It’s been a year since I gave up my apartment in Brooklyn. A year of living a nomadic life which could be seen as a life “without”.

Homeless.

That was certainly a big fear of mine in the past. That I would lose everything. That any “wrong” move I made meant I’d be out on the street. Unsupported.

Maybe that was never true but I believed it to be true and so it was. That fear held me back. Limited me.

As I was working towards this nomadic existence, I started to say and believe that the places would appear when I needed them. Thanks to the generosity of spirit of so many people, it’s been true.

True and effortless.

Privileged, yes.

For me it was also a big step in letting go of a place that had kept me safe and insulated at a time when that was what I needed. Until I grew out of those needs. Shedding that past history. Moving past it. Incorporating and integrating it, yes and allowing the pieces of past destruction to become the deep rich fertilizer to catalyst into a new way of being.

A new way of living.

I’m living in my sixty-sixth place in a year.

In this past year I stayed with family and friends and complete strangers in five different countries. I’ve never been without a place. Offers of places to stay have appeared in abundance constantly and without any attempting to grasp or force them to happen. Each person or family within each place sharing a common thread of giving – like a huge flow of energy I’m tapping into.

I have had to learn how to receive.

How to receive and not limit so much generosity. That took some time to get used to. I still am.

It’s been overwhelming at times to show up to someone’s house who I had never met before and be taken into their homes and lives unconditionally. To be, sometimes, left in full trust of a house or a pet and feeling as though I’m this seemingly random person walking in off the street. Receiving that unlimited amount of blind faith and trust has been energizing and has left me awe-struck time and time again. I love it!

I am fortunate.

There seems to be a pattern with me and April. Two years ago, I left my corporate job and salary. Last year, my apartment. This year, my regular classes where I’ve taught for nearly five years. I’m constantly reducing the amount of “stuff” I have stored away.

It feels not like loss to me or even like a letting go any more. That practice has become so part of what I do now it almost needs no attention – it’s now simply a fluid way of being. Letting in and releasing. Constantly. What it’s starting to feel like instead is an opening. An opening up to something new.

The realization in letting go of so much has shown me that I already have everything I need. I never knew that or believed it until now. In looking back, I think I outright denied that concept as a possibility while at the same time starting to understand the seed of the healing view that “I am already whole”.

In past situations not having what others had – in particular family of my own – has inflicted, created, or bumped up against so much stored pain. The looking into other’s lives and comparing causing only despair. Seeing what was lacking in me and in what I had and didn’t have. The gap feeling so irreparably gigantic – like an impassible chasm. Fueled by loss, the sensations I felt created stories of longing, yearning and shedding of countless tears around that acute slicing through my heart. A reinforcing loop. Stuck.

So to arrive at a moment of feeling full. Heart-full. Feeling supported in what I’m doing and who I am becoming. Who I have been before. Understanding that I have everything.

I have absolutely everything and always have. It’s all right here within me. It always has been.

There’s nothing beyond to search for or seek.

It really actually is all here. Within me.

I have everything I need. I am everything I need.

It’s an incredibly empowering place to be.

It’s with me wherever I go. Wherever I am. Whether I’m staying in a mansion of a house with every modern comfort or sleeping on a deflating air mattress in a friend’s living room or at the foot of a Redwood tree. I am the same person no matter where I am. I am grateful for wherever I am.

There’s nothing more I need.

Starting to understand and see this fullness or whole-ness and accepting that I’ve always been whole at every point in my process and will continue to be so contributes to so much more opening.

Yes, I still find myself comparing my life to other’s only the internal response is different. When they have something that strikes a chord with what I don’t have, I’m not caught up in painful lacking. Instead it’s more of a noticing or a thought that I can cultivate or create that too (whatever it may be). At the same time, letting go of the expectation that  I need to have certain milestones in my life to feel better or be happy.

I see myself more in the people living on the street. Those who are homeless or “don’t have” and notice that I now see the similarities between us more than the differences. I’ve had a few really meaningful exchanges lately on the streets of New York actually seeing and listening to people living without homes. Some monetary, and also actually listening to their story. Seeing the person in front of me. Feeling safe enough in myself to hear them and noticing that the fear that used to grip me at being in a similar place, I’m sure helped me not connect with these people. Every time I didn’t acknowledge them I was really saying “I’m afraid I won’t have anything too”.

Thanks to each person or family I’ve stayed with, I’m continuing to move from a mindset of lack to that of abundance. The abundance in me is starting to flow over because I have enough.

I am enough.

It’s the duality of being okay either way. The and/or of non-absolutes seem to be what give me balance. To me, being okay means discovering the things that feed me and make me feel well and then actually doing those things. And doing them over and over, no matter where I am or what excuses I may have.

A teacher once told me that discipline sets you free.

Perhaps this is a part of that. Even in all the movement from one place to another, there is this deep new understanding of stability growing within me. My portable roots are strong within my body and soul. I’m exposing myself to more ways of living, being, and creating. To needs and wants and desires. In seeing so many different paths, I’m starting to trust that each person is on their own path and we are realizing our wholeness within unique conditions or limitations. It’s not about comparing or measuring. The scales are endless and not real; they reach out into infinity if we let them.

I looked up the meaning of number sixty-six after writing this post and smiled in my heart at the definition I found:

Number 66 is comprised of the vibrations and energies of the number 6 doubled and amplified. Number 6 carries the attributes of humanitarianism, community, service to others, home and family, domesticity and social responsibility, grace, gratitude and simplicity. Number 6 also relates to material issues and provision. Number 66 is a powerful number of unconditional love, healing and faith and trust in the Divine.

Number 66 is a message from your angels to put your faith and trust in the benevolence of the Universe as your daily needs are continually met.

Number 66 also asks you to balance your physical, material and spiritual lives. Focusing on your spirituality and living a conscientious and purposeful lifestyle will ensure that your material needs are met as you serve your Divine life mission.  Give any fears or anxieties about your monetary and material issues to the angels for healing and transmutation, and trust that as you live your spiritual truths all of your needs will be provided for. Be open to receiving and accepting help and assistance from your angels, the spiritual realm and other people in your life.

In reading this definition, I’m reminded at reading this of a phrase I heard repeated in my initial healer and yoga teacher training: “set the foundation and open to grace”.

We do this in the physical body in yoga – setting the posture from the ground up. Finding your feet. Finding your roots and then allowing the rest of the body to open. As the body starts to open, energy flows. Movement becomes more fluid, less rigid. It translates off the mat as well.

I’ve gone from believing that without certain structures in place, I would be homeless to now having multiple homes. To having a solid community of support that is one of give and take without measuring what that is. With this foundation, my own ability to give has grown and is continuing to flow out into the world and towards others in new ways. I’m becoming more of a conduit or channel for energy to move through instead of staying stuck or held, rigid and paralyzed by fear and longing.

Beliefs are flexible. Changeable. As the body and foundation of what we think is true shifts and moves it can feel scary. Once set, it’s not permanent unless it continues to serve the structure it supports. As I continue to find, release, and create foundation, I’m learning more about the adaptability of life and the ways in which we do all support one another. How we are connected and interconnected and already whole no matter where we are.