What I Learned On My Summer Holiday���

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So I'm back��� ("���from outer space, just walked to find you here with that sad look upon your face���") eh, you know it.

So��� I knew when I headed out that this trip would be important to me, but I had no idea how important. That the highs and lows would be quite so high and quite so low, that I would hit so many walls ��� physical, mental, spiritual, learn so much and come back knowing so much more than I did when I left.

I kind of thought when I left that the hardest part of the trip would be Mexico, then Convention, (which I've been to twice before) would be more "normal" then I'd have another week to recover, visit Zumba Home Office and chill out in Miami, which I loved but saw only briefly last year.

Yeah. It didn't quite work out quite like that.

Mexico was incredible, I loved it and my first night there I totally relaxed lying in a rooftop pool under the blue moon and realized all the stress I had been carrying around with me was nothing. Man, I couldn't believe how great and easy it was, how I seemed to understand the universe and how everything was really perfect, my life was perfect, I just needed to stop stressing about everything and let go.

Then I went to the jungle where I proceeded to freak out about insects, struggle with the heat and realized that if my life was so perfect why had I given other people such a hard time, why had I not been more compassionate about their fears, which are probably more "real" than my fears about spiders? Shame spiral.

And so it went.

Have you ever had the experience of education where you get to a certain level in say, Maths or Biology, and then you start the next level of learning and the first day they say "You know everything you've learnt so far? Throw it out, now we're going to teach it to you again properly." Or when you go to live in a foreign country and everyone laughs at your vocabulary and accent because that's just what you learn from a textbook and no one actually talks like that?

That's how I felt a lot of the time, that, as much as I was learning, I was "unlearning" even more.

My trip kicked my arse.

In hindsight Mexico was the easiest part, because as the journey progressed I was letting go more and more of what I thought I knew, who I thought I was, and each day I became more uncertain, more vulnerable, more open, more fragile as I let in thoughts and feelings I had struggled to deny.

In Mexico I reread "The Four Agreements" (everyone I met seemed to recommend it and it was the book on my iPhone weirdly enough) and felt I understood it for the first time. I read "The Mastery of Love" by the same author and felt that I understood every mistake I'd ever made in my relationships.

I reached out.

Then I discovered a book called "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Bren�� Brown which I read right before Zumba Convention. It talks about being vulnerable and man, was I vulnerable.

It was such a different experience for me, not worrying about being good enough or showing off, just experiencing Convention really listening to what the trainers had to say and my friend ZINs, who were all facing their own challenges, personal and professional. I discovered that "Master The Business of Fun" wasn't just about business cards but about recognizing that when we play, when we embrace the music and the dance, magic happens and sometimes that magic tears away our armour and defences just as much as it can empower us when we feel that life sucks. (The beginning of "The Bionic Man" kept going round in my head as I felt I was being taken apart, "but we can rebuild you.")

But the hard part of my trip was just starting. Without a Convention, a new country, a packed schedule or anything else to distract me it was just space��� just me and me on the beach and we finally got to the stuff that was waiting for me in the silence. Some tough stuff.

A couple of days later and I finally felt I was ready, my head and heart cleared out to go on down to Miami and have some fun.

I was not ready.

Last year I met a guy in Florida, we started dating. We struggled with the distance and a million other aspects of life that get in the way. We'd been struggling pretty hard for a few months. I tried to manage my expectations, give up on it all, label it, plan my trip so that I would be happy and not reliant on him. I tried it all. When I got to Mexico everything changed and I opened up my heart again and got vulnerable. (In the second step and second book of Bren�� Brown's process comes "daring greatly". I guess you could say I did that too.)

There were moments when I felt that a miracle was possible for us.

Then life crashed back down. And I did too.

The next few days were pretty hard.

The first book I saw in Miami Airport on my way home was the new book by Bren�� Brown ��� "Rising Strong". It's a book about what happens when we fall or fail (however you choose to see it), and what it takes to get back up.

It could have been written for how I was feeling at that moment and it helped me to feel so much better. It's full of stories of people admitting when and why they failed and how they turned it around, so that's what I've been reading and working on and I wanted to share some of it with you.

