The Friday unwind 004: When there is nothing to become

Location: Belize. The myth of becoming, journal prompts, affirmations and travel diary daydreams.

Fridays are for unwinding. Inward journeys, outward wanderings, departing flights to nowhere but good memories, are all welcome here. Take all the space you need. In this series, unwind and unravel with me into a daydream, into a place that feels like a Friday spent elsewhere.

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More of us should redefine and reassign the words we most use as we move through life. We should take a word to mean what we’d like it to mean; busy ourselves creating a personal dictionary that our inner selves immediately recognise, melt to. I think the same thing about renaming ourselves. Even if just a nickname, we should officially invite ourselves into ourselves and remove the guest-like treatment. Come and be at home in yourself — I think that is how it would feel, and we’d take our shoes off, of course, and slightly spill tea as we sit comfortably inside and laugh our real laughs with our true selves.

Belize, June 2023.

Most of my time in Belize was spent doing such, spilling tea over my hands in escalating laughter and marvelling at what I have always meant when I use my language. My list of redefined words was humble but what was needed, now and then. And since I spent a lot of time alone during those balmy, sea-scented 3 months, the definitions became law. Since leaving to be in cities with people, some of whom already have a preconceived idea of who I am and how I speak, the subtle challenge has been to remain stubbornly in these new definitions. Stubbornly because they have already been ordained by me, embedded into my vocabulary for several months now, reconfigured without outside query. 

Without a doubt, my growing practice of writing and repeating my own affirmations influenced my agency in redefining the language of my existence. For example, ‘perfect’ was a word that I took to mean something other than what I knew it to mean in English. Everything is perfect, meaning everything is exactly as it should be. Meaning I can relieve myself of the excess expectation. I may smile at it, reserve my energy for what needs me, make a meal, eat it in peace. 

I believe it was in my yoga circle that I was introduced to the idea — the mantra — that there is nothing to become. To me, it means be no thing. Be free. It reminds me of arriving 20 minutes early (a rarity), and so, feeling idleness coat the mind. It is a halting declaration, gently so, because where are you going? You’re already here. 

I can’t ignore the role of Belize in this. In my last letter, I shared that Belize was a teacher, one with a Caribbean sense of humour. Three months of living on island time did something to my becoming. I consider it a return to what is my spirit’s preferred pace of living. Island time: a unit of time that you can carry with you anywhere; where you are unhurried because you trust your ability to be exactly where you’re supposed to be. I stroll, I savour, I live like all of Earth is an island. I must slow down to avoid enjoying it (life, land) all at once.

In Belize, I named the newsletter. Life Is In Love With Me, meaning, of course, whatever it is that you declare it to mean each new day and with each encounter. In subtle ways, the timelines faltered since there was no time between where I was and what I imagined for myself.

Between my affirmations and the words that I renamed, I witnessed this plentifully. As an example, in many countries I watched from the shore while everyone enjoyed ocean swims and the freedom of the tides without needing the ocean bed’s firm reassurance. Almost 2 months to the day after arriving on the island and keeping a safe proximity to it while wading in the sea, I redefined my freedom. I rose early, biked barefoot to the bay, walked out from the shore, and swam in the ocean for the first time in my life. To do this, I first had to rent a bike despite not having confidently ridden one alone. I let myself get accustomed to the roads, the potholes, the wobbly starts, and then later, the glorious glide to the beach, then the ocean, every morning. It was perfect. 

I then took my first in-person yoga class, soothed by bug spray and an amethyst at the foot of my mat. I loved yoga, but in Belize, it became a lifestyle. I cycled to the open-air, jungle-adjacent studio on Wednesday mornings and got into my flow for an hour, watching the teeming nature around us shiver in the sea breeze, the iguanas, poised and waiting to journey to the next coconut tree refuge. I extended my exhale while the rain tapped against the tent roof. I would never had imagined, but then I didn’t need to. I just had to show up where I never had for it to always be.

It doesn’t happen daily, but every so often I feel some resistance in telling these stories. The small ones, the ones that seem inevitable. It is quite hard to explain in the language available that the inevitable is manifested. I feel the threat of being misunderstood, which is when I remind myself of the other language I invented. I must switch, translate what I know. I mean that stubbornly committing to your language helps. Say, I have everything, and mean I have enough. It will be richly yours, the everything you already possess. The word leaves your tongue as wealth and you mean fullness, belonging, future. It is your language so you don’t have to become a writer, you may simply be a writer, for instance. There is nothing to become when becoming is a quiet synonym for receiving the present moment.  

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Journal prompts

What do you say to yourself to free the dreamed realities sitting in your throat? your heart? your mind?

Make a list of words that are meaningful to you. What do you want to say when you use them? What are their true meanings to you?

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Affirmations

There is nothing to become

I lack no thing

I am delighted to be here, where everything already is

Life is in love with me

Thank you, so much, for being here.

Amara Amaryah