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When I booked to go on the Sahara desert trip I was in a place where I was tender, vulnerable and still hurting. I booked because firstly because I am curious. I love to explore and visit new places, if funds were available I would go on permenant 24/7 holiday and travel the world. It was something I'd wanted to do for a while but would never have done if I'd stayed on my previous path.
But I also think subconciously the healing aspect of the holiday really appealed to that deep down part of me that wanted to be ok again, that wanted to be healed. But I think because of when and why I booked the trip a part of me placed an expectation on the trip that it WOULD be THE time of healing.
In the future I would give that time to myself. For now I would plod on with life knowing that I could sort inside out later on.
I booked, but still I can see now the part of me that booked watched from a back seat while a rejected, unassured and lost version of Rachel lived my life.
When the holiday got near, as well as getting excited, I was getting more and more terrified.
It got to the point that the few days before I went I was so terrified I didn't want to go and was close to locking myself in a cupboard!
It felt wrong to be doing something for me, I felt guilty that I was leaving my mum on her own, it felt extremely selfish to want to enjoy myself, I was also worried that I make a fool of myself in as many ways as is possible and no-one would like me because I was inadequete. On the trip I would have to man and direct my own canoe (only theoretically sadly!) and I could only think about the times that I had capsized in the past, not the times I had stayed afloat.
Thank you to the friends who backed up the part of me that wanted to go and said they knew it was what I needed. All you need is a good kick up the backside from a dear friend sometimes :)
Plus after Amy had so efficiently packed my luggage I had to go didn't I? ;-)
'Sometimes you have to stand alone, to see if you still can' - 'A different Approach'
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You think you're ok, too many things rely on you being ok, others need you to be ok but you're really not. I wasn't ok because I didn't truely believe in myself but rather that I was nothing special, nobody noticed me because there was nothing worth noticing. I had come to the conclusion that because I had been rejected by those who were meant to love me that there must have been something about me that made it easy to leave me, easy to forget or not love.
I had worried and reflected for a long time about how others felt about me, how they judged me and most of all I wanted someone to care more than just a passing care. I wanted and thought I needed someone else to put value on my life for it to have any value.
But here I was, in Morocco doing something I wanted to do, enriching my life with new experiences, giving mself the opportunity to enjoy myself . . . if only I fully could. I wasn't making the most of the experience because all I could see was lots of ideas about who I thought I should be, who others expected me to be, who I thought others expected me to be.
I think that being brave is being honest with yourself.
And I could blame my past, those that have hurt me, situations and experiences that have wounded me, for me not being brave. But really it is no one else nor nothing else in the end that controls my thoughts but myself. But I was scared to be brave.
I had made the choice to let external things and others, matter more than what was inside my heart, my mind, my soul. I had neglected me. I didn't matter, so why bother looking after me?
Being brave and being honest would be looking after me, caring for me. No more than that, being honest would be saying saying to myself 'you dont believe that you are worth looking after but you should and you will'. Being honest with myself I would have told me that although it would be the biggest challenge I was going to face, it wouldn't be easy and it might take a lifetime of backwards and forwards steps but it would certaintly be the greatest gift I could give myself.
'Anything worth having, is worth fighting for'
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I began fighting against, not for.
I spent the holiday at the top of a cliff not wanting to go near the edge and look into the void to see if I was still down the bottom and instead sat curled up, walled in at the top letting my expectations, critcisms and judgements of myself fly around in that enclosure and peck at me until I had curled up so tight that I was a waiting time bomb that was going to burst.
Out at the desert camp I wrote on a piece of paper everything that hurt, all the negative things I wanted to let go of. I can't remember what I wrote now as that night is a blur but I didn't hold anything back, I was brave, I was honest, I chose to let it all go. As Anne has suggested I threw it into the fire. The first time I threw it, it was a hopeless throw and actually missed the fire, which is actually is kind of funny when I think about it. You try to have a dramatic and climactic moment of finality and you do the most wobbly throw possible haha! But it went in, on the second determined and better aimed throw! After I felt light, I felt dizzy, the heavy and tight lid had been taken off a boiling pot.
When I burst I did in fact burst internally like a grinade and shot off a few shards of deadly metal, And being so busy bursting I couldnt think of anthing else, never mind the consequences. I was physically and mentally exhausted and felt more sick than I had in a very long time.
One of the consequences however was that the biggest of those shards ripped open a whole in the wall i'd built around myself.
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Now, why do I say wall?
While talking to Allal at Dar Sidi one evening he asked us to describe a garden. What I described did contain elements of an actual garden that I would like, most especially a waterfall. I love water, I love to emersed in it, to hear it, feel it, play with it, sing to it. But the waterfall I chose to see was a small, structured formal waterfall, with limits and controlled edge. I also wanted flowers but didnt know which ones I wanted, and I chose to surround my garden with a wall. He also asked if there was anyone in my garden, I really wanted there to be someone and tried to imagine someone there but I couldnt.
For some reason at the time I really wasn't happy with my garden, I couldn't put my finger on it, it was my garden, but not my garden. I felt uncomfortable with it and it really bugged me after.
