Inside my Head: Author of Zen Odyssey

Hi! My name is Chandra Zas, author of Zen Odyssey, and I am the excited creator and coach behind (and all over) ZO. I want to get a little casual here and share a bit about me personally today…

I am the woman to a very special Israeli man. He is a geologist by study and a seaman in his current career. His life mission is to protect the environment.We travel the world by sea half of the year and we seek out epic rock climbing spots in the mountains during the other half of the year.

We have a little blossoming daughter whom we are honored to share laughs, share cries and hold space for everything in between.

I think that I have a lot figured out, especially compared to twenty years ago. But I am also a total work in progress. There are many aspects of me and my life that I am still learning, trying and failing around.

This last week I recorded my first youtube video. It was a complete trip to be with my Self in front of a video camera. I saw my Self in ways I had never seen Me before. It is only a two minute video, but I spent about seven hours creating it. It was a massive learning experience and I had a ton of fun doing it.

Here it is if you want to check out my first ever posted video.

https://youtu.be/6mOmpDRvj84

I do plan on making more, and I am sure they will only get better!

Time:

I am currently internally looking at my beliefs and struggles with time.

I used to be pretty good and getting things done, even though now, I realize I was not managing my time perfectly.

Then… I had a baby. For the last two years I have been the FTM, full time mom. My husband travels for work and we travel with him. Caring for a baby while constantly moving has been one of the biggest challenges of my life. I feel that I just graduated boot camp.

I now consider myself an expert in the following (with a baby):

• Reinvention of a routine.

• Adapting to new environments, food, climate and timezones.

• Traveling on planes, trains and cruise ships.

All of this with practically no help: no family, no long term friends, no neighbors, no nanny, no day care. The only help has been the occasional stranger’s generous hand or a short term friend’s love for our LO.

So as I dwelled on the thought, “I have no time“, I have had substantial evidence to prove my thought right. I believe most everyone would agree.

BUT….

The giant ah-ha moment that happened last week is that even though my thought may be true, it was not serving me.

When I think the thought, “I have no time” then I generate feelings and actions from a place of scarcity which results in me diminishing my own experience of time.

In short, I ended up not enjoying my time as much as I could have IF I had thought about my time differently.

My Backbone of Change

The approach of looking at my Self and evaluating what is serving me is how I have persevered through my own multitudes of transformations.

I am, now, the person whom I dreamed to become twenty years ago: healthy, vibrant, happy, curious, confident and self possessed.

Looking around at where I am now and thinking back to how I felt when I was young (dull, depressed, sick and lost).. I kind a feel like my life is a miracle.

It was a long odyssey to get here.

Who am I?

In the grand picture, I am no-one special.

But in my life I am a hero. I spent the first half of my life depressed, bloated, sick and miserable. After two decades of experimenting with anything and everything that might make my life better, I am the proud owner of an intentional and well managed (even happy) inner reality- physically, emotionally and mentally.