Healing, Nourishing the Soul

Life can be an adventure, choose wisely.

Its often we will all find ourselves in uncomfortable situations that take our breathe away. Happenings, occurrences, dilemmas, or unexpected short comings that can leave us wondering what next? How do we manage our body, mind, and spirit in the obstacle course of this crazy world we live in? How do we buckle down, how do we change directions, how do we successfully brace the impact of situations beyond our control?

I love the visualization of life and this crazy world we live in as a wild, fun, scary obstacle course. The ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, the wacky jumps, the fearful falls, and all the adventures in between. Last summer my husband, father, and I visited the beautiful Island of Cozumel. My husband and I love beach vacations and had always talked of taking my father with us to experience a tropical beach getaway. So the year of 2021 was the time, amid still a global pandemic, we decided it was time to travel. Taking all precautions necessary our trip went without a hitch. We rested, we walked, we swam, we snorkeled, we visited sites as we drove around the island to experience the local community. My husband invited me on a scuba diving adventure to which I had never experienced or tried before! I always feared the thought of being connected to an oxygen tank to support your life several feet under the ocean. I always told my husband I would never enjoy this adventure with him out of my own fear. Hubby, on the other hand, had been trained in scuba and enjoyed multiple dives over the course of his life. Me, on the other hand, felt safer just floating above the oceans edge with snorkel gear and the control of being able to lift my head for life needed oxygen at anytime.

However, last year was different and I said YES to this scuba adventure. I'm not sure what changed my mind, but I think perhaps just seeing my hubby so happy and excited to schedule a dive made me want to experience this happiness with him. So there I go. I decided to release my long held fear and choose adventure and joy. The best decision and one of the best adventures of my life! The ability to experience the ocean in all its rare and beautiful glory as a swimming visitor was simply breath taking. The colors of the ocean bottom, the fish, the plants, the shells, and rocks, the caves of rocks, and the nurse shark that glided next to our small diving group.

Thankfully, we had a diving expert with us to signal to us that the nurse shark was harmless because I almost could have internally died at the sight of swimming next to a shark. I thought, well this is it, this is how Erica says goodbye to life, at the jaws of a shark. Fortunately, we were with experts that knew exactly what we were looking at. After the dive we talked about our exciting experience under the ocean and I couldn't help but to think of that nurse shark, my 1st shark encounter. I though well how appropriate for ME (a nurse) to visit with a nurse shark. I learned nurse sharks are slow moving, bottom dwellers that can grow up to 14 feet, however THEY WILL bite in their defense if they are bothered but otherwise harmless to humans when left alone. Being a nurse myself, of course I found the name appropriate and thrilled that I got to experience and swim next to a nurse shark. As our lead diving instructor led us around, he pointed out several highlights of the ocean reef and all I can say was that the experience was exhilarating.

To add to this beach vacation was also the recent loss of my sweet pet chihuahua, Chacha. Days before we were set to travel, our 14 year old chihuahua was laid to rest due to sudden illness related to her age. After 14 years of love and loyalty she finally walked over the rainbow bridge. One of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life and the first experience of loosing a long time family pet was heart wrenching. My husband considered canceling our beach vacation due to the recent loss. However, I told him we needed to continue to move forward and I really wanted my father to experience this trip as we initially planned. More importantly, I wanted to experience the happiness of my father. I had no idea the trip would also provide comfort and solace to my soul. As my doggie mourning wounds were still so fresh for my sweet little Chacha, I decided to keep her little memory alive, thinking of all the sweet moments of love she gave to our family. During walks on the beach and sitting near the shore, I realized how fortunate we were to have had her in our lives for 14 years. The ocean also provided a greater sense of how precious life and time is and how small we all really are in comparison to grandiosity of everything around us.

