THE REAL REASON I SAID NO TO SRI LANKA

Last week I had the chance to go to Sri Lanka to see my son, Arthur. It’s a country I’ve wanted to visit for years. And I said no.

I’d made a promise to myself that I’d work hard on my course until Christmas. At the time, saying no felt like keeping that promise.

Around the same time, I recommended ac

upuncture to a friend and passed on my practitioner’s details. As soon as I did, I had one of those downloads. Book yourself a session too. So I did.

When I arrived, I told her I had no pain, no symptoms. I just felt like I needed a reset.

She said that’s often the best time to come, because there’s space for something to come through. She wasn’t wrong.

“Now that your children have left home, what does your soul want in this next chapter?”

“Travel,” I said. Straight away.

“Why aren’t you travelling?”

I told her I was doing a course to take my business online. I wanted to build a platform people could subscribe to and create content from wherever I was in the world. The whole idea was to give myself the freedom to travel. I’d set aside the time between now and Christmas to work on it.

“But surely you can do that anywhere? It’s an online course.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Then I told her about Sri Lanka and how I’d spent the whole week going back and forth about whether to go. And she said something that landed so directly that tears started rolling out of the corners of my eyes.

She called it a false conclusion. Somewhere deep down, I’d come to believe that if I’m not working, I am not existing.

I recognised it as soon as she said it.

For a moment, I felt like I was watching myself from the outside. There I was, saying no to spending time with my son in a country I’d been longing to visit, because I’d decided I had to stay home and work. And yet the work could come with me. How many other opportunities had I missed because of that old programming?

I thought of the 13-year-old me who went out to work because she wanted the trendy clothes her friends were wearing. I thought of 15-year-old Debbie, who worked so much she bought her first car before she even had her licence. I thought of the times I’d had two jobs. The list goes on.

And I thought about how much of my life on the yogic path has followed a familiar rhythm. Working, learning, practicing, repeat. I think you can tell I love what I do. I used to think that because I’d come to yoga later in life, I was making up for lost time. I’d never stopped to ask why I felt like I had to do it all.

What still bewilders me is that I’m only seeing this now. She reminded me how much I’d already worked through around being adopted, finding out more about where I came from and meeting my biological family. She suggested that maybe all that healing had made room for me to see something I hadn’t had space for before.

At the end of the session, she asked me how I felt.

“I guess I need to go home and book a flight to Sri Lanka,” I smiled. “I want to spend time with Arthur. And I’ve always wanted to do Panchakarma while I’m there.”

She looked at me. “But Debbie, that’s more work.”

There I was, already giving myself another thing to do.

She suggested I go, spend a little time on my course each morning, then leave the rest of the day open. No plan. Nowhere I had to be. Nothing I had to do and see what happens, this I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to give myself that kind of break.

I guess I’m about to find out.

With love & gratitude

Debbie