22. Chapter 17: No Matter How Far You Go...

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Transcript

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Chapter 17. No matter how far you go, your problems follow you. Something I learned after moving across the world is that as it turns out, no matter how far across the globe you go, your problems will follow you there. You cannot run away from your beliefs, your patterns, and your self-destruction. In Pantanjala Yoga Sutra, these behavioral patterns are referred to as Vasanas, the greater accumulation of our sensaras or life experiences that shape our personalities. Your problems will persist until you take time to sit down with them and ask, why are we this way and what can we do about it? Many of us think that our personalities are fixed. I personally thought that living with bipolar disorder was something I inherited. It was just who I was. With this stance, there was only a problem and no solution. Through a deep spiritual practice, I've come to see that all mental health maintenance, diagnosis or not, involves active work on the individual's part to stay well. It is a process of figuring out what you need to thrive. For me, I have found that my mental health flourishes when I am practicing yoga every morning when I wake up, feeling a sense of purpose through teaching yoga, getting good sleep, eating well, reducing my stress as much as possible, and having a like-minded community to help me feel grounded. Nowadays, I no longer take medication for my mental health, and I entirely manage it on a gluten-reduced, dairy-reduced, caffeine-reduced, sugar-reduced diet, which sounds as if it's high maintenance, but it's actually quite easy. I just make sure all my plates have mostly fruits and vegetables and protein sources like meats and alternatives. When I moved to Kuwait, however, I wasn't aware that I needed to put in so much work in order to stay on top of my mental health. In fact, it wasn't until every single one of the strategies and structures that I had put into place had been knocked out from underneath me that I fully realized how much effort was needed to stay afloat. It was like I was back down at the bottom of the ocean again, struggling to swim my way up to the top. When I arrived in Kuwait, I learned that unlike the transportation system in Toronto and Kingston, which provided freedom, structure, simplicity, and predictability, transportation in my new country was limited. In Toronto, I could walk 10 minutes to the subway and then take the train to meet a friend anywhere in the city. In Kuwait in 2015, similar to Bali up until recently, there were few public transport options, and so everyone either drove, took a taxi, or had their own private driver. Due to the congestion on the road, transportation time estimations on Google Maps had to be tripled, and that was on a good day. The taxi system seemed unregulated in Kuwait, another aspect of Kuwaiti transit that was completely different from anything I'd ever known. I left Toronto before the days of Uber, but from the street that I grew up on, you could easily walk two minutes onto Young Street, stick your thumb out into the air, and get into a taxi with recognizable branding. There were three major taxi companies, Beck, Royal, and Diamond, and they all protected their passengers by installing meters and cameras in each of their cars and requiring that drivers' ID cards were made easily visible. The taxi system in Kuwait, on the other hand, was completely different. All of the taxis were owned by individual Kuwaitis and driven by migrant workers from neighboring countries like India. Many drivers didn't speak English and didn't turn on their meters. As a young woman who was traveling alone, it was very intimidating to try and advocate and communicate for myself when I was placed in such situations. The school recommended one taxi driver in particular to us, Ragu. He was reliable, dependable, fair with his fares, and kind. Ragu drove a car called Taxi Easy, and most teachers at the school used his services until they got licenses and drove their own cars. The first time that I got into his taxi and I mispronounced his name, Ragu looked at me directly in the rearview mirror and said, My name is Ragu, like the pasta sauce. He looked serious for a moment and then broke out into a laugh. I never mispronounced it again. Names are important. I spent a lot of time in the backseat of his car in the early days of my time in Kuwait. Ragu spoke impeccable English, along with Arabic and Hindi, making him the ideal driver. He could ask for and understand directions from anyone he came across. He rarely had to ask for directions, though. He knew the roads of Kuwait as if he had grown up in this neighborhood, an impressive feat considering how confusing the roads were to me as a foreigner. He was also respectful, kind, and compassionate. Stuck sitting in traffic with him many days a week, I'd ask him about his life and his stories. I learned that Ragu had moved to Kuwait from the age of 18 from India. He left his wife and his son behind to make a living, and he sent them money every month. Every few years, if he saved up enough money, he'd travel back to India for a 30-day holiday to see them. For the first 18 years that he lived in Kuwait, Ragu was the driver for a Kuwaiti family. Kuwaiti families often had several drivers, one for the father, one for the mother, and one for the children. He was specifically the driver for two young Kuwaiti boys. He took them all over the country every single day, to school, to football or soccer matches, to play dates, and raised them as if they were his own children. After they grew up and moved away to America for university, the family no longer needed so many drivers, and he switched his work to being a taxi driver. I came from the land of instant and the world of on-demand, and to me, the name Taxi Easy was a misnomer. Ragu was one man who was on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But once you called him, you had to wait until he drove across the country to wherever you were. You couldn't get a ride in the middle of the night without advance notice, or he'd be asleep when you called. You'd have to book his services a day ahead of time if you wanted a ride anywhere. Ragu drove many of the teachers from my school. And if he happened to have someone else in the car or another ride booked when you called, he couldn't get you. From very early on, I would get so unbelievably frustrated by all the steps involved in getting from point A to point B. Having to wait for a taxi to get anywhere bothered me because it was something I'd never had to do before. Having to plan bothered me. I wanted the freedom of being able to decide on a whim what I wanted to do during the day and be able to do so independently. I'd had that freedom all my life in Toronto and Kingston. Patanjali says the third cause of human suffering, or Klesha, is Raja, desire. I desired freedom, something I felt I no longer had. This caused me suffering. For the first time in my life, I had to plan and I had to notify Ragu over a day in advance if I wanted to go anywhere. I lacked perspective in being able to see his side, and being in my yoga practice would have