Taking in the moments of sadness while experiencing the beauty of the world we live in. We can be sad, while maintaining a deeper sense of awareness and experience happiness at the same time. This can be referred to as a duality of emotions, experiencing feelings from opposite sides of the spectrum simultaneously. Just one of the many remarkable human qualities we all have. So in my little grief for my sweet Chacha, I was able to experience adventure and joy. I allowed the ocean waters to heal and nourish my soul while allowing the ocean waves to carry my sadness to a restful place of healing. The ocean withstanding the test of time, holding on to the secrets of the past while sending its waves to remind us of the beauty, vastness and fragility of life. Life truly is too short and precious, in all forms. In one of my previous blog posts I wrote about this ocean vacation in a different light of rest and tranquility, you can catch that read here @

https://www.ericajaneyoga.com/post/vacation-to-clear-the-clutter

Going back to that obstacle course of life full of adventure, fear, happiness, love, and joy. My husband and I actually did an ocean obstacle course during our vacation last year. There was a giant slide we had to climb up, a rotating ball, swinging ladders, tubes, saucers, and rings you had to climb, crawl, jump all while soaking wet in the middle of the ocean. We fell, we laughed, we got up again, we awkwardly and hilariously missed several of the challenges but enjoyed every single minute of it.

I love that I said yes to this vacation. I love that I left my heart open to experience joy and laughter. I love that my husband, father, and I got to experience this amazing trip together as a family. Because again, life is too short and no-one knows how much time we have. I could have easily been sad the entire trip and everyone would have understood. But instead I allowed the experience to heal me, I allowed myself to experience joy, love, and laughter.

In allowing myself to experience positive emotions, my soul was nourished and my heart and mind were positively impacted. It wasn't that I wanted to forget or not experience sadness, I just knew that I was also cable of continuing to love and extend kindness to myself and others at the same time. I find it amazing how we can experience duality of emotions. At one end of the spectrum we can experience a life changing event while also experiencing grief, sadness, love, happiness, fear, or joy. We are all made to feel and experience more than just one emotion at a time. We just need to have a heightened sense of awareness that we are made to be strong and diverse in our emotional responses.

Picture below captured by my sweet hubby while I filmed yoga videos on the oceans edge in Cozumel last year.

We will all experience some sort of loss or grief at one or many points in our life. The sense of loss in so many forms. You can experience loss in the form of having your plans, hopes, and dreams drastically altered by circumstances beyond your control. Or perhaps the loss or release of something that no longer serves you allowing you to change directions in a way you never imagined possible. A loss can be good when releasing behaviors or things that no longer serve you, we just have to be attuned to the positivity in the loss while finding a way to heal and recover from that loss with compassion for ourselves and an open heart.

So how do we mange life as an obstacle course of highs and lows? Do we buckle down and go for it, or do we cave in out of fear, anger, sadness, and uncertainty? Of course, the reality of taking a tropical beach vacation is not the norm for healing but perhaps we can find other ways to nourish the spirit and heal when life becomes challenging.

Acceptance, acknowledgement, self realization, self care, safe boundaries, and a deeper sense of awareness while cautiously moving forward with love, kindness, and positivity. Staying close to the things that keep you mentally, spiritually, and physically strong. We can still love and nurture, we can still experience goodness despite adversity. We CAN offer love and kindness to others, and RECEIVE love and kindness while experiencing other emotions. We just have to have open hearts to allow this. An open heart to feel, love, and honor not only who we are as individuals but for the people around us who love us through trying times as well.

Today life has yet taken another turn only to challenge me and keep me attuned to my authentic self. Accepting and acknowledging where I am, I find myself in stillness, resting, writing, napping, reading, praying, taking deeper breaths, cooking, walking, and having deeper conversations with those that I love. Finding it necessary to quiet the external noise of life as to stay attuned to what my body, mind and soul truly needs. In the quietness can I truly hear and feel the needs of my body and soul. Today I find myself reminiscing through old pictures and memories I said yes to. Today I'm thankful I said yes to life and all the adventures offered to me. Im so thankful that I said YES to my husband's scuba diving invite last year! So today I rest and hold a deeper sense of gratitude for the life I have been given and the people in it, my husband, our sons, my family, friends and our new pet rescue dog, Sir Harry Winston.

As life continues to change and evolve for us all I hope that we can continue to receive, give, and show kindness in the face of adversity. I hope that we can still laugh even though we may have cried yesterday. I hope that we can create a deeper sense of awareness for the complexity of our emotions while extending compassion to ourselves and others even if we are not able to see the entire picture.

I hope you enjoyed this writing piece and I hope that you are embracing life where ever you may be with love and kindness for yourself and others.

Life can truly be an adventure, choose wisely.

From my Heart to yours,

Erica Jane