After eight months travelling the world, from the temples of Cambodia to the mountains of Peru, I’ve reflected on my experiences and how I live my yoga. Here is my survival guide and some things I’ve learnt along the way. May you take what resonates with you and bless that which doesn’t.
1. Pack Light
Pack light physically. With travelling for over 8 months I’d read the suggestion of packing a bag that is carry-on size. Sounds impossible but it was so helpful. Easy to leave airports quicker, feel safer, and no chance of buying every sparkly thing I saw on the journey as I had no room to carry it. I also learnt (and at times struggled) to let go of attachments to things. Packing light spirituality and mentally is often harder… trying not to carry my ex-partner, old negative thoughts that play on loop in my head, and numerous other resentments and attachments, they could weigh me down if I carry them around.
2. Get Vulnerable
Travelling can be raw. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not always fun filled, inspiring and magical. Sometimes it’s painful, difficult, tiring, messy and frustrating. Waiting for 2 hours by the side of the road in the heat for a bus that wasn’t coming in Oaxaca, Mexico, or having cockroaches in the hostel fridge in Mexico City; seeing dead animals lying in the street in Havana, or hostels having late night parties with constant queues for the bathroom while I struggle with a urine infection.
Instead of glossing over your feelings – get vulnerable, own where you’re at. My partner and I communicated more of our frustrations than we had before, we’d share our reality with each other. So feel your vulnerability, it’s your strength. When I’m in my vulnerability I’ m being authentic.
3. Learn New Things
I’d never have thought I’d be building a temazcal in Ecuador or learning Spanish in Mexico. How magical and intimate to learn traditional dances in a Thai village in the north of Thailand with my dear friend Yong. And recipes galore; learning how to make oat milk and blueberry vegan waffles in Argentina and how to cook with plantains in Mexico.
I learnt more than I expected to spiritually as well, and my teachers weren’t usually the meditation teachers. Teachers instead were ordinary people along the way. Like the man in a small village in Oaxaca who gave us a ride, who told me to leave all I was emotionally carrying at the ancient ruins in Mitla. Be a sponge, absorb; be a tree and grow.
4. Teach
Wherever you go, teach. Teaching is more than just my donation based class in Sydney, there’s many an opportunity to share what I know when asked. It’s not to be preached, it’s to be given as service to others. Through couchsurfing I often offered to teach yoga in exchange for a bed for the night, I found myself skill-sharing on a permaculture farm and baking a cake for 20 people in the community, and I joined others in chanting mantra on a beach side yoga sala in Thailand. Teach what you know and share the teachings.
5. Keep Up
As they say in Kundalini Yoga ‘Keep up and you’ll be kept up.’ After 5 days trekking, on the final steps up to Machu Picchu mantra got me through. It also got me through while I was experiencing altitude sickness the day before. The repetition of sacred sound is a fuel. It kept me up, it cleared my mind, and it took me beyond pain and tiredness to reach the top.
6. Observe
Look beyond the tourist treks, the world is full of magic. It is as light as it is dark. Truly see what is really happening. New scenes, new sounds, new smells. Meet locals and ask questions. Listen and immerse yourself. I’m not afraid to ask probing questions, to hang with locals. In Cuba and Bolivia I learnt more by observing local culture and asking questions of local people than If I’d stayed with fellow tourists, on tourist routes I won’t necessarily see what’s actually around me, only that which shown to me.
7. Remember People are good
“Hold onto your bag”, “don’t take the metro, get taxis”, “and don’t go to that area”. I heard this this all the time. The fear gradually crept up into my being as anxiety. But I learnt to trust my instincts. Don’t believe all the hype about how dangerous all people are, it’s really not true. Stay safe, but be open, because most people are kind, generous, and magical. Some of my experiences with strangers helped me to love humanity, feeling the generosity of strangers from surfing random couches, being given a cut of jasmine by a flower seller, an extra piece of fruit in a smoothie at the market, to a beautiful home-made ring from a new found friend, strangers can be beautiful and caring if you let them in, I did. As my friend Maureen says ‘Strangers are friends that you haven’t met yet.’
8. Practise
In Kundalini yoga there’s great emphasis on sadhana – daily practise. I felt a pressure to be up at 5am every morning for a 2 hour sadhana session. But it wasn’t realistic for a traveller, it didn’t always fit with the bus rides, mountain treks and late nights in new places. So how could I make this daily practise fit for me? I’d do hand mudra on a 10 hour train ride, rolled out a yoga mat at the airport gate or took a moment for meditation at Chichen Itza – I found opportunities to live my yoga. Maybe it’s not possible to do asana while on a packed coach, but it doesn’t mean you can’t practise. Practise kindness, practise forgiveness, live as a yogi. Yoga is more than a sequence of postures, it’s your breath, and it’s having values and living by them.
9. Surrender
Patanjali said ‘Surrender to God.’ I’d add ‘surrender to each moment.’ We’re powerless to control people, places and things. Let go of your expectations they will only distort your true experiences and lead to disappointments with the world around you. Surrender to what truly is. Don’t always try and get everyone to see your point of view as the only view, surrender to your company. When I came with an expectation to places I became judgemental. It took away my peace. When I became scared about our dwindling budget I became controlling. So when I practised surrendering and accepting; my budget, my travel companions, the weather, the sites, I felt free. Just let go and see what happens.
10. Gratitude is prosperity
When my partner and I started running out of money, when we didn’t see eye to eye over something, when we couldn’t find a hostel, when our cooking oil leaked over our bag, it can be challenging and almost impossible to be grateful. Yogi Bhajan once said ‘Gratitude will turn your attitude into mercy, mercy into dharma and dharma will bring you prosperity.’
So following suggestions from others I wrote a gratitude list, I’d email messages of love and gratitude to different friends and family who were miles away. Somehow I was lucky enough to start a game with my partner when we were both pessimistic, or negative and moaning we’d list-off things out loud that we were grateful for because, as Yogi Bhajan put it, ‘If you’re missing gratitude, you shall lose.’
11. Be Inspired
To be inspired is to be in spirit, Wayne Dyer once said. You’ll meet different communities around the world as you travel and learn how they live, how they manage conflict and yet still live in harmony. I saw this in indigenous communities in Mexico struggling against oppression. I stayed with penniless Punks in Burma who shared their stories of feeding the homeless in Yangon. I saw people around the world living lives of service to others; people who appear to have physically less but yet seem to live fuller and happier lives. All truly inspiring. So travel, be inspired, live inspired and finally, be inspiring.
Andrea Healing 