1 month in dubai

One month in Dubai.

I actually can’t believe it has already been a month… and yet sometimes it feels like I’ve always been here. There’s a remarkable sense of space-making that has happened. Life here becomes what you will or manifest it to be. So I guess, we can slip into a stream of lifestyle that is comfortable and familiar. We are in the desert, there is space enough for everyone, even in the confines of a perceived-strict culture. I actually really enjoy the respectfulness and reservation this culture calls for (I realise this is easy for me to say as a Brit in the most relaxed of the UAE, so I take my own opinions with a pinch of salt). I have always been deeply uncomfortable with many aspects of British culture and the norms it operates within, so I feel freed from those confines here.

We are in the desert. There is space enough for everyone.

I feel here is a fertile soil, ironic in the desert, but it goes beyond the physical landscape (which actually thinking about it, is also like a blank dry canvas). There is an energy, an air, of possibility. People who are charged, hungry and ready for all the potential that life can bring. People say YES to offerings. They say yes to connection building, asking questions and making time or space for you to be heard. It’s a beautiful transient energy.

As easy it will come, as easy it will go.

If I look at this from an Ayurvedic perspective, this is Pitta Vata territory. It is action driven, creative and constantly moving in flux. There is an infinite potential of transformation, think fire of Pita. That’s why so many claim you can become whoever you wish to be here. It does make sense. Not just in what I can observe in people, but bio-energetically and physically too. The landscape is transforming, the people, the opportunities.

(Speaking of Ayurveda, in my next blog I will focus on the details of Dubai- like shifting diets etc. As a Kapha woman, I am LIVING for this climate)

With all this action and charge, one might be afraid of burnout but… from my experience so far… I actually feel more peacefulness and a slower pace of life than I have felt for such an incredibly long time. It’s important to note that I am living in such an incredibly quiet neighbourhood, just a 10 minute walk from work and the beach… not the picture of sky scrapers and fountains… but of spanish-style villas and palm lined streets.

I wake up to the sound of prayer and birds in the trees. I take time in the mornings to cycle, walk or sit in meditation under the Buddha tree (in my front garden I love it) or in the sunrise on the beach. I spend my days working, moving, teaching, sunning, drinking coffee and eating sunshine. My loved ones are far from me, my community, students, clients…. but also my expectations, responsibilities and Autumn. No, this isn’t me saying “I’m going to FIND myself” bish please… I am found.

I simply mean daily attachments, habits and patterns have shifted and so Autumn can too.

I feel peaceful. I feel free.

But on the shadow side of this sunshine eating and light… is the undoing of the aspects or energies I had habituated within myself or even adjusted myself to survive within. I can feel a shedding of parts of myself happening, like mini thorns or hurts I had been carrying slowly peeling themselves away from me. A shedding of skins, of layers, of energies… some of which I really don’t think were my own.

I’m learning to just observe and channel this undoing, and allow them to slip off me and ground like a pin in a storm. Those lightening bolts needed Earthing.

I feel a sense of lightness in the process of shedding, in the process of letting go… and I’m enjoying this uncomfortable growing pain I’m experiencing.

I’m enjoying meeting incredibly beautiful souls here. New spaces, faces, energies and ways of being. I’m feeling my way through and I am grateful.

I am grateful for the home I have in the UK, the roots I still feel propping me up to be strong… the ones I want to make proud. I am grateful for the home I have in Dubai, the community I have met already and the ones I have yet to meet. The pull I feel to remain here is so very strong…

ANYWAY

The next post will be far more detailed, but this first one can stay vibey, emotional and vague.

Love always,

A

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5 Notes from Dubai

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