Kauai/Hawaii is always a good idea…

or of roosters & breaching wales

and a sort of life-changing decision…

I’m sure you know that state when you’re debating a decision with yourself, weighing up rational arguments and trying to make sense of the completely irrational emotions sabotaging your attempt to actually reach a conclusion. It’s like no matter how hard you try to focus, discipline yourself and try to get to the bottom of it, it keeps slipping through your fingers. Before you know it, a state of confusion and frustration sets in – dead-end – you can’t force it.

What this has to do with my trip to the oldest, most western island of Hawaii? Well, I purposefully decided to give myself a whole week in paradise not only to have a change of scenery, rejuvenate, explore, but also to allow myself all this time, to solely find the answer to one question that’s persistently been popping up over the last weeks: do I want to stay/return/move to Vancouver permanently?

So, there I was on the ‘Garden Island’ driving around in my ship of a rental car, going 25 miles per hour through breathtakingly beautiful greenery, accompanied by the local reggae music radio station, going somewhere but not really…the dead poultry on the road added to this almost surreal experience, and I started to run a daily toll (I know, quite morbid). I alternated the days discovering the beaches, waterfalls or walking the ever botanically different trails with glorious views into the valleys. Besides giving each day a ‘theme’ (to do with my question) wherever I went, I brought my ink pens as well as notebook along, giving me the opportunity to capture absolutely all, i.e. thoughts & emotions.

This process and methodology suited me perfectly, and it is therefore not surprising that by the end of my stay, I had reached a crystal clear answer:  Vancouver is it.

& hell yeah, it scared the living daylights out of me!

I mean, it’s halfway across the world from Zurich, where my entire family and lots of friends live. It means giving up my bijou of a flat, and of course, figuring out everything about the immigration process. All this throws me into the unknown, by myself, not knowing how/what/when etc.

That’s probably why it took so long to write this blog entry, as I first had to sort through all this and become clear, why I want to do this and what the plan(s) are. Luckily, I’m a coach! So, walking my own talk, I asked myself all the questions that I would a client and became aware of unproductive beliefs as well as automatic emotional reactions that were no fun…and therefore ordered myself a couple of loads of “Emotional Laundry”. The detergent was microwave popcorn and the background music was the screeching roosters (they have taken over the island and maybe they’ll soon be given a holy status like the cows in India 🙂

Anyway, guess what – it worked.

The conviction that “this is now the right thing for me to do” remained, bizarrely strengthened by lots of breaching whales that I had the luck to watch 😉 and even after landing back in Vancouver.

What does it mean? It means that I want to work in the service of the performing arts world, its artists, entrepreneurs, project leaders, support staff, educators, sponsors – true to my motto: the art of making art is putting it together…

p.s. you find my drawings from that week in the Doodle Art section.