been the solution to start to see this. But I wasn't practicing, so I couldn't imagine what it would be like driving all over the country, navigating the chaos of Kuwaiti traffic, trying to fit in all his customers and keeping everyone happy. I could only see things from my perspective. I was the girl who came from the land of on demand. And I expected everything instantly. Before I signed my contract to move overseas, I searched online for a yoga studio in Kuwait. I discovered there was only one, and it was a 25-minute drive away from my apartment. Only having access to one yoga studio was so different from Toronto, which had hundreds of studios when I left in 2015, including three that were walking distance from my house. The website of the one yoga studio in Kuwait looked beautiful and boasted a team of experienced, full-time yoga teachers. Some of the teachers were hired from abroad and some of the teachers were Arab. Many had over 10 years teaching experience with top-name yoga teacher trainers. Teaching yoga there full-time would be my dream, but I was intimidated when I read the online bios of the teaching staff. Who was I to think that I could even get a part-time job there? I was just a 23-year-old yoga teacher who went to a random little yoga teacher training center in Mexico and had one year's teaching experience at a tiny yoga studio no one had ever heard of in Kingston, Canada. I also had imposter syndrome and self-doubt. Could I really be a yoga teacher teaching these methods of calming and silencing the mind when I was so troubled by my own brain? I weighed the cost and time involved with going to the yoga studio and decided that it wasn't worth it. If I wanted to go to the yoga studio in the city, it would take me around an hour to get there, one way. And since I didn't have a driver's license yet and I couldn't drive, I had to pay for a taxi each time I wanted to go. The yoga classes alone were at least double the cost of the classes in Canada. It was not a habit that my teacher's salary could afford. So I didn't even bother going. In the meantime, I had found somewhere else interesting to teach yoga. During my first week in the country, the school took us to a well-known hotel chain resort, known internationally, which was a five-minute drive from our accommodation. I learned that in the Middle East, it was super common for expatriates to get memberships to or even live at these beach resorts. These seaside retreats provided a little bit of a haven where expats were free to show their shoulders, wear their bikinis, and socialize. The hotel had its own spa, gym, two-kilometer stretch of beach, and group fitness classes. Luckily for me, their yoga teacher had recently left the country and they were looking for someone. Typically, expatriates are not allowed to have additional jobs without the permission of their visa sponsor, so I asked William's permission. He encouraged me to take the position, explaining that I'd have many more friends and be happier in the country if I found hobbies outside of my job as a teacher. And he was right. I was hired and put on the schedule right away. I was so grateful to have somewhere to teach yoga. Unfortunately for me, they wouldn't work with me in terms of timing and wanted yoga to be scheduled at the end of the night. The hotel had one multi-purpose group fitness room, and their classes included Zumba, Pump, Pilates, and Kids Karate. In the manager's mind, the best timing for yoga was 7 p.m. Due to the unpredictability of the traffic and having to wait for Ragu to pick me up, I'd often get home at 9 p.m. from the resort. I'd have to get up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus to school, leaving me perpetually exhausted. But teaching yoga was so important to me that I let my sleep be sacrificed. Being the only yoga teacher at the hotel was exciting at first, but over time it became difficult. In Canada, I had always relied on my yoga teacher community for both inspiration and support. However, at the resort, I didn't have that resource. I alone was the yoga teacher community. My role as the sole yoga teacher also meant I couldn't attend classes as a student, something I needed deeply to keep me grounded and committed to my own yoga practice, separate from my teaching. For me, participating in yoga classes as a student and connecting with others in a yoga community are essential to helping me stay on the path. This is referred to as your sangha or community. It is said that the Buddha was asked, What's the most important part of spiritual practice? Spiritual friendship was what he said. In my first year in Kuwait, I didn't have spiritual friendship. Without classes to attend and other yoga teachers to inspire me, I struggled. Moving to Kuwait meant that I had lost yoga. I had lost my like-minded community of friends, and I had somehow lost myself in the process. I became like a chameleon, suddenly going to sporting events because my friends liked sports, or going to the mall because my friends liked to shop. These were things I never liked before Kuwait. One new friend introduced me to the party scene and brought me to an around-the-world party in which people were dressing up in costumes that represented different countries. These types of costume parties happened in Canada too, but I steered clear of them during my undergrad each year. My degree was in gender studies, so I was well aware of the harm that cultural appropriation causes, and it was against my values to participate in it. But in Kuwait, I was so desperate to make friends and form bonds that I went to this party and participated. I wore a t-shirt from a local Toronto baseball team to avoid offending anyone. But I still attended the party and turned a blind eye to what was happening in the room. Who was I becoming? It was like I'd lost all personal values and ethics. I could hardly recognize myself anymore. One of my biggest problems since I was a teenager was that I was convinced that the solution to my depression and sadness was to find a boyfriend. After all, that's how every Disney movie ends. A beautiful princess who is trapped in a palace cries for help, and a handsome prince comes to save her and win her love. Now the princess is complete, and the couple gets married and lived happily ever after. As a society, we are trained to think that our worth as women is defined by our relationship status. I know this belief is not unique to me. I was convinced, whether conscious of it or not, that finding a boyfriend would solve my problems. So not long after I arrived in Kuwait, I began dating again. I ended up in a relationship quickly with an Australian guy, Dave, who I met at the around the world party. He was the center of attention. He wanted to go to a party every night and be the last one to clear out as the sun rose. I quickly became his chameleon girlfriend, and I tolerated him picking me up and speaking on the phone with his friends while I sat in the passenger seat silently. He'd smoke in the car and flirt with other girls in my presence. In Canada, I would never sit in a car with a driver who was smoking. Here I did so willingly. I was engulfed by him. I was convinced that a boyfriend, no matter how mismatched, would be the key to my happiness.