Each year I stop in Hong Kong on the way back from my yoga vacation tours. I stay on Lamma island with my friend Johnny, a world away from the hustle and bustle of Kowloon and Hong Kong island. It's just a 30 minute ferry ride to get here, but feels like you are moving 30 years back in time. There are no roads here on Lamma, just wide paths, big enough for motorcycles and pushbikes, but really meant for walkers.
The view on arrival is of green-covered hills and a port area lined with brightly-lit Chinese sea-food restaurants, each with large tanks of water crawling with live lobsters, crab, squid and fish,. The Chinese like their food fresh. Tables are round and set family-style, with a turn-table in the middle for dishes that are meant to be shared.
The raucous sound of chattering Cantonese-speaking locals fills my ears as I walk past the restaurants. I have another dining destination in mind - the English pub!
The wonderful thing about Hong Kong is that because of the many of ex-pat Brits and lingering British influence, there are also a number of wonderful British pubs where I can indulge my longing for good British cuisine - and drink!
I head to "The Waterfront" and promptly order myself a pint of cider and a roast lamb dinner. Aahhhh! Heaven! They even have mint sauce to go with the lamb! ( It's a British thing...). It's excellent fuel for the walk up to Johnny's house.
Now Johnny's house is not so far away, only 10 minutes from the port, but it requires climbing a very steep hill - a 1 in 5. And today I have a suitcase and bag to lug behind me. When dinner is over, I walk past the tourist shops selling Indonesian batiks and scarves from China, past the tea and cake shop, resisting the temptation to stop by and eat yet more, turn right at the bank and walk through the farm area up the hill to Tai Peng village.
Johnny lives opposite the public toilets in Tai Peng village. And I mention them because they are actually about the nicest public toilets I have ever seen. Offering a choice of oriental squatter loo or western-style sit-down toilet, they are spotlessly clean and with a convenient roll of toilet paper affixed to the wall as you walk in. Although I can avail myself of Johnny's very excellent house facilities while I am here, I am nonetheless impressed with Chinese cleanliness and efficiency.
But I digress....
I came here to teach a tantra workshop at a local healing center. I offfer one every year and at the end, there is a line of young women wanting to book me for private sessions. What they really want is simply someone older to talk to, someone with some life experience who can make sense of what they are going through, who can offer some candid advice about sexuality, relationships, spiritual development; in short, someone with perspective.
And I have noticed that I must now have that, as it is easy for me to guide them, advise them, give them tools and exercises to develop them and it all seems to work quite nicely.
In my 30s, I recall how relationships were the be all and end all of my existence. There is, of course, a biological reason for that. We are programmed to repopulate our species, so as a woman, there is a sense of urgency to find a mate and conceive as soon as possible. If that doesn't happen, we get anxious. I remember thinking that if I did not find a man by 40 I would be washed up, on the shelf, over the hill with sell-by date well expired.
When you are in that space, it's hard to hear that there is plenty of time for men... that the right one will show up bang on time and in the meantime, we work on ourselves, we find joy in all aspects of our lives and allow well-being to settle in.
No.
In our 30s, we women panic. We often settle for someone not quite suited to us. Maybe we have babies with them, maybe we grow a business with them, as I did, and then, as the misery of incompatibility sets in, we reach out for a mentor, an older woman who can guide us through the minefield of this potentially tricky time of our lives.
I wish I had had a wise auntie or female teacher when I was going through the traumas of my 30s. Of course, I did find Hal. But he was not a woman. He could not share the perspective that an older woman has. How I would have loved to have had a cup of tea and a cozy chat with some open-minded, experienced auntie who had lived her life fully and could offer me the wealth of her life's rich tapestry. Where were my tribal elders when I needed them?
And now it occurs to me that I am it. I am the go-to older woman for these younger ones. I have not really wanted to think of myself in this way, but here in Hong Kong at least, it is undeniable that that is a role I can play and play well.
The young girls come to me and talk to me about their marital problems, their sex lives or lack of it, their men. Or lack of them. I use my skills as a hypnoptherapist to clear blocks that are hampering them and my yogic training to offer tools that will keep them clear and expanded. They leave feeling supported, loved and hopeful. And maybe most important, they leave their shame behind. They dump it in the garbage can as they walk out the door.
I find that shame is the biggest obstacle to their well-being, especially in the Chinese and Indian cultures, but we western girls have our fair share too.
Shame of the failed marriage, shame around their bodies, shame around sex, shame around not living up to parents' expectations. The list goes on. And my job is to reduce their "shoulds to goods."
They think, "things should look different." I say, no, it's OK just as it is and that is good.
I watch the tension in their knotted foreheads soften and release as they wrap their heads around this new concept of OKness. This does not mean they are not going to need to make changes and act appropriately. No. But when we get it that everything has a purpose, we can accept our situation in the moment, let of of our resistances and make our next move with clarity.
Hal used to say that we are all perfectly poised to learn our lessons, there are no mistakes and there is no such thing as a coincidence. There is the hand of the Divine in all of our lives, guiding us, leading us often into challenging situations in order that we may learn what we do not want, as this is the dimension of contrasts. It's actually useful to experience what we don't want, as then we see more clearly what we do want. It's just that its hard to see that perspective when we are in the thick of our life dramas.
Maybe that's why I like being 50. I feel like my dramas have eased off. Everything is smoother, calmer, more peaceful. It's a time for enjoying, savoring life, rather than stressing and building.
I am going to relax into that today, watching the butterflies dance here on Lamma island.
