I haven’t felt like making a video for the last three weeks, until I realized that this was a quiet time for me and I kind of assumed that quiet times may not translate into good videos for the audience. However, some of you might relate to this.

It was about a month ago that I had the accident, and I think I tore my hamstring.

I didn’t know how bad it was or how long it would take to heal, and it turned out it’s taking a while! Every day is better but I still have a limp.

This is the second time in six months that I’ve had what’s, to me, a serious accident. After my whole life never having a broken bone or serious injury of any kind. It makes you wonder…why?

Sure, I’m getting older and my two huge dogs are always under feet and tripping me up, but this second fall had me wondering if I was missing something.

I’m not a very religious person in the conventional sense, but I found myself asking why, and kind of looking for signs around me, like a shaman might.

When I decided to sell my house in Oregon (which was a big decision) the next day I found two fallen birds’ nests.  A sign?

Not long after I found a small snake skin. Do these things you find in nature mean anything? Some people think so.

So I was hobbling along with the dogs out in the garden, leaning on my cane, moving slow. Every ten feet or so I’d pause and stand up straight and rest my leg for a few seconds.  It was then that I looked up at the feathery greenness of the trees above me, 

I looked up and I felt like I truly saw them for the first time in ages. In all their beauty and aliveness.

Later, inside, a song came on I’d heard a dozen times before—but this time I heard it. I closed my eyes, swayed to the music, and it moved through me like something sacred.

I’d been caught in weeks of paperwork, taxes, car registration, immigration forms, selling my house—my mind overloaded with lists, calculations, and deadlines.

Maybe the injury was a reminder. To slow down. To return to presence. To remember what’s real.

When I left the U.S., I wasn’t just moving to another country—I was trying to find a way to breathe again.

My life had gotten so small. I was burnt out, exhausted, and quietly afraid that nothing was ever going to change unless I made it.

Mexico, for me, was possibility. Warmth. Simplicity. Something radically different.

And it was all of those things.

But here’s what I didn’t realize back then: when you cross a border, your luggage isn’t the only thing you bring with you.

You bring your habits. Your inner monologue. Your emotional patterns.

I brought decades of tension from working in a high-pressure system where it always felt like someone was waiting to jump down your throat. That hyper-alertness—always bracing for something—it came with me.

But something started to shift here. In Mexico, the pace is different. The expectations are different. People smile more. There’s patience, even humor, in the way life unfolds.

Little by little, I noticed that edge softening in me. I was still me—but something in me began to exhale.”

People talk about moving abroad like it’s a reset button. And in some ways, it is. You get distance. You get perspective. You get to reinvent your routines, your surroundings, your pace.

But, wherever you go, there you are.

The same old insecurities still whisper. The same old thought loops still run in the background. You still get lonely. You still second-guess yourself.

You can be surrounded by beauty and still feel lost.
You can be eating tacos on a sunny plaza and still carry the weight of your past.

Because moving to a new country isn’t about escaping your life—it’s about choosing to rebuild it. Day by day. Breath by breath.

Lately, I’ve been remembering to actually see my life here.
Not just look at it, label it, move on—but really see.

The plaza, the breeze in the trees, the music in the distance…
If I pause the mental chatter—the endless naming, comparing, planning—I can feel something deeper.

Psychologists talk about how the two sides of our brain perceive the world differently. One side focuses and grasps. It wants to define and dissect. The other side just experiences—it sees the whole picture, without needing to turn everything into a concept.

When I let myself drop into that quieter kind of awareness, life becomes magical again. Not because anything outside me has changed—but because I’ve finally arrived in the moment I’m living.

And that’s something I wish I’d learned earlier. That presence—true presence—is the real treasure.

Not escaping the old life, not finding the perfect place, not even building a new one. But learning to live the one I have, right now.

If you’ve ever had one of those moments—standing by the ocean, watching a sunset, listening to a song that moves you—don’t dismiss it. That’s not just some fleeting feeling. That’s the real thing.

And if you’ve forgotten how to tap into that kind of stillness, you’re not alone. I’m relearning it too.

Remember to look and really see, to hear and really listen. Otherwise another 10 years could go by without truly being aware of this magical life in and around me. And I have wasted so many years already.

The left hemisphere of the brain is the part that’s more focused, grasping, trying to analyze, and it makes thoughts into representations of actual life. It also only believes IT is real.

Whereas the right side of the brain sees the whole picture, can experience the world without grasping, and can see what’s really there instead of the mental chatter about what’s there.  It doesn’t seem to need to make everything it sees into a mental concept, and can just observe without the veil of thought.  What I call the middle man.

I was remembering to do just that. To see and hear and experience without the veil of thought in the way.

The thinking mind likes to take over and create a mental concept of the tree, the lake. And when you experience life through that lens you think, yes, there are three trees there and they are some kind of pine. And the lake is nice as usual. But if you can put that aside and experience the trees and the lake and the music without that veil of thought, that mental chatter lens, then you really see it and you can feel its presence. And there’s a subtle joy and profound beauty to become aware of. And it’s so fulfilling for human consciousness!

And the air is moving, I can feel it on my skin and it’s moving the trees. What is that? How miraculous it is that invisible air is moving and feels so lovely to my senses!

It may sound childish to some, and it is child-like. But if you’ve ever had moments like that, listening to some beautiful piece of music, looking at the sunset or the vast ocean, don’t discount those experiences! Like the left brain tends to do.  That’s not just something you felt once, that’s THE thing.

As Ian McGilchrist, a British psychologist who has studied the brain extensively says: The two sides of the brain evolved so that the creature that has that brain can pay attention in two very different ways. The left can be highly focused, able to see what it needs, and its aim is to get it, to grasp it.

The right side has a broader beam of attention, and can sustain a whole picture perception.

Left sees things as fixed and represented by words. The right sees things more fluidly and changeable. 

The way you pay attention changes what you find! And he says the world seems to be in the grip of mostly the left brain these days, and that’s not good.

He wrote the book The Master and His Emissary and it’s fascinating.

In the words of Eckhart Tolle “To become aware of such things, the mind needs to be still. You have to put down for a moment your personal baggage of problems, of past and future, as well as all your knowledge; otherwise you see but not see, hear but not hear. Your total presence is required.”

“Presence is needed to become aware of the beauty, the majesty, the sacredness of nature”

We all use our brains constantly and verbalizing, analysing, communicating, getting what we need, takes up a lot of our lives. Balance is necessary!  I get unhappy when I only use my verbal, logical brain. And this has been a reminder, and a happy one, to experience life in this way and see the value in that.  Because it’s huge. If you’ve ever experienced moments like I’m describing I hope you will value them too.

I’m not trying to chase constant joy or perfect peace. I’m just trying to live with a little more presence. To be awake inside my own life.

And that… that has changed everything.

If you’re dreaming about a new life in Mexico, go for it.

But don’t expect it to fix everything.

Bring your courage. Bring your curiosity. And most of all—bring your willingness to grow.

Because no place can hand you a new life. That’s yours to create.

Mexico has been good to me. Not perfect, not easy—but generous.

And what I’ve discovered, slowly, is that the most profound gift isn’t the location, or the freedom, or even the change.

It’s the chance to wake up to your life.

To really see it.
To hear it.
To feel the breeze on your skin and know you’re here—alive, and witnessing it all.

You don’t have to move to another country to feel this. But if you do…
come ready to meet yourself.

I’d love to know—have you ever had a moment like this? A sudden awareness, a sense of wonder, a drop into presence?

If so, feel free to share it in the comments. I think we could all use more reminders of what’s real.

Thanks for being here with me.