I thought about moving and living abroad with my family for years. Years.
I watched many other families post their launch stories and adventures in Facebook Groups. I explored people’s stories through their blogs and Youtube videos.
My mom and I both shared this dream, which at the time was more like a fantasy. I remember many phone conversations with her talking about this idea.
However, at that time, it was all talk. There was a feeling deep down that knew this would be a beneficial move for my family and me. Something told me that this would help us grow and transform in ways I couldn’t fully see from that vantage point.
But, the doubt was strong. I lacked belief and trust in myself. I didn’t believe I could pull such a out-of-the-box move off.
So, I kept this dream tucked away in the box of someday. I told myself that someday this dream would materialize.
Then, 2018 happened.
2020 is a wake-up year for many, but 2018 was my wake-up year. It was the year when my mom no longer had a someday. It was the year I realized I was not guaranteed unlimited somedays and could no longer sit on the sidelines and regret allowing my life to pass me by in a version out of alignment with my true values.
The experience of being with my mom through the end of her life transformed me. It allowed me to see life from a completely fresh perspective. I left my mom for the last time with the resolve to release the patterns that had kept me restricted and stuck in a limited way of being.
Up until that point in my life, I had been so full of ideas, yet I lacked the belief that I could pull them off. Life felt like molasses, and I couldn’t see how I could move fast enough to bring forth the many ideas I had.
However, it was like I had rose above the thick, murky energetic field that was previously keeping me trapped. Love is watching someone die was the message I received before going to be with my mom for her final weeks. It’s like that love allowed me to love myself a bit more to change my own energetic frequency.
That new energetic vantage point allowed me to make different decisions. I no longer doubted the voice that would give me the clues about my next best steps, which acted like the best kind of feedback loop. I listened to the voice, the one of my higher self that has my best interest at heart, and things started to line up for me.
This showed me the power of that voice, and with more and more experiences when listening to that voice worked out, the trust began to come back. The trust for myself returned.
I didn’t do this all on my own. I had support from a few whose trust muscles were a bit more flexed than my own and could help pick me up when the voice of doubt began to creep in.
However, over time, I had enough experiences to see how my voice and trust works. I can now look back and see how magically things have worked out for my family and me in the past two years.
What can happen through trust?
It only took ten months after my mom passed away for me to convince my husband of this living abroad plan, for us to sell or pass on most of our possessions, including our house, and for us to depart on our journey.
It’s only been 18 months since we rolled out of our driveway in Oregon to allow trust to show us what is possible. So much personal and relationship growth has happened in this time. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been 18 months.
We’ve been afforded the opportunity to look at the shadows that have been blocking us on our own personal life paths.
My husband and I have been afforded the opportunities to have long conversations that have helped us heal and strengthen our relationship in ways that we couldn’t seem to do in our old life.
We’ve been afforded the opportunity to simplify our lives, releasing the societal expectations that we had previously internalized as how we were supposed to be living our lives.
We’ve been afforded the opportunity to believe we have a greater power in the trajectory of our family’s life.
We’re still works in progress. We’re still unraveling and unpacking the stuff that was stored away that we couldn’t quite process and heal before. We continue to learn new tools to transform our blocks and wounds into opportunities that show us a bright path forward.
This story isn’t to toot my own horn. It’s to show that feeling stuck in life does not have to be a permanent state.
I know that when we’re in the muck of stuckness, it’s incredibly challenging to see a path out. However, what we see as possible truly matters. Whether we trust ourselves matters.
As I write this from my rooftop patio in Costa Rica, I feel immense gratitude for the me that didn’t believe I could pull this off for the years leading up to this big life shift. Without that experience, I couldn’t fully appreciate how my life experiences have shifted. I couldn’t fully appreciate what it means to trust in myself and the very magical opportunities that life has in store for us if we believe and trust that it’s possible.