Journey to Self
It took me most of the world to find something I’d had inside myself the entire time. Seeking salvation from a toxic city, or a city I allowed to be toxic to me, I'd venture off the map on solo excursions for months on end. Looking outside for the one thing I couldn't find there.
I crossed six continents, some 100 countries, and still it was nowhere to be found. The funny part is that even though you don't think you've found 'it', you've really found everything. Everything and nothing and all that you take from that.
There came a point when I was living in Medellin, Colombia, well over a decade ago now, when I asked myself where I would want to live or go next, and my answer was nowhere. I no longer craved to cross countries in search of anything. I didn't yearn for open roads or exotic lands as I had in the past and I wasn't day dreaming of any country specifically that I hadn't yet traversed.
This was a big indication to me of several things, one being that there had been a shift. My desire to see the world had been eclipsed by my need to incorporate holistic practices into my daily routine and have a space to do so. I felt the pull towards a safe, sacred home, instead of the travellers existence I had been pursuing for so long. It no longer mattered where I was, but how I was. My daily life was set to include my personal therapies and my journey was now only bound inward.
The reason I didn't have anywhere else to go was because I had realised what it was I was looking for, for those some eight years abroad, and that was all that mattered to me anymore.
*This is a piece I wrote some time in late ‘15 after my return to the United States.*
It no longer mattered where I was, but how I was.... 🙌
I have recently had this same realization. After growing up an international kid, I remember at 18 all I wanted to do was see more of the world. I somehow managed to navigate my way all around and created a lifestyle that was easily transportable: I could teach yoga, work in bars and cafes, I had light weight multi-purpose gear, friends and contacts internationally, and big dreams. It never happened how I imagined it in the movie of my life. I imagined the story me would pack bags and never look back while circumnavigating the world. Instead it looked like bouts of travel, and living in one place, enjoying it, getting complacent, and getting anxiety about planning the next and repeat. I love my travel stories and what I did accomplish, but I can’t deny the viscous cycle that was repeating of run→settle→enjoy→anxiety to move on again→run and repeat. About 2 years ago I decided, that I don’t want to be a nomad anymore. It was a lonely path anyway, always saying goodbye and being the one to leave. I have returned to my birth land in the UK, and am slowly slowly creating a home and roots here. And i realize how little i know my own country having left age 8, and only coming back for university. There is so much that I am loving being back including celtic wisdom, cold water swims and surf, as well as the highlands. So grateful for where I am at on my journey! And so grateful to have people like you that I can relate too. It’s not that I will NEVER travel again, its just that I will do what people call ‘holidays’. Instead of needing to live for weeks/months in a new place and understand that country or people, I am content to drop in and be a visitor, with no pressure to make the experience become my life, but to simply enjoy and witness the experience.