Hi, friends:
How are we doing?
The last couple of weeks were challenging for me, and it made me wonder how we’re collectively coping with this new normal.
I’m well into week five of this socially-distanced lifestyle and there have truly been so many ups and downs like I mentioned in my previous newsletter. By the way, thanks to those of you that watched the video! I know it wasn’t the typical newsletter you were expecting, but writing has been particularly hard lately. I’ve been lacking some focus and attention, plus I was really called to go inwards in order to cope with anxiety.
It makes sense that it would arise. You strip away distractions, the general “busyness”we’re so accustomed to, and the ability to socialize in person, and we’re left with plenty of time to face ourselves. To face the thoughts or emotions that were previously easy to suppress. Fortunately, that comes with the gift of healing and moving through them as well.
I’m reminded of a previous time in my life, which coincidentally enough, took place in Utah before I ever thought I’d end up here one day.
When I was sixteen years old I got to go on Outward Bound, a program that takes youth on these long wilderness expeditions. I didn’t really want to do it, but it was a necessary component if I also wanted to go abroad the following summer through this program I was in. Little did I know, this experience would change my life.
I spent 26 days backpacking through the south of Utah and into Colorado alongside other high school students from all over the country. Three of those days were set aside for the “solo”portion, where we were individually split up into our own little camps. I was left with no one in sight — a tarp, water, eight nutritional crackers, some tangerines and trail mix, along with my journal. It was intense, scary, lonely and hugely transformative. This was the only time I’d ever been alone for this long.
I cried for the majority of those three days. Not because I was desperate to get out, but because I could finally feel this deep sadness that had been building up inside me all those years. I could finally stop long enough to give it a portal. I cried for all things, for my family, for my friends, my lover, everything I had painfully experienced in the past. I cried, I sang, and made a list of all the foods I’d eat once I was home again.
As I reflected on the experience, I realized, that time alone to feel and reflect was essential for my well being. I needed to face what I felt inside in order to heal and release it. I vowed to make more space for solitude in the future, to find the time to really sit with myself.
I have yet to return to the woods by myself (though I hope to one day), but I have managed to be alone, mostly in my travels, and while I spent a year in Vietnam. Though the experience of this pandemic is unique in many ways, there is a similarity in the essence of being stripped away of familiarities and comforts, of returning to oneself, in facing what has been suppressed.
Yesterday morning, I felt the peace I had been longing for again. I sat out on the porch, mindfully sipping my tea, teary eyed at having arrived in this moment that felt like bliss. I thought to myself,“I would never take any of it back.”I would never take back the challenges, the pain, the inner struggle, just to be here right now. To feel the lightness of surpassing something that once consumed you, to feel the beauty of your own experience, to love something you once couldn’t stand, particularly if at times that was yourself. I would never take back any of the transformations I’ve experienced and continue to face.
So, if you’re currently going through it my friend, remember this too shall pass. Life ebbs and flows, ebbs and flows — but my experience is that if you find the courage to really sit with whatever arises and to find the support you need, you might come to a place you’d never even imagined.
Sending you love,
Gabriela
Freedom-Based Living 