Welcome to the Jungle!

So I am living in the jungle. I switched from city to jungle life and when you do, you loose all sense of time. You don’t know what day it is but at least you roughly know what time it is. In the morning, you are waking up at 5 am. The first birds are starting to sing and more are tuning into their sound over time. It is quite a concert actually. In the evening it is 5.30-6pm when it gets dark and nature changes the song, now starring with crickets and frogs.

I realise I have been living in the jungle for 3 weeks already. Lots of things have happened during this time. Lots of tears, lots of laughter and lots of learning and growing. I am still processing. To start at the beginning. You remember how I stayed 2 whole weeks in San Jose? Whenever I tell people that, they shake their heads as there are so many beautiful places to see in in Costa Rica. I had my reason: To create this blog in order to share my journey. The day I published the site I met someone at the hostel. He too got ‘grounded’ by the universe. For no obvious reason his foot started swelling on the plane ride which made him unable to go anywhere, so he needed rest. We started talking as we were the only people left behind not having plans that involved going on a walking tour or a hike on a volcano or national park.

In one of our conversations, he said something that felt important for m. I felt it clearly. He mentioned a volunteering website in order to do work and travel. I had a look and it took me maybe 10 seconds on that page to find the ad, that was calling to me. The title was ‘Adventurous yoga instructor needed in an off-grid community’. I had been interested in living in a community with a focus on sustainability for some time. And maybeee with the opportunity to start teaching yoga. Ever since I took my yoga teacher training over two years ago, I hadn’t felt that desire. Now I felt it clearly. I felt the pull 100% and knew it was time. Time to start teaching. I applied and two days later I received a ‘Yes’ and another two days later I sat on the bus 6h south again to a small village called Piedras Blancas – not that far from where the festival was held.

The last bit was the tricky part. The Community with the name Finca BellaVista is located on a mountain which you can only access with a four wheel drive car. Which also means that everything is quite isolated from the outside world. Solar panels generate the power. The drinking water is sourced from local springs through gravity fed systems. And the majority of the food is grown on site.

Oh! And did I mention this is a treehouse community? There are several treehouses in different sizes and on different locations on the land. For some it will take you to walk 10 min. The farthest are around 30 min away. All of them have running water and some even electricity.

So what is it that I am doing as a volunteer?

Well around 6 am I start working in the kitchen helping to prepare breakfast for the guests and the people living on site. Yoga Class starts at 7.30 which gives me some time for connecting and grounding, to drop into teaching mode and to myself.

After class I have breakfast and do the dishes. Sometimes I would go out helping with the house keeping or bringing guests to their tree houses, which is so much fun, as it means being even closer to nature. Being with ancient trees and watching beautiful creatures, like birds and butterflies.

On a walk out – bringing guests to their houses. Usually with boots as you can encounter poisonous snakes on the trails.

Maybe you wonder how the teaching part went?

Well I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that part. It meant facing some fears. The fear of expressing myself in front of people. The fear of not being enough – as in giving the people what they hoped for when they intended on coming to my class. And the fear of being seen and heard.

I believe fears are here to tell us which direction to go. As in ‘Feel the fear, but do it anyway’. It sounds easy – I know – but eventually there will come a point where the suffering in remaining and not going forward becomes bigger than the discomfort of doing so. And when you go, you start healing. Healing the wounds from the past that caused you suffering in the first place.

From my teacher training I learned how to to be prepared with a sequence before I enter a class. I tried and failed. I couldn’t remember the sequence and looking on my papers left me disconnected with myself. So I changed my approach. I would go with the flow and trusting that I would see the next position in my mind meanwhile holding the current position. That approach changed everything! And why shouldn’t that work? It is the approach that I had to learn in the past 3 years and I deliberately practiced on this particular trip to Costa Rica. It is how I live my life nowadays. Very different from it used to be as I used to be a planner and it would throw me off not to know the details of a random event.

I am not saying I am cured from this ‘disease’ called overthinking, but I do trust that everything is falling into place. No matter the circumstance. As long as I stay calm and keep myself connected, guidance is always coming through.

And though it wasn’t perfect and far from who I see myself being and teaching in the future – in a way it was just that – perfect! How can’t it be? Seeing all the happy smiles on peoples faces.