (this time in somewhere completely new), with the added bonus of the trip falling on the month of my birthday and pole dancing anniversary.
It was also an excuse to go on an international trip that would otherwise scare me to go through alone after four years of just traveling domestically and living with nervous anticipation of a whole day being spent on potential turbulence-filled flights.
But I did the damn thing! And the introduction to traveling to Asia going so well with amazing new memories and new friendships being made, allowed me to walk into my next destination of Kyoto with that much more excitement.
This was en route to Kyoto. Stay tuned for next week’s post on this trip!
SENSORY SAFETY
The song(s)/artist I’ve replayed the past week to calm me down
The anthem of the group during the Bali trip was “Water” by Tyla. I continued that listen throughout most of my flight to Kyoto and when I got back home :)
The media I watched the past week to calm me down
I finally finished Sex and The City
The activity I did the past week to calm me down
I slept….a lot