Day 70: When It's Odd, It's God
Faith, Surrender, and Lessons from the Road
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Some days feel like entire lifetimes wrapped into twenty-four hours. Today was one of those days—hilarious, exhausting, moving.
The morning began before the sun had even hinted at rising. At 5:00 AM, we set off for the Taj Mahal, the monument to love. We watched the sun rise over it. No matter how many times I see it, it never fails to take my breath away. But somehow, what began as an awe-filled moment turned into a comical detour - we found ourselves swept up by a photographer in a full-fledged tourist photoshoot for almost an hour. We spent an hour posing in exaggerated stances, changing locations like we were in a Bollywood montage. At the time, it seemed kind of normal? But as exhaustion set in later… we couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of it all.
As I wandered through the Taj Mahal, an old thought surfaced - one that had first struck me last year. But before that, it was a thought from even further back, from 2016, when I first saw the Taj as a 24-year-old, wide-eyed, overwhelmed with gratitude. I had just moved to Kuwait the year prior and felt like I was living inside a dream I hadn’t dared to dream. I’d seen the Pyramids of Giza and the Sagrada Famillia and the Burj Khalifa and now the Taj Mahal all in one year. Prior to this year, I’d barely left Canada. “How lucky am I?” I thought then, convinced it would be my only time seeing this wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal.
And yet, here I was, nearly a decade later, standing before it for the third time, leading a retreat. This is my life now. This is my work. How miraculous is that?
It reminds me of Yoga Sutra 1.20: śraddhā-vīrya-smṛti-samādhi-prajñā-pūrvaka itareṣām—"Faith, energy, knowledge of samadhi, and dedication lead the way." I could never have imagined this path back then, but faith, persistence, and surrender shaped it into being.
After the Taj Mahal, we embarked on the long journey to Jaipur - the Pink City. Five hours on the road, with a stop for food, but what made the journey unforgettable was the conversation. Laughter echoed through the bus, raw and unfiltered stories were shared, and the kind of deep connection that only forms in spaces of openness and trust unfolded before me. This group of women is something special. They teach me as much as I teach them.
At the end of the night, I ended up sitting beside one of my first guests from the first ever Sober Girls Yoga Bali Retreat in 2022. We fell into an unexpected conversation about last year’s India retreat. There were so many challenges faced. But as she listened to me recount the stories, she simply said:
"That 100% happened for a reason. Every single thing that went wrong—it’s too much to be coincidence. When it’s odd, it’s God."
I loved this saying - I’ve never heard it before. “When it’s odd, it’s God.” Because the truth is, last year’s India retreat was odd. It was odd how many things did not go to plan. And the truth is, I still don’t know the reason why a lot of that happened. I don’t have some profound lesson tied up neatly with a bow. I just know that it happened. And that, for some reason, everyone that was there was meant to walk through it.
During this conversation, around us began a show of live music, dancers, and a puppet show. But we didn’t really notice the show, because we were pretty deep in our conversation. She asked me when I started believing in God.
I told her that it wasn’t something I was raised with. It wasn’t something I actively sought. I had a growing belief, due to my yoga practice. But in 2023, when the war between Israel and Palestine erupted, I felt paralyzed. I felt suffering from both sides, but I couldn’t understand why we continued to throw bombs on Gaza and watch helplessly as the Gazans burned to death. I didn’t know what to say, how to act, how to hold the pain of my Arab friends watching Gaza burn. I heard a Macklemore lyric, “I never believed in God, but things got so fcked up that I had to pray.”
That was it. Things got so bad that I had to pray.
Faith didn’t arrive in a flash of light or a single epiphany—it was built, slowly, like stone upon stone, through my search for meaning in the chaos.
I told her about how if I didn’t believe in God right now, there is no way that I’d be okay right now, given what I recently endured. And then, another question surfaced in my mind, which I told her about.
"How will you ever recover from this?"
Someone asked me that after I was drugged and raped.
I think about it every day. I could feel that they were really empathising with me in that moment and seeing my suffering, which I appreciated so much.
But how will I ever recover? I heard that and thought…that’s so interesting. Because I already feel like I have. I already have recovered.
How?
Yoga Sutra 2.1 gives the answer: tapaḥ svādhyāya īśvarapraṇidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ—"Discipline, self-study, and surrender to the divine are the path of action."
My recovery was not just time passing. For the last month, it has been a disciplined yoga and meditation and chanting practice. It has been self study through therapy, circles, and recovery support. And lastly, it has been faith. It has been believing in God.
Kriya Yoga is really what got me through it: discipline, surrender and self study.
And from that, everything has unfolded since. A deepening of relationships with my parents, my uncle, my teacher, the women in my life. A heightened awareness of my emotions, my boundaries, my own heart.
Tonight, as I collapse into bed, drained but full, I know with certainty - this retreat was exactly what I needed.
The unfolding of 2025 has been odd to say the least. The technology addiction withdrawal, the dog bite, the sexual assault. It’s just been strange. And we now know, If it’s Odd, it’s God.
And with that reframe of things… I am so grateful.
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