There is no place like home...

If you have spent any time at airports lately, you have probably noticed the sizable uptick in travel these days. Call it pent-up wanderlust, or intense craving for something new, different, and adventurous, but many more of us than usual have packed up our bags and hopped on a plane, train or car this summer (maybe many, many times if you are like me). While I have the great joy of leading yoga and travel trips so I actually kind of “have to” travel, I also travel a lot for fun. ;)

After a month of travel from the Balkans to the Baltics, I am finally back home in Munich, and I have to say, what a pretty and liveable city this is! Having lived here for 9 years, this is not something I don’t already know but we often have to forget things in order to remember them..

Back in the Spring when I planned my summer retreats and personal travel, it was at the end of a seemingly endless period of lockdowns and regulations. I was SICK of my everyday, mundane reality and looking to escape to “something better” or at least something different. There was nothing I wanted more than the wind at my back and a map in my back pocket that I have no intention of actually looking at. And I saw and did the things… wandered lost down stone alleyways in Dubrovnik, dived into caves and swam in crystal blue waters, slept amongst the sounds of roosters, owls and goats, gazed starstruck at the splendid architecture in the Baltics and paddled to a sauna boat in the middle of nowhere in the Estonian Islands. It was AMAZING. I live a BLESSED life. And I was sad to leave.. as we often are sad to end vacation.

I wasn’t sure what I would feel when I got home to Munich but I was expecting some degree of underwhelm. What I actually found was the “virgin eyes” I had when I first arrived. When we first arrive at someplace new, or even if we start a new relationship, job or friendship, we see things with fresh eyes. Things seem light, bright and so much seems possible. As time passes, the things we once saw as beautiful or cool or comforting can look kinda humdrum. We fail to practice noticing the things that we like, and what is working and instead may focus on what we don’t like and isn’t working. That damn negativity bias is a real thing. We forget the things we like about a thing, a person or a place because it is out of our focus.

This musing on the greatness of Munich is not a call to come visit this city if you don’t already live here (although please do let me know you if you do), but rather a reminder of a yogic teaching we all know, but tend to forget.

Regardless of external conditions, we have all that we need to be happy and free. In the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,

“People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”

We can be happy in Munich or Denver, Lyon or Dubai.. because it ain’t an outer state thing, it’s an inner state thing.

A regular practice of presence, which we practice in yoga and meditation, are regular, daily reminders of this… a small, contained experiment in a closed setting so we can practice these same things in the boardroom, the living room or even in quarantine!! While the yoga room or meditation hall may be too hot or too cold for our liking, or we like or don’t like having music, incense, or that person to the left of us, we get practice getting a little more okay with things as they are. Not liking. Not loving. But a little more okay with how things are. While we probably won’t shift from sad, irritable or depressed to happy and ecstatic overnight, we at least practice getting a little closer to a happiness which is always there and always available to us, if it is in our view.

Because I am not a fully enlightened person myself, I tend to forget that. So I look for, and find, temporary happiness in places like Dubrovnik or Tallinn, or S. Tyrol or Andalusia (see retreat links below). And as much as I love those places while I am in them, I end up appreciating home more. We often can’t appreciate home until we leave it. We can’t appreciate how great our bodies feel when we practice yoga until we take some time off, or how balanced our minds feel with regular meditation until we come back to it. We forget… to remember.

So.. welcome back from summer holidays, or enjoy the final days if you are still on them. I will be home in Munich for the next month before I hop off to forget to remember how much I love home in Andalusia, Spain and Lana, S. Tyrol. Spain retreat is full, but Tyrol October 20-23 and 28-31 still have a few spots.