Travelling without Plans

Travelling without plans. This is a new one for me. It’s a metaphor for life.

I’m not used to going on a trip without making reservations in advance. Even if I had time to plan our trip to Costa Rica, part of me wanted to just go and see where we end up. And that’s where we are – wherever we are. Following our intuition, at least most of the time.

I didn’t follow my intuition about reserving a rental car in advance – I resisted doing this to “trust” in what happened. It delayed getting us to the beach by a day but it gained us a laid-back day of getting stuck in a small village with nothing to do but eat and rest. When do I ever get that opportunity?

I have discovered my love for freedom – freedom from limiting beliefs, freedom from social rules, freedom from making plans, freedom from seeing my current reality from one perspective. There’s nothing to do in this village of Nosara (although it has a great sandal shop and a fun dinner place called Rancho Tico). But there is so much to do – sit in an open air breakfast café, petting the cabina-owner’s dogs, enjoying the jungle breeze, listening to the tropical birds, watching the motorcycles drive by, practice mi espanol, hang out with my best friend.

Travelling without an agenda is pretty cool, but I do have an agenda. To be me. To follow my bliss.

There was another part of me that wished I had made plans, so I wouldn’t “miss out on life” the way I often felt growing up and until recently, feeling burdened by taking care of others. That’s an old pattern, and I did an Avatar practice to let it go, to free me up to be in my flow. It is so cool to have 3 weeks to travel, so I am not putting pressure on myself to have to be somewhere in a particular timeframe. It is all perfecto.

We have been in Costa Rica 48 hours and have yet to reach our “destination”- the beaches of Nosara and Samara. Our first 24 hrs in San Jose introduced us to the Tico culture and the young hostel world, but mostly gave us an opportunity to rest from an intensive 2-week immersion in personal growth. When we arrived in Nosara yesterday we learned about car insurance and how to research that in advance before going to another country; I followed my intuition not to take the first car deal when I found out theft wasn’t covered in the maximum insurance plan. Waiting 24 hrs for a car brought us to this sleepy village to be sleepy.

We actually do have a plan to meet some folks from Finca Las Brisas, a sustainable intentional community under development – we will see them Saturday for a tour and a barbeque. We have been inspired by discussions with them about a community we may start or join some day. I’m guided to explore intentional community, practice Spanish and chumming with the natives (a store guide already told us our Spanish was good enough to call us Ticos!), and relax into the Pura Vida.

Looking back through my life I would get so intense (and often moody) when life didn’t go the way I planned. Losing Jason wasn’t in my plan, and somehow this created a passage into a new perspective.

I’ve taught goal-setting, shifting from working on all the steps to make something happen, to “being in your flow”, to understanding the law of attraction, to being in a place of hanging with my higher self, enjoying the simple life. I’ve created complications, and now I am creating simplicity.

Jason is here hanging with me. He didn’t like planning; he couldn’t relate to it. He fully experienced the current moment, including seeing multiple perspectives of any one thing, seeing the beauty of all things. He was with me in the 18-seater prop plane flying over the Costa Rican countryside from San Jose to the coast. I felt him say “this is so cool”, sharing the awe of each moment with him, feeling him soaring in the beautiful clouds with us.

P.S. It is the following day – now enjoying the relaxing tropical air, and being……
A small adventure yesterday fording a stream with our 4WD vehicle – the wake went up to the hood! Going outside our usual sense of reality…..