The six months I spent in Japan last year was certainly one of huge change and of even greater self-discovery. It is most probably one of the most important decisions I have ever made and has been truly life changing. But surely we don’t have to disappear half way around the world every time we have an issue to work through.
I think it is important to note that I didn’t arrive in Japan and suddenly find all the answers. Far from it! It was a long and very frustrating process that eventually presented me with the questions I needed to ask myself.
It is easy to say that things have to change, but the big question is ‘How do I go about changing them?’ Herein lies the key.
I had to ask myself, “How do I want to feel in my life? What do I need to do differently to feel that way?”
The changes I sought had to come from within me. In six months’ time I was to return home. I refused to consider returning with no plan for doing things differently, and allowing all my old issues to return. I needed a long term and soul defining change.
I remember sitting on the banks of the Kamogawa (Kamo River) one morning reading a book that a friend had sent me. The book “Eat, Sleep Sit”, the autobiographical story of 30 year old Japanese businessman Kaoru Nonomura, who gave it all up to spend a year at Japan’s strictest and most revered training monastery, Eiheiji.
The book made me ask myself what do we hope to achieve by making such drastic changes. Do we hope that the magnitude of the change will be directly proportional to the effect it will have? Or is it more a case of, “If I am going to do this then I am going to really do this. Sink or swim.”
My conclusion? I’m not actually sure, but what I do know is that taking a big step to arrest the trajectory of my life gave me the time, space and energy to take more control of its direction. Making a big change means you cannot help but notice that things are different. And that can be just the wake up call we need.
I found some parallels with Nonomura’s story and what I was hoping to achieve, but there was one major difference. If I was to succeed I needed to be realistic. I needed to appreciate that some changes may take a while. And I needed a plan. I wasn’t running away, I just needed to catch my breath.
“Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed”
– Irene Peter
We seem to put a lot of emphasis on changing location to help us make changes. This can help in certain situations, but it is definitely not the only way. In fact to make real soul defining changes we need to build on what we discover whilst away and find a structure that will work for us.
Surely we can find inspiration anywhere and everywhere – we just need to give ourselves the opportunity and more importantly the time to spot it!
If you could escape from your daily life, where would you go and why? Is there any way you can make that happen? It doesn’t have to be this week – it could be in the next year? Or the next five years? I’d like to hear about it.
Until next time…
