My Decision to Travel
My accident feels like a distant memory now. Eight months ago, I was kicked in the jaw by a horse while teaching beginner's horseback riding lessons part-time. I was catching a docile pony for one of my younger students to learn proper grooming techniques—an indoor lesson alternative I often used during rainstorms. The combination of my raincoat hood obscuring my peripheral vision, and the sound of heavy rainfall kept me from noticing a new rescue horse recently introduced to the herd who had run up beside me. The next thing I knew, he was bucking (probably spooked by my raincoat) and I was knocked off of my feet and hurling toward the ground.
The "kick" was indirect, more of a flick of the hoof that clipped the underside of my chin rather than hitting me straight on, and therefore not as serious or life-threatening as it could have been. Nonetheless, it resulted in weeks of bed rest and a mouth full of stitches where the impact caused my gums to tear and my bottom teeth to slice cleanly through my flesh. I recovered quickly with nothing but occasional tingly feelings in my lower lip from nerve damage, and a tiny scar hidden in the crease below it to remind me of my luck. The doctors said I might not regain the feeling in my lip at all. But slowly the nerves reconnected and sensation returned. The healing ability of the body truly is miraculous.
While some sensation was lost, something invaluable was gained— the cliché mindset shift that comes with near-death experiences and close calls. In the ambulance ride, I remember making a pact with myself that I would stop finding reasons to put off my lifelong dream of seeing the world, even if that meant seeing it alone. For so long I had been telling myself "someday." Someday when I had tons of savings, someday when I met a partner with similar values to travel with me, someday after I had made a name for myself and established a reliable source of location-independent income.
The kick showed me that security was an illusion, and when the true final moment of my life arrived, I didn't want to feel the regrets that rushed to the surface that day when my hand came away from my face full of blood, and I did not yet know how seriously I was hurt.
Before the accident, I had started making moves to go to graduate school to become a therapist specializing in level 1 Autism and ADHD. I had already interviewed my therapist friends about their schooling and given my 2-week notice at my part-time riding instructor job to free up time to apply to universities.
My passion for spreading autism and ADHD awareness/acceptance was kickstarted after my own diagnosis dramatically improved my quality of life in 2021 and the autistic urge to learn everything I could about my new special interest fueled my decision to pursue graduate school. I wanted to help people who, like myself, had been tragically underserved and in some cases harmed by a mental health field that is still grossly uneducated about the autism spectrum. But there was another motivation under the surface that I was less keen to admit at the time. I felt trapped in a "rat race" of survival and at a loss for where to go next. While I felt genuinely fulfilled teaching yoga and peer coaching and was more passionate about these missions than ever, I was struggling to feel like I was making any progress in a city where power and financial wealth largely dictate social status and the perception of success.
Learning about autism helped me understand WHY I was so exhausted from holding space for others all the time despite a fierce love for my work. A hallmark characteristic of autistic neurology is that it takes significantly more mental energy and focus for us to interact with other people than an allistic(non-autistic) person. I had come to the realization that as much as I loved teaching, I needed to cut my hours in half to conserve enough energy for my own well-being and work-life balance. And that just didn't seem like something that was possible under my current circumstances in Washington, DC, the city with the fifth highest cost of living in America.
Because I've always adored learning and school, postgraduate studies seemed like the obvious choice to give me structure and a renewed sense of direction. But if I was being completely honest with myself, the choice was more based in fear and insecurity than in a true intuitive calling. I was already doing the exact kind of work I wanted to be doing in the world, and further education at this point would only serve to place a bandaid on my insecurities related to choosing a very different life path than the people around me, while also putting myself into debt that might postpone my travel dreams indefinitely.
While a PhD is required to diagnose autism and ADHD, it is not required to support someone navigating the struggles associated with those neurotypes. In this regard, education about neurodiversity and genuine empathy and guidance from someone who can relate through personal experience is unparalleled.
One of the worlds leading experts in autism research Dr. Tony Attwood writes "The best interventions for autism are knowledge and attitude. Knowledge about autism in all its dimensions, and an attitude that respects, embraces, and celebrates autism." These were the two things that were the most transformational for me when my autism was discovered. And I realized that as much as I value therapy and the mental health field, it would be incredibly difficult to support people from within a system that pathologizes thinking and behavior that diverges from what is considered "normal" simply because it is less common. Rather, I could continue with the coaching practice I had already built, and trust that those people who would most benefit from my work would find me. Besides that, obtaining an official diagnosis is notoriously difficult for people with high levels of masking ability and not necessary in order to access the aforementioned resources of knowledge and a compassionate neurodivergent peer with experiential empathy.
If in the future I decide to pursue a graduate degree, and indeed I still might, I know it needs to come from a place of abundance rather than fear of not measuring up, or of not having enough. Otherwise, I know I'd find myself right back in the same situation of feeling stuck and directionless.
I felt my only alternative then, was to follow my intuition after the accident and dramatically change my life. I wanted to remove myself from my current environment, one that rewarded a mindset of "more productivity, more money, more possessions" and immerse myself instead in one that valued experience, spaciousness to feel, and contentment with less.
As a dedicated ashtanga yogi, studying with my teacher's teacher Sharath Jois in Mysuru India has long been on my list of goals for deepening my practice and yogic knowledge. So when his teaching dates were announced for November through December of 2022, it was the perfect excuse to pull the trigger and get myself across the world to kickstart a new way of living.
And so, here I am writing this blog/newsletter to you all this evening from the balcony of my apartment in Mysuru, sipping chamomile tea and munching on homemade chocolates from the shop down the street as huge fruit bats fly by and the rumbling sound of motor scooters approach and fade off into the distance.
Finally, I feel the spaciousness to write that I've longed for for so long. I feel my nervous system slowly being reconditioned to fear genuine threats rather than unmet timelines and social blunders (I make plenty of them here).
Life is not glamorous and there are many discomforts and chores to attend to. It's been less than a week and I have already experienced some serious dehydration, a minor motorscooter wreck, and feeling helpless while alone with strangers who could not communicate with me when I first arrived to my hotel in Bengaluru with the wrong kind of currency and no phone service.
But the theme that keeps emerging, is the genuine goodness of most people, and the compassionate spirit of humanity that crosses cultures and language barriers. I've been helped by so many people along my way, and have already made deep friendships with people from a culture totally different from my own that I could never have anticipated before I left. I’m learning that relaxing and breathing through every challenge is my greatest tool.
I have many more questions than answers about what comes next. But I haven't felt so alive, so connected to the humans around me, nor so at peace for a very long time.
Currently, I plan to take things one day at a time. To write most days, and perhaps offer one virtual class and one private peer coaching slot a week very soon. Stay tuned for that if it interests you, and look out for a poll soon about which virtual class time will work best.
I’m sending back so much love to everyone reading this letter. Thank you for being interested to join me on this journey in any small way. I haven’t taken many photos since I arrived here but included one of the train station that I arrived at in Mrsuru after running beside it and hopping on Bollywood style, as well as my neighborhood in Gokulum below. I hope to share more soon.
❤️ Much Love,
Victoria