There's a wonderful section on heartbreak and defining it, as opposed to disappointment, grief or failure by Joe Reynolds. "Heartbreak comes from the loss of love or the perceived loss of love." He goes on to say that even when we have no real expectation or hope, we can still have our hearts broken. Unrequited love can still break us. "To love is to know the loss of love. Heartbreak is unavoidable unless we choose not to love at all."

It helps me to know that this was unavoidable, as much as I struggled to manage my expectations or plan amazing stuff or just have excellent massages, I was always going to have to face the music.

It would be so easy to skim over it but I've been honest with you guys about so many things, and honoured by your responses that I want to tell you this.

At my lowest point I felt completely worthless. I lay on my bed counting the number of people who care about me, the people on my trip who said they thought I was amazing or cool or lovely. The great ZINs and ZESs I had met. But it hurt like hell that the one person I thought I was closest to chose not to be with me���

���and then I went to Beto's class. Every song picked me up and dusted me off a little more. By the time we got to "Footloose" I was dancing three inches off the floor. Then the salsa, oh my. (What was the name of that guy again that I thought I was into?)

���and then I went to a spectacular 5 star hotel where everyone was incredibly friendly and kind, and��� when I got out on a paddle-board the moment I arrived, dolphins swam right next to me. And that's when I figured I must be okay if dolphins want to come and hang out with me!

The highs may fade and the bad feelings come back, but I know that they will pass, that I will go to or teach a Zumba class that reminds me I am as wonderful, special and perfect as every other human being on the planet. I know I can pick myself up and go have a wonderful massage or go on another escape and those dark feelings will fade. I will remember the reality that it just didn't work out; we had a lot of challenges and it's not easy even without those kind of challenges, and most of all that those dark ideas that I am worthless or unlovable are just plain crap.

When I went on my trip I knew that the experiences would inform what I do next, especially with Pearl Escapes. I realised a few months ago that the purpose of any escape I go on or organise (including Zumba) is simple ��� to help us feel alive. In "The Mastery Of Love" the author puts it simply; "we are life" passing through our bodies. And we need to feel alive, to feel all of our emotions in order to be healthy. We can't live in anger for long, we can't live in fear, we can't even live in happiness all the time. And as human beings who have the audacity to fall in love, whether it���s with dreams, animals, friends, family or lovers, we inevitably have to experience heartbreak and grief. Escapes allow us to survive heartbreak by picking us up from rock bottom, but they also allow us to take time out from our work, our schedules in order to have the time and space to feel crappy too.

To mourn for those we have lost, no matter how we lost them, who they were to us or how long we had them; to understand that no matter how brave or strong we are that each heartbreak is unique and it's natural that a part of us will always long for the love we once had. It's okay. I still miss my dog and she died twenty years ago, but she was an exceptional dog.

If we don't take the time to feel our emotions, we can't deal with them or heal them.

We have to accept that we are yin and yang, masculine and feminine, dark and light, peace and chaos, pain and joy and embrace all of it in order to be whole and healed.

The author of the book Bren�� Brown originally started as a researcher into shame ��� what she calls the master emotion ��� because as she describes it, it���s shame that stops us from allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to be open, to dare greatly and to get up when we fail.

It's when we are too ashamed, or afraid of shame to allow ourselves to change, to break, to laugh, to cry, to dance, to grieve, to make mistakes, to look foolish or silly or clumsy that we stop, stay in one place and stagnate and that's what keeps us from growing and doing better. It's what keeps us from admitting our truth, our humanness, our sweaty, messy imperfection.

This is kind of a messy blog, because words just can't express everything I've learned and want to share with you. I realise that too. That my guides and writing are really just 7% of how I could even communicate this to you if we were face to face. Writing sucks. But the way I really want to share it with you is not just face to face, but on an escape, on a journey that takes you out of your comfort zone, that allows you to feel whatever it is you need to feel to move forward in your own personal growth.

Because to be honest I can't really tell you what I learned on my summer holiday. I can only show you.

Much love, Pearl x