Ten days in Kerala
My name’s Andy and I’m going through a divorce. All together now: Hiiiiii Andy.
At the moment, my life is all over the place. I’m in limbo in both my personal and professional life and I’ve taken a bit of an emotional beating lately.
My nature is to be a slight control freak. And by slight control freak, I mean total control freak. A perfectionist to the core, I like things in my life to be neatly tied up in a lovely looking parcel with a strategically-chosen-colour-coordinated ribbon and complementary gift tag. So the messiness of divorce, the uncertainty of this mid-thirties upheaval and a shift in my career all at the same time, has me a little on edge to say the least.
And to add insult to literal injury, I’ve got a bad back. The combination of a whole load of emotional heaviness curving my spine alongside some partially undiagnosed pelvis issue, sees in each of my days with a Quasimodo style hunch and crippling pain. Nice.
It’s been a pretty rough six months for me. And that’s not me complaining. I know that you have to have the valleys to be able to climb the mountains, but there have been days where my resilience has been tested so much that I find myself questioning if and when everything will be okay.
My one quiet place amongst all the noise of the last six months has been my yoga mat. It’s the space where I can forget about the house viewings, the job interviews and the logistics of completely breaking my life down in order to build it back up. I find solace in the space of the Surya studio. It’s where I catch my breath when life has me running marathons.
So when Raj suggested I come to the annual yoga retreat in Kerala I wasn’t totally against the idea. After a little convincing using his all-knowing-guru-style foresight, I decided to go. This was totally going to be my Eat Pray Love moment.
I’d never been to India before. In typical Aussie style, I’d backpacked for months on end in my twenties, drinking my way around Europe and some of Asia, but never India. Not knowing quite what to expect was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. I’d heard that it was an assault on all your senses, but overwhelmingly everyone I talked to loved India. And after ten days in Kerala, I totally understand why.
The first morning we arrived I saw the fluorescent orange sun rise into the morning sky while getting to know my new roommate, who I would be sharing a space with for the whole retreat. We were total strangers and yet instantly felt the bond of lifelong friends. A strategic pairing by the all-knowing-guru I suspect. If this was anything to go by, this trip was going to be something else.
Each day was bookended with a yoga practice. The Amara Ayurveda Resort provided the perfect sanctuary for all the time in between classes. The serenity of the resort was beautifully balanced with the noise of India. The animals, the music and general hubbub that forever hangs in the air. We’d eat there, practice there, breathe in there and breathe out there.
A few days in we started our first workshop. A brilliant opportunity to work on alignment and really dig deeper into our practice. I’m not a natural yogi physically so it was great to really get to understand alignment for me. While working on some warrior postures, my back twinged and in a moment of sharp physical pain, I felt my emotional pain rise swiftly to the surface. It was that red hot emotion. The kind that catapults from your belly straight through you to your throat and beyond. And there it was, pouring out of me, directly on to my mat.
As someone who isn’t great at outwardly expressing emotion, this was significant. For the remainder of the workshop the tears flowed down my face in a steady stream. I was trying to keep a lid on it until the end of the workshop, but I felt safe enough to let the tears come because I knew my mat would catch them. And as they poured down my cheeks, I felt the 14 other souls in the room collectively reach out to me and silently say “we’ve got you”.
This was the moment I knew why the universe had brought me to Kerala.
That day I spent at the beach, in the ocean where I feel most at home. Kovalam beach is very reminiscent of the beaches I spent endless summers at, growing up in Australia. For me the waves bring peace, tranquility and a sense of calm, while instantly delivering much needed perspective. Nothing makes you realise how powerless you are against the planet like the current pulling you in and under.
The medicine of the waves and the energising sunshine prepared me for our afternoon class that day. A Vinyasa with a banging playlist. This was, without a doubt, the most incredible yoga class I’ve ever taken. As the class started the rain clouds rumbled in the distance. In some beautifully choreographed moment (that I still think Raj had pre-ordered with the universe), just as Neil Finn’s iconic intro to Crowded House’s Weather With You rang through the open air studio, the clouds erupted and the rain came. And boy did it come, testing the strength of the roof and each of the yoga students practicing underneath it.
There are few moments in life that are truly transformative. But for me, on this incredible yoga retreat, this was absolutely one of them. From a morning break down to an afternoon break through and all it took was two yoga sessions, hours at the beach and a bit of catastrophic weather on the other side of the planet to get there.
You could feel the energy in the class beaming off everyone that day. It was a collective moment where our little Surya Kerala community were forever bonded under the same lightning strikes and thunder claps. It was fucking incredible.
I will never forget the way I felt after that class. It was energy, it was light, it was love. Love for myself, love for yoga and love for the humans around me, of whom I knew both nothing and everything about.
The remainder of our time in Kerala was filled with so much. The daily routine of yoga in the morning, beach in the day and yoga in the evening so easily became second nature. And all the little moments in between were just pure gold. The laughter we shared, the beaming smiles across everyone’s faces that only seemed to get brighter the longer we were there. Just hearing people’s stories and understanding what it was that called them to this retreat allowed me to really get to know these incredible humans that I pass in the studio week in and week out.
I felt, as did everyone else I’m sure, a sense of balance in Kerala. I slowed down just enough to be truly grateful. I found myself having many peaceful and profound moments of reflection both on and off the yoga mat. And eventually there were moments of total clarity where I knew I was exactly where I needed to be at that moment in my life.
“It’s all going to be okay” Raj said to me as we were swimming through the waves on one of our final days in Kerala. And for the first time, in a really long time, I believed it.
The beautiful images in this post are courtesy of Francesca Snelling: photographer, friend and fellow Surya Kerala yogi.