BECOMING YOURSELF AGAIN
Nicole + Robin, Canada
Have you ever finished a conversation with someone and felt so much more energized afterwards? That was my experience with Robin and Nicole.
Danielle: What’s your story?
Robin: I immigrated to Canada, learning English starting from the bottom working myself up, and was always more street smart.
“You mentioned you’re 35, for me, it wasn’t until I was 45 that I realized none of that is really who I am. I never believed in myself once, in my life, ever. I never believed I’m good enough. I never believed I’m lovable. I never believed I could do anything until a couple years ago and I’m still working on it.”
Now I’m getting back to who I really am. I want to work with men and allow them to see what I’ve seen, and show them there is more to life than what we have, especially in the western world. For quite some time, I saw my kids waking up for 5 minutes and going to bed for 5 minutes and in between I was at work. According to western families, I had a beautiful life. It’s not that you have to struggle and suffer and deprive yourself of anything. You’re going to get so much more with a lot less but you can still have. We are living here in Bali and are having an amazing life.
Danielle: Was there a moment where you thought, ok, I can’t do this anymore. Let’s create a game plan.
Nicole: My whole life I didn’t feel like I fit in. Whether it was school, getting into the workforce, or raising my children in an environment I felt wasn’t conducive to their spirit. Everything felt wrong.
“Even though we had a beautiful house with a beach view and a Range Rover in the garage, I thought, I don’t want to be here. I’m not here to pay my bills, do something I don’t want to do and then die someday.“
One day I said to Robin, what about selling everything and leaving this place? How can we make this happen and let everything we own go and start traveling, see where it takes us?
Robin: Six months later we were on an airplane. We sold our house, our cars, our clothes. We sold our furniture - and we had a 5,000 square foot house.
Nicole – Everyone said, are you insane?
Robin:
“After fifteen years of living in Vancouver, getting married, raising two children and having our lives, we left and said goodbye. For the first time in my life in probably 40 years I actually feel like I have friends and I belong.”
Danielle: What was it like doing this with your children?
Nicole: Our son who was 7 at the time, struggled massively in school. We put them in an amazing school with the best reviews and he was assaulted by this teacher on a daily basis, we knew there was something going on but he wouldn’t tell us because he was afraid. We moved into the Waldorf school system thinking maybe that’d be a better fit and he was emotionally and mentally bullied by his peers, so when we started traveling he said,“ I’ll never go to school again.” We found out later that all these things happened. We started therapy with him. Here he has found a school that is safe, beautiful and he loves it. We’ve seen a big change in him on so many levels.
“It’s interesting to think where we need to be, where society tells us we need to be in order to be someone, to fit in, to succeed in life, but it leaves us completely empty.’’
Nicole: It was not easy having a six and nine year old, they’re very different but yet the same. We used a lot of life as school. When we were in New Zealand – we learned about the Maori, traditions and history. We would do a ton of nature stuff, learn a lot about the plants and native species, animals. We had days where we did a lot and then we’d have three days where we did nothing – looking at waterfalls or hiking up a mountain. I think we were more into unschooling then schooling. Bali called us back and our children said it was the right energy for us to be in. It’s been an interesting journey. This place is an anchor for creativity, self-exploration and evolution – it’s a good place to have a meaningful life.
Danielle: What are your plans for work? Sustainability?
Nicole: My work is to empower children. Creating children’s workshops and empowerment workshops with yoga and circles, a lot of the things you see for adults.
Danielle: And the two of you are trying to build a school, is that right?
Nicole: Yes that’s a long term goal. To bring back old western and indigenous teachings, but in a bit of a different way so it’s accessible to everyone and teaches basic things we need to know, like how do we grow our own vegetables? How are we good human beings? Without judgement? Bias?