Remember that Top Secret #3 from my last post? Well, I'm ready to reveal it to the world. I'm fulfilling one of my long-time "life goals" of living and working abroad. I am moving to Seoul, South Korea at the end of next July to spend two years teaching at an international school! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! So crazy, and weird, and awesome, and amazing, and scary, and YAY!
I found it fitting to use the same quote on this post as I did my very first one last August. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that without The Clean Year, I wouldn't be moving overseas and accomplishing something I've always wanted but never been quite "ready" to pursue.
I began this journey in pursuit of better physical health and with the desire to deal with stress in less destructive ways. What has come about in my imperfect, but impactful Clean Journey is a subtle but powerful shift in how I process things and how I react to both negative and positive stimuli. In the past few years (really, my teaching years), levels of stress reached so high that I would use anything to escape and avoid it. In other words, I got really great at sticking my head in the sand and simply surviving until things felt easier. This year has been much more uncomfortable for me...but as time goes on, I'm discovering that I see and feel everything much more clearly, I'm braver, I face what's coming head on instead of avoiding it. I'm no longer content to simply survive, I want to thrive! All these small shifts, I'm certain, contributed to my being courageous enough to say "why not now?", spend lots of money I didn't have, fly to San Francisco and go all out for the job of my dreams...which I'm pretty sure I got.
After I signed my two year contract in a Marriott suite with my new bosses, they asked me to join them in the lobby for a drink to cheers the upcoming school year and living overseas. To that point, no drop of alcohol had touched my lips for six months. And I thought to myself, if ever there was a time to sit down and toast with a dirty vodka martini, this is the time! So, I sipped the celebratory cocktail until I realized I was about to be drunk in front of my new bosses and left the second half in the glass. (For the record, this is the first delicious martini to ever have been left unfinished by me.) I was floating on air as I got on my plane back to Denver. Other than the massive stomachache and headache the vodka gave me, I was the surest type of jubilant a gal could be.
So that's it, Top Secret #3 revealed. My yoga teacher said yesterday, "Most anything we want to create is outside of our comfort zone." With that in mind, I encourage you to immediately and boldly begin whatever it is you dare to dream. Till next time, be well.
