Using challenges as learning opportunities: Lessons from a visa

I’ve been reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle recently, which is a really simple yet powerful read. One (of the many) paragraphs that struck me last night was the following:

“If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: Remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.

Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something – in which case it is no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action?”

I’ve thought about this a lot lately in regards to my epic mistake of screwing up my visa. I really do only have three choices:

• Remove myself from the situation.
• Change the situation.
• Fully accept the situation in it’s totality.

When I realised I had accidentally overstayed my UK spousal visa, I did remove myself from the situation (and the UK, ha!) entirely, and I’ve done everything in my power to try and get this visa sorted and back on track in the quickest way possible, but other than everything I have already done, there really is nothing that I can do to change the situation at all — so the only thing left for me to do is accept the situation in it’s totality.

Accepting is probably the most challenging of all those options because it requires surrending or ‘not resisting’ things exactly as they are – which I think can often be confused with “giving up”. (And believe me, I’ve had a few moments of confused ‘giving up’).

For me accepting the situation is owning the situation without resistance to it. “Giving up” is allowing the situation to own you. There is a big difference, as I’m learning.

“If it is a mistake, at least you learn something – in which case it is no longer a mistake.“

So what have I learnt in all this visa saga, and how can this challenge be used as a growth and learning opportunity:

1. Everything will always be alright.
   There were some pretty stressful times in all of this chaotic panic, but even as I’m currently sitting here without a visa, with really no idea when I will see my husband again/get back to regular life – everything is alright. In the moment-to-moment NOW, everything is always ok.
2. Take ownership of your own life.
   This has been a massive learning for me. I don’t know what I was expecting in this whole visa debacle – whether I was anticipating a friendly email reminder notification from the British government “hey your visa is about to expire” (that would’ve been nice), or whether I was expecting Warren/my parents/someone else to do this all for me, but the crux of this all is that *I* didn’t take enough ownership of this. I wasn’t on top of it all. AND taking ownership of the mistake and the situation is part of my accepting and surrending and learning of it.
   Trust me, I will never let another visa expire ever in my whole life. (Side note: I’m seriously curious as to what happens when people get dates like 04/03/2018 mixed up with 03/04/2018 and also WHY isn’t there some automated trigger email response that sends you a notification of your visa 28 days before it’s going to expire. I mean, I think someone could code that in their sleep!?).
   But anyway, I take full ownership of the mistake I made in this situation – but I’m stepping INTO the ownership of it rather than allowing the ownership of it to sit heavy on top of me.

3. Make a decision and then don’t try ‘mentally’ remake the same decision over again.
   Oh man, there have been a LOT of decisions that I’ve had to make in the last while: going, staying, applying by post, in person, lawyers, classes, retreat, flights, dates, how to apply, options on applying. (As a side note: On the way back home I stopped at Dubai airport and literally walked around for about 20 minutes getting myself into a fluster because I couldn’t decide if I wanted a water, a coffee or a fresh juice. DECISION FATIGUE IS A REAL THING.)Anyway, one very tricky thing I’ve learned is to make a decision and then try not to “mentally remake the same decision” over and over. There have been a lot of “should have done this…. should have done that…. in the last few weeks.” In fact, my dad came into my room last night and said, “We should have gone for the option of retaining your passport for as long as possible”. This is exactly what ‘mentally remaking the decision you’ve already made’ looks like and it’s completely pointless. Warren and I are both notorious for doing this and I think many people are in fact – which makes decision making so difficult in the first place.
   Three questions to ask yourself when you’ve made a decision:

   If you make a decision and it turns out to be the ‘wrong’ one – what can you learn from it? Great! Now move forward.
   If you make a decision and it turns out to be the ‘wrong’ one – are you physically/actionably able to RE-make/RE-do the decision? Great – then re-make the decision and take action.
   If you make a decision and it turns out to be the wrong one and you are NOT actionably able to RE-make the decision, then do not MENTALLY re-make the decision. Because quite honestly you could be mentally re-making those decisions never-ending for the rest of your life (!!). This is definitely still a huge learning curve for me – but I’m getting there.

4. Financial independence is important
   This visa crisis has come with “quite” a financial hit (avalanche). And although everything has been totally alright (see point 1), it’s made me really re-evaluate my business and financial independence. I think this is probably what this entire visa crisis is here to teach me – taking (again) ownership of my business in a bigger, more expansive way. I’m not entirely sure what that exactly looks like just yet, but I feel like it really is at the crux of it all.
5. The butterfly effect, totally real – for better and for worse
   What has been very apparent to me in this while is the huge compounding butterfly effect that is playing out for us each and every single day – probably without many of us realising it. Quite simply the butterfly effect shows how one tiny action in one localised space can have a huge and very large ripple effect somewhere else.
   Example: Che accidentally overstayed her visa = one tiny localised action.
   This tiny action = Che leaving UK, (Warren affected) = no cover teacher for Tish who is 9 months pregnant (Tish affected/ Tish’s husband affected – I’m sure haha!, Yoga students affected) = Che in South Africa, no yoga classes in London (more yoga students affected, private clients and their parents affected) = Che’s passport held = Bali retreat affected (Anna affected/ Anna’s husband affected, Bali retreat guests across the globe affected, another yoga teacher affected) etc. All from the one ‘tiny’ localised action of me overstaying my visa.
   This has been really obvious and apparent to me in my specific situation right now – but it’s really made me think about how the Butterfly affect may be playing out ALL the time in our daily lives without us even realising it. Like, REALLY think about it:
   You randomly buy a stranger a cup of coffee as just a kind gesture  = one tiny localised action.
   Stranger affected. Stranger is in a good mood – compliments co-worker, co-worker affected. Co-worker emails wife to tell her about compliment he received – wife feels happy, wife affected. Wife in good mood takes extra paints and supplies to childs school, teacher affected. Teacher calls mother in Spain to share kind gesture, mother affected. Mother pays it forward to eldery group she nurses, nursing group affected. Nursing group feels loved and cared for they share with relatives – relatives of nursing group affected etc. From one tiny localised action. And actions begin often with thoughts – so pay attention.
6.  Support is ALL around you and it can come from unexpected places. 
   One thing that has really blown me over, in a really positive way is the massive amount of support/encouragement I have recieved from so many people via real life, whatsapp, instagram, facebook groups and this blog. It’s been so incredible to feel so wonderfully supported and loved in what has been a super stressful time. It’s made me think about people who don’t have this kind of ‘online’ support space like I do – and I’ve wanted to create something that allows people around the world to feel that even without a blog/social media following. More on this to follow!
7. Put things into perspective
   While I was home, one of my friends messaged to say she would be in the area to be with her sister – because her boyfriend had just been killed in a car accident. As news like this would – it hit me straight in the heart. And one hundred percent jolted things into perspective for me. Although my worry and stress and uncertainty is very real to me, it really is not the end of the world when you let yourself take in the broader perspective of things.
8. Cultivate self worth that is independent of pleasing others, money in the bank, what you do, where you live.
   I mentioned this in my previous post and it’s something that comes up again and again on our Kombucha and Colour podcast but it’s something that has come up again for me right now – because I’ve had all those things ‘taken away’ from me in a sense. How can I still feel deserving, worthy and enough without all these things. Work in progress.

Those are some of the things that have risen up for me in this little “growth opportunity” that I’ve been having lately – and I’m sure there will be many more things that come up as I sit and wait for my visa…

…. but let’s just say, I hope I don’t have too much more time to sit here and wait!

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve experienced? And what have you learned from them? I’d love to know! leave a comment below, or on my facebook page!

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