Back home I was (still!) thinking about the garden, except now the garden was a orchard bearing lots and lots of fruit and a swing hanging from a large tree that reached to the heavens and if i chose to I could go and swing on. Behind the swing I could see an open meadow, I knew it stretched further but couldnt quite see. I was also content to be there on my own.
It struck me later, as I thought more about the garden and it changed and evolved frequently, that I could have chosen to have any garden I wanted, even a zoo or a planet if I'd wished, it was my imagination. Yet I chose to confine my garden within four, solid, high walls where I couldn't see outside, I had set limitations on my own potential.
On thinking about this wall (probably far too much) I have realised that this wall is one I have used as a safety mechanism of self preservation during and after being hurt but over time it had become constricting and confining. This wall could let nothing in BUT it also wasn't letting me out.
I have also faced the fact that I had tried to imagine someone else there in my garden with me because I was scared to be alone with myself. I was seeing the wrong solution to the problem. In my head the solution was to have someone in my garden with me so I wouldnt be lonely, so they could help me. I wouldn't go out, so I wanteed someone to come in and make it easier for me.
When really the correct solution would have been build a shed in my garden and inside find a ladder, get up that ladder and climb over the wall, allowing myself to wonder freely the other side of the wall.
If only you could tell someone the positive and huge impact their words have had on your life! :)
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So, once there was a gap in the wall, I could (stumbling and confused post-bursting) forward jump into the void and swim to find me. The climb through was difficult, I wasn't quite sure how or where to swim, I struggled at first, I also looked for boulders to cling to. But I was swimming.
When I left the desert and returned home it all felt overwhelming, I had started swimming in the desert and wasn't sure how to continue back in my every day life. As soon as I was home I crept under my duvet and slept, made myself a cosy den, didn't eat and retreated. I didn't do anything, I didn't think, I didn't speak, I just rested.
I was still in the water, but not trying to swim, just floating.
Then about 36 hours later I got up, I opened my curtains and I reassured my mum I will still alive by shouting downstairs and did something I hadn't done before. I went to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror at myself and smiled. It actually started a fit of giggles but I saw me and I smiled.
And im still swimming, sometimes I feel way off, sometimes it seems im not getting any further but tring to remember to be patient with myself and sometimes take some time to just peacefully feel the water on my skin, sometimes I am teaching myself a new way to swim, or sometimes we perform a funky syncronised swimming routine and just have fun :D But all the time, because I keep on swimming I am getting stronger and when I hit the waves I'm learning to sit back and ride them out rather than fighting to the point of exhaustion.
I saw this quote yesterday which nicely sums this up;
'this year has been about finding strength within myself - not looking for it in others' 'Living Positive'
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So have I learnt?
Self worth -
The value I place on myself is what matters.
Now I am re-enact the L'Oreal shampoo advert and actually mean it.
I am learning to accept myself and who I am but I need to let myself rest sometimes -
I find it hard to sit still for 5 minutes, I like my brain and mind to be engaged and stimulated, to use it to be creative, to study, to research, to think, read and write. Occassionally I will sit for 6 hours reading a book when I need to sleep because I'm so lost in that world, but I need to not do it every night. Likewise although I like to think, I have a choice about what to think, a positive thought in the morning will benefit me more than worrying about the future late into the night. I like to sit back, observe and reflect and I have to walk, run, dance, breath in and around nature until my back aches and my feet are sore and I want to be there for those I love and support them as much as I can.
But I also know now that I need time to just do nothing and know thats its ok. I can day dream, be quiet and withdraw inside sometimes for some me time and allow myself to rest. I don't have to be doing, but sometimes can just be.
I will be kind to me -
I used to think that if I ever walked away no one would notice, I would never be missed, I was there in peoples lives, but only in passing, easily dropped. I would never cause anyone to stop and remember me and wonder where I've gone.
But now I someone would stop and look for me, someone would notice and miss me, the person who should care about me the most and that someone is me.
'If you make friends with yourself, you will never be alone' - Maxwell Maltz
I was scared of letting go, when I had let go completely, things had changed drastically, so if I let go again what would change? Would I loose something again?
I am trying to trust.
"You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor
A few more I might leave for another blog :)
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So although this trip was advertised as just a holiday, oh it was so much more than that! Even these ramblings cannot full describe to anyone else what I went through.
I am thankful that I was led to this trip, in some ways I regret that I was so deep in my own healing journey that I dont think I expressed enough my gratitude and appreciation of the beautiful people I shared the time with. So I want to finish with giving thanks, Angela for being a patient room mate, who looked after me when I was ill and and for all those much needed hugs and, Sandie for being a generous and giving nurse, with her concern and medicine! and for the book you have given me since :) Kathy for all the fun and giggles we had ;) Annie for giving me hope and encouragement for the future, Mindy for helping me to let go and just dance, Barbara for the shamanic journey which brought clarification, Anne for being so utterly and amazingly herself and in being so, an inspiration, Hafid for making me both smile and cry, and Allal for listening, asking me about the garden! haha! and challenging me to be brave, something that I will treasure forever :)
So thank you for all being there with me during that part of my journey.
But most of all, thank you to me, for being honest and for choosing to be brave.
