Magic | AKANKSHA REDHU

April 2, 2023

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I didn’t realise when I set out the intention of receiving life changing experiences which would be perfectly aligned for me, that I’d ACTUALLY be getting bombed by them faster than I could blink my eyes. The most gorgeous shit just kept on coming and lining up perfectly – like a game of Tetris that you FINALLY manage to finish.
My journey of healing didn’t have the prettiest start (as most healing journeys go I suppose). Infact it started with me having to row against the flow I was taught and conditioned to believe was the only flow for me based on nothing more than a faint gut feeling. All on me, because I never once sat down with my self and questioned it. I was letting life do me instead of building a version of life that was best suited for me.
It led to a beautiful rock bottom, a year of dragging whatever sense of self I had out of that pit with the support of a few close folks I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have in my life and my own sheer will to get out of bed every morning – that’s atleast one good thing that came out of being that person that ‘goes with the flow’ – you learn to compartmentalize and manage your shit so that you can continue to function on a basic level. Survive, not thrive.
Relief didn’t come anytime soon. I had more self sabotage on my mind because I had never truly learnt or had practice in how to be kind to myself and figured I needed to punish myself for choosing me in the course of which I had to let some people down. It seemed it still was not the right time for me to start gathering my fragments and begin the process of integration. I wanted to throw them all up in the air to see what landed where. It wasn’t pretty.
But somewhere along the way, something did crack open. And it allowed my intuition to gain a stronger voice – loud enough that I could, for the first time in a very long time, actually hear her speak properly. As if miraculously, things that weren’t meant for me started dropping out of my life even though I didn’t yet have the courage to eliminate them myself. Life kicked me hard on my ass and finally opened my eyes to the art of ‘editing’ my life. Turns out, you CAN just not entertain whatever it is you think does not serve you in your life. Just drop it, like a fly.
My people-pleasing ass practiced it, with much feelings of horror and dread that I’d be cursed forever if I caused another person to dislike me (all in my own mind, running like a movie). Nothing happened. I didn’t die. Mama Earth kept moving, the sun rose and then so did the moon. Additionally, I also gained something new from this practice, something that I had not experienced in a very long time – mental space.
The more I edited and let go of, the more space I created. Think of it as my cup – full – but of shit that wasn’t serving any purpose. So now, my cup was finally being emptied – blank space.
By this point I had started taking better care of myself – consciously – continuously asking my self, everyday – is this aligned for me? Would my highest version take this decision? Do I really need this in my life? Does this habit, place, person, project enhance my being in any goddamn way? No? Put it in the fuckitbucket. Yes? Invite it further into my life. I had started looking into healing modalities. Building a routine that was based on my needs with an almost feral love towards my personal development. For the first time, yet again, in a very long time, I started investing in myself again.
This invited more magic in my life – My healing journey really put the pedal to the metal at this junction – I discovered my calling, something that has truly taught me what having passion towards something feels like – an almost familiar feeling – the magic you used to play with when you were a child but slowly forgot on the way. I discovered breathwork – which not only healed some early traumas that ran deep and overlooked for over three decades, but also showed me just how simple, profound and abundant growth can feel like and how rewarding spreading this vibration of healing can feel. I ofcourse, straight up dove into the practice of conscious breathing, signed up to train to be a facilitator, immersed myself into whatever knowledge I could find about breathwork, the mind-body connection, trauma, emotions & energy, worked with mentors and connected with my breath daily since. In many ways it feels like just the beginning because I know I have far to go but at the same time it feels like I have already come SUCH a long way.
After this it was like a rolling stone – only this was was rolling uphill, towards higher, better vibrations, jumping hills too and collecting just pure fucking magic on the way.
I also kept getting more and more used to the practice of editing my life. I was changing, evolving, growing and I was and am in no mood to stop till the day it’s time for my breath to leave me.
Here’s the thing about getting better – it keeps stacking up, getting better and better, each step being just the beginning. It’s what you allow to be stacked up. That is the secret I feel.
You learn to look at the shitty stacks as lessons and simply let them fall off after integrating with the lesson at hand.
When you consciously take steps everyday to move closer to what feels aligned in your body and saying no to the things that don’t, it feels just like walking and the path simply appearing in front of you as if by magic.
More magical things, experiences, places, people started stacking up in my human experience, my connection with my intuition started getting stronger, I had space in my life and mind – to just breathe – no clutter.
I released so much that it could now be my middle name.
I kept going back to my breath and consulting my body instead of my mind and received wisdom I didn’t even know I had within me. I learnt magic. I realised I live in sheer abundance every day.
And as a closing to this vague share (since I didn’t want to dole out personal details but still keep it as close to my heart as I could) I wanted to share my most recent experience that came my way.
In October last year, just a month after having my mind, body and soul blown out of the concept of this 3D existence by the simple work of breath, in a moment of fearless and inspired action, I booked myself a trip to The Shaka Surf Club, to learn how to surf – as a birthday gift to myself in March this year.
I had always been very fascinated by surfing, wondered if I could pick it up and figured I’d have the sea and the sand still even if surfing was not meant for me.
5 months after booking I showed up, lived in a tent for 6 days between the backwaters on one side, the sea on the other and a handful of people I really fucking liked in the middle.
It was – no prizes for guessing here – magic.
Not only did I literally receive the permission to open my eyes and recognise the fact that my cup has been, what seems like for the first time in my life, full for a while now (I was just resisting admitting it to myself), and this time brimming and overflowing with things consciously curated by me, for myself, all serving me. Which meant that I could now start pouring from it – something that I have always enjoyed doing – just that when you’re pouring from an empty cup or a cup full of trash, you feel depleted and start feeling like shit yourself more often than not.
And just like magic, the very next day after I had this download, a few of the folks I was enjoying sharing space with (with breaks of alone time no doubt coz that shit fuels me at this point) asked me if I would do a breathwork workshop for them. For a flash second – nerves – but when you know, in the deepest of your layers that you are meant to do something, nerves also melt away as quick as they appear. I heard this somewhere and it stuck with me – fear is excitement without the breath. All you have to remember to do is breathe. And that is what I did. I breathed, I reminded myself this was not about me, this was about the breath, being introduced to humans in the exact moment it was meant to be discovered by them, for them.
We breathed under the stars and palms swaying in the wind that reminded you spirit is everywhere, laying on the grass – our energies coming together in the midst of nature, sea, salt and sand, creating a container that will forever be special to me. We connected with our breaths and human experiences and came out on the other side feeling just a little bit lighter and in light.
This is it. This is me. Pouring. Because now I know how to keep my cup overflowing.
Thriving, not surviving.
Oh and I did manage to stand and surf a few waves but I busted my knee and stepped on a sea urchin on 2 separate occasions before I could learn how to surf without the assistance of an instructor. But I still had the sea and the sand and the people 🙂
This is just the beginning ❤️

I felt inspired and wrote this post at the Mangalore airport while waiting to board my flight to Delhi 🙂
Sharing a few pics below from my time at Shaka.