It struck me the other day as I was trying to get travelers checks cashed in Miyako that I am, for the first time in my life, rootless. When the woman assisting me asked for my address in the United States, I gave her the outdated address on my drivers license. I felt so...illegal.
As those of you who follow this blog regularly know, I was asked to move out of the place I was living in Albuquerque in early September. I was still looking for my next residence when I made the decision to extend the length of my impending trip to Japan from 10 days to indefinitely.
When I choose to end this particular part of my odyssey, I will likely return to Albuquerque, if only because that is where my remaining belongings and my car are. After that, who knows? In the meantime I'm staying in my son's apartment in MIyako, in what amounts to a halfway house on the way to nowhere in particular.
My email address and my post office box in Albuquerque are as close to a permanent home as I have at this point. Now when friends visit, they stop by my Facebook page. It's a very strange situation, this virtual life.
I've come to realize that a physical address is just as much part of our identity as any other description we attach to ourselves, like Wal-Mart sales associate or bon vivant. It attaches us to a specific spot on this planet that no one else can claim, at least until the lease runs out.
Like a steady job, it gives us a false sense of security in a chaotic world. This is my home, this is my castle, this is the place that I can rest my head on a familiar bed. But try fitting a futon into a post office box.
On the other hand, I'm not living in an abandoned car or a refugee camp in a third world country, so don't cry for me in Argentina, or wherever you may be reading this.
From a Phase 2 perspective, my geographic rootlessness is part of a larger process in my life, a sort of spiritual boot camp whereby everything I hold dear is stripped away and I get to see what I am made of.
In addition to no home, I have no girlfriend or wife to return to. I will, in fact, be leaving the person closest to me, my son, when I return to the states. I have no job to return to, and if I time it right, I won't have any money by the time I get home.
I do have good friends, my tribe, and the largest concentration of them is in New Mexico. But friends, too, can be a too comfortable way of defining yourself, and you can get too attached to that notion. All you have to do is spend a few hours on Facebook to see my point.
As a Phase 2 player I, of course, know that I already have all of the love, support, security, people and resources I need in spades. I've just hidden it so well, like that key to my bike lock, that I can't find it right now.
So for the time being, I'll do the Busting Loose process around the fact that I've chosen to give power to the idea of having a place to live, a person to come home to, my cool record collection, my bike, my bed, books, cooking utensils, a vehicle.
And I'm quite aware that buried deep in my storage unit is an issue about my beliefs in scarcity. If I don't hoard these things I already have, I'll never have anything. ergo, nothing to "identify" myself. I mean, what's a man without a flat screen TV?
Arnold Patent, Robert Scheinfeld's mentor, states it succinctly in number 15 of his universal principles -- non-attachment and freedom.
"Our perceived need to hold on to anything or anyone demonstrates our belief in shortage and personal incompleteness. Holding on to anything -- people or possessions -- blocks the flow of energy around our experience with the person or object and reduces the joy of experience. It also inhibits new people and new things from coming into our lives."
Again, I would suggest that holding on to ideas and beliefs and addresses does the same thing. It hinders us from experiencing the "Truth" as Robert likes to point out.
As for now, I'm left to wonder what's in store for me post-Japan.
I believe I will find the true meaning of abundance, for me, in Phase 2. But is it all the money necessary to express appreciation for anything I want to do or buy, or all the freedom to do anything I want? Or both? Or neither?
Will I be moved to manifest my financial abundance and buy a large house and fill it with treasures, mementos and stuff, or will I live like a nomad, unfettered by the simplest creature comforts, carrying everything I own on my back and living in a portable yurt?
In the meantime, as I'm figuring that one out, if you know anybody with an empty couch, be sure to shoot me an email.
As those of you who follow this blog regularly know, I was asked to move out of the place I was living in Albuquerque in early September. I was still looking for my next residence when I made the decision to extend the length of my impending trip to Japan from 10 days to indefinitely.
When I choose to end this particular part of my odyssey, I will likely return to Albuquerque, if only because that is where my remaining belongings and my car are. After that, who knows? In the meantime I'm staying in my son's apartment in MIyako, in what amounts to a halfway house on the way to nowhere in particular.
My email address and my post office box in Albuquerque are as close to a permanent home as I have at this point. Now when friends visit, they stop by my Facebook page. It's a very strange situation, this virtual life.
I've come to realize that a physical address is just as much part of our identity as any other description we attach to ourselves, like Wal-Mart sales associate or bon vivant. It attaches us to a specific spot on this planet that no one else can claim, at least until the lease runs out.
Like a steady job, it gives us a false sense of security in a chaotic world. This is my home, this is my castle, this is the place that I can rest my head on a familiar bed. But try fitting a futon into a post office box.
On the other hand, I'm not living in an abandoned car or a refugee camp in a third world country, so don't cry for me in Argentina, or wherever you may be reading this.
From a Phase 2 perspective, my geographic rootlessness is part of a larger process in my life, a sort of spiritual boot camp whereby everything I hold dear is stripped away and I get to see what I am made of.
In addition to no home, I have no girlfriend or wife to return to. I will, in fact, be leaving the person closest to me, my son, when I return to the states. I have no job to return to, and if I time it right, I won't have any money by the time I get home.
I do have good friends, my tribe, and the largest concentration of them is in New Mexico. But friends, too, can be a too comfortable way of defining yourself, and you can get too attached to that notion. All you have to do is spend a few hours on Facebook to see my point.
As a Phase 2 player I, of course, know that I already have all of the love, support, security, people and resources I need in spades. I've just hidden it so well, like that key to my bike lock, that I can't find it right now.
So for the time being, I'll do the Busting Loose process around the fact that I've chosen to give power to the idea of having a place to live, a person to come home to, my cool record collection, my bike, my bed, books, cooking utensils, a vehicle.
And I'm quite aware that buried deep in my storage unit is an issue about my beliefs in scarcity. If I don't hoard these things I already have, I'll never have anything. ergo, nothing to "identify" myself. I mean, what's a man without a flat screen TV?
Arnold Patent, Robert Scheinfeld's mentor, states it succinctly in number 15 of his universal principles -- non-attachment and freedom.
"Our perceived need to hold on to anything or anyone demonstrates our belief in shortage and personal incompleteness. Holding on to anything -- people or possessions -- blocks the flow of energy around our experience with the person or object and reduces the joy of experience. It also inhibits new people and new things from coming into our lives."
Again, I would suggest that holding on to ideas and beliefs and addresses does the same thing. It hinders us from experiencing the "Truth" as Robert likes to point out.
As for now, I'm left to wonder what's in store for me post-Japan.
I believe I will find the true meaning of abundance, for me, in Phase 2. But is it all the money necessary to express appreciation for anything I want to do or buy, or all the freedom to do anything I want? Or both? Or neither?
Will I be moved to manifest my financial abundance and buy a large house and fill it with treasures, mementos and stuff, or will I live like a nomad, unfettered by the simplest creature comforts, carrying everything I own on my back and living in a portable yurt?
In the meantime, as I'm figuring that one out, if you know anybody with an empty couch, be sure to shoot me an email.
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