Part 1 - Living My Dharma: A Mini Blog Series
By: Kate Powell
Arriving within Myself
I stepped off the boat – shoes were off, and I was ready to manifest my glamorous future life – whatever that was.
Not just 48 hours ago – I sat under florescent lighting, surrounded by 50 people in a room designed for 30, crushing 70-hour work weeks in a modern-aged digital sweatshop. My heart was heavy, and my mind was completely disconnected. Little did I know - I was experiencing burnout on a spiritual level.
It was January – I needed a change and I needed it yesterday.
One morning after a long night of chasing an impossible deadline, I questioned myself – if I could be anywhere in the world right now – where would I be?
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t Minneapolis.
Warm. Sun. Ocean. Sloths. Yoga.
After a brief 20-minute Google search “jungle – yoga – February,” I booked my 200 YTT with the Kula Collective in Punta Mona Costa Rica.
There were a lot of feels – and some massive hoops I had to jump through – but I knew deep down I needed a change or I wasn’t going to make it. My heart was heavier than my diet of Manhattans and microwave meals – and living through one of the coldest winter Minnesota had seen in years – I hadn’t seen the sun in months. I was craving change – and I had no idea how deeply that need ran.
I packed my suitcase, cashed in those credit card reward points and jumped into an adventure of uncertainty and almost certain danger.
For the first time in 5 years – I left my laptop at home and that would be the first of many moments where I allowed myself to peel away the barriers keeping me from living a full and meaningful life.
What happened next was a whirlwind I will never forget. Classes, meeting new people every day, sunrise yoga, journaling by the beach every morning, the most colorful and exotic vegan meals I didn’t have to cook and 30 days of being completely barefoot.
Perhaps it was because I hadn’t seen a natural bod of water in a decade – or I was living downtown surrounded by concrete and larger-than-life digital ads – but being surrounded by the jungle exposed me to a whole new type of stimulation. The beautiful and diverse people, the sights of plants I had only seen in sci-fi films, the food, the beach – constantly seeing and experiencing new things opened up a creative energy I hadn’t felt since I was a 7 year-old painting motifs on my bedroom ceiling.
I was writing music – poetry – prose. I learned how to get intimate with my words and my intentions. I also didn’t have to worry about how I looked or how I was being perceived. In fact – I saw my reflection maybe three times a week and that was it.
The energy I was spending on navigating the noise of the modern world – I was able to turn inward and channel back into myself – unlocking a highway of mental, emotional and spiritual energies. Energies that created a highway to the parts of me I locked away one ‘grown up’ milestone at a time.
The Steps
As a child – I was a wild and free spirit. But growing up in an emotionally unsafe household – the older I got, the quicker my free spirit turned into frustration and anger as I was ushered into the Steps of life with unrealistic expectations of ‘when you do X_ you’ll be good enough.” Suddenly, painting on bedroom walls (which I was at one point encouraged to do) and spending hours writing stories for the sole sake of imaginative exploration was frowned upon.
Paints and pencils were replaced with school uniforms, extracurricular activities and the expectations of always pursuing what’s next.
Get good grades, get involved in high school, get into a good college, and get a job.
Those were the steps – and I felt every pressure to succeed to validate my worth to my family and to myself. I poured everything into those steps – dedicated my life to mastering them, measuring each move meticulously.
Varsity swim team, tennis team, track team, show choir, school musical, national honor society, honor roll, French club president – I did it all. Because in order to be ‘worth it’ I had to do it all.
I managed to graduate with a 4.0 and a full ride to college, but by the time I got there, I had already burned out.
I got to college with absolutely no direction and an overwhelming realization that I had no idea where to go next.
Get the degree.
That was the next step – but – in what direction? Up until this point, the direction – the expectations - were predetermined by external factors – education systems, familial systems of beliefs, communities. I had no idea how to turn inward. I was exhausted, discouraged and everything started spinning.
Breakdowns and Burnout
My undergraduate experience was an absolute shit show. Almost failed out of my first year of college and switched majors three times, and by the end of my sophomore year, I had a major breakdown that ended in a heartbreaking decision: take a semester off to get treated for major depression and lose the remainder of my scholarship – or take a huge risk of not receiving treatment and leave myself to the illness.
Now – I’m a girl who loves a good bargain. Normally – I’d take the cash and make it work – but for the first time in a long time – I heard my self – my true self – telling me I was in immediate danger and needed help.
It was a long and tedious road.
Therapy, diet and routine changes, confrontations, challenging conversations with my family, my professors, my peers. It was a painful process that took a toll on all my relationships – life-long friends who never spoke to me again and a five-year partnership that just couldn’t withstand the journey.
I had to face the traumas of my childhood while unraveling this biological disease that had wrapped itself around my so fully it had become my identity - who I thought I was at my core.
But I pressed on. And slowly – day by day – I was able to peel the layers away, shed the skin – until I finally saw a glimpse of who I was outside of this narrative I had been told and believed. I was officially beyond the steps of ‘enough’ I invested my entire self into and what replaced them was the terrifying wilderness of the unknown.
So, I wandered – I went back and after one more major switch – graduated and received an offer right out of college.
There. I had completed the steps. That’s it. Done. And I was ready to be done – and came to the harsh cold reality that this was only the beginning.
Part of the overwhelming sensation I felt – the crippling prison mentality – came from the fact that I had no idea what I wanted to do – where I wanted to go, who I was or what I was passionate about. And I felt a deep running sensation of shame with it. A spinning that would last for three more years.
Choosing Me
Fast-forward through several professional changes – big clients, agency mergers – I was finally getting into the swing of things. I had accepted my life sentence and while I wasn’t thriving – I was surviving.
Despite the Downton loft and the fancy job working with big brands – I couldn’t ignore the unsettling restlessness regardless of how many fancy dinners I went do, dates I went on, Manhattans I consumed. I knew I needed to be doing something, but I wasn’t doing it – the spinning returned, and things began to go dark once again.
So on that cold winter morning – I watched as Google revealed a variety of options for month long getaways. Thanks to some perfectly crafted algorithm - I discovered the option to get my yoga teacher training surrounded by beautiful primal jungle and tribe of spiritual and powerful women. I was curious – though not sold.
The problem was - I never really did yoga. I mean – in my head, I practiced yoga – but maybe had been to 10 classes in my lifetime. My therapist was a huge yoga fan, and was a big advocate for incorporating the practice into my treatment – but I often found myself making excuses more than actually hitting my mat.
But when I came across the Kula Collective’s training guidelines, I was impressed by their attention to the Four Arts – practice, living, teaching and healing. That to me said balance and what I really needed in my life – was – a lot of things honestly – but balance seemed like a good place to start. Balance and not being connected to Wi-Fi for more than the four minutes while in a dead zone at Target.
Was I motivated by running away? By making my therapist happy? By spending 30 days away from my job? Probably a bit of all the above.
But I do know that my intentions weren’t to become a yoga teacher. It was to justify time off – to justify a break.
What I signed up for was a productive vacation (i.e. yoga teacher training) – but what I got – and what I truly needed – was an opportunity to be still. An opportunity to live without the glaring noise that scream for our daily attention.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the moment I stepped onto that plane – I took a torch to The Steps. Burning down everything I knew, everything that simultaneously made me comfortable and trapped, I began the journey not forward, but inward for the wildest adventure I had ever been on.
Read more … PART 2 - Flowing into purpose!
Stay tuned for the rest of Kate’s series!
And check out our upcoming trainings in Costa Rica!
About Kate:
Kate Powell is an experience strategist and people researcher by day and a multi-media storyteller by night and weekend. She thrives in creative environments while studying human behavior and motivational theory to shine light on authentic connection across communities.
Her preferred mediums are blogs, photography and film, and is currently working on a handful of projects exploring the causes of mental, emotional and social strains across the modern age. Her goal is to empower solutions in ways that don't bore people to tears. In her free time, she teaches yoga at her community wellness studio and is finalizing the manuscript for her first book, Snack on That.
You can check out her work/stalk her here.