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Published: January 29th 2016
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5 months into the nz journey and i have yet to write about it until now. In truth i have not quite found the urge or the muse or the time or the patience to write an entry, let alone write consistently. It is not for lack of experience here, this country has treated me well and i feel very comfortable and settled in. I guess I've been figuring out why i am here? why did i come here in the first place? what in the world am i doing? For the first month or so my answer was: i did not know what else to do basically. I knew i was not fulfilled state side, as in i was not unhappy but i also was not authentically happy either. I also knew i promised myself years ago that i would live outside the country again. So i simply came here because i did not know what else to do. Listen, i want to say that i was "living blissfully in each passing moment of free falling freedome" when i got here but that plainly was not true. Although i am aware i did not come to nz with a passionate
drive, i was still expecting an extraordinary experience, something to lift me out of my malase and make me feel alive again, unfrozen, unafraid and truly in the moment.
I figured travel would do just that for me, as it has always done in the past but despite the grand, breathtaking and exquisite natural beauty that is nz, the kind and generous kiwis, and the love of my life my by side , i can not deny: part of me is missing. I've come to find that this experience will not just lift me from my fears and grip me back into the fullness of life again so easily because the journey the lead me to the feeling that a glass wall stands constantly between me and life was in fact a very long journey, a nearly 28 year lifelong journey so the journey out of it will not be the instant fix i so blissfully imagined. For the first few months this realization that I've inwardly traveled a great distance from myself, as in the light within me was disheartening and overwhelming. It felt like I suddenly opened my eyes only to find that my feet
had taken me millions of miles and years away from my heart. Now how do i get back? Is it even possible? And where am i going back to anyway? I started with asking what am i doing here? but now that question seems irrelevant, what i need to be asking is who am i? Who, what , when was it that took me so far away? Am i back at square one or am i countless miles off track in no mans land? As you can see this realization has left me feeling utterly stranded.
A particular experience on the Routeburn track began my fearful awakening to the awareness that i am deeply lost in the back country bush of the mind. I don't believe i will ever forget the fear and panic that overcame me while treking on the Routeburn. The Routeburn is one of the 9 great treks of nz. Thousands of people of all shapes and sizes and skill level hike this 4 day trail every year. In other words, it is well worn and sign posted the entire way. Dan and i had been 1 day in, the first day went on
with only brief instances of fear, in fact one moment in particular felt like the universe was calling out to me. In this case, i would not let myself hear it. We came upon a tremendous waterfall, sky high and pounding into the earth below morphing into clouds of pure mist and glowing brightly at the bottom, a perfect rainbow from beginning to end. There was a sign warning for avalanches urging hikers to move forward without stopping. I headed the warning and clumsily, full of dread i speed walked into the mist, intending not to stop. I realized dan was not following, he was standing and staring at the rainbow as anyone able to be taken in by the beauty of the moment should do. I yelled at him to keep walking! And just as i was sending my panic in his direction, i fell flat on my ass. Flustered, i got up and continued to warn dan to keep moving. Once i finally crossed the mist i was able to laugh at myself but also feel ashamed for my inability to be taken by life. My mind was gripped by fear, by the future and irrelevant and unreal thought of being crushed by an avalanche. Because my fear transported me to a fictional future i was unable to enjoy the purest moment of a seemless rainbow. The saddness of my fear hung in my mind as we continued.
The 2nd day we began to hike up steeper trails with open un encumbered views of fjordland peaks. We reached narrow areas packed with snow. The first bit of snow mound shot me into a panic so intense it took me nearly 20min to pass. As we walked on and drops became more shear, the fear gave way to an all out panic attack. I could hardly take a step forward. My state of mind made this trail far more dangerous then it really was. I was shaking all over and my mind was collapsing in on itself. In the end, we turned around and went back down the mountainside. I exhausted myself and my partner. It was a horrifying experience that my fear wholly created. Instead of standing in awe at some of the most wonderous mountains on earth, i crumbled in the face of them, turned away and let my fear blind me. It was after this that my awareness woke up and realized how lost i have become through the years. I began to look back on the journey of hardship and loss that brought me so far away from my light. The fear that overcame me on Routeburn was a lifetime in the making. Although i have hit intense emotional lows in the past few years i have been able to justify them due to the experiences that triggered them, such as watching my mom suffer from cancer or feeling abandoned after my father left. I was able to justify my perspective of panic and pain because I identified as a victim. But on Routeburn, i was no victim, no loved one was hurting me physically or emotionally, no cancer was causing my mom to suffer, no one was leaving me, all of those experiences had passed but my mind was so entrenched in them causing me to fear the moment, be blind from it completly no matter how wonderful. I slowly realized that the glass wall between me and life is my inability to be in the moment.
Since then i have come in and out of feeling stranded and feeling like i am begining to amass the mindfulness i need to travel back to my heart and really begin to feel life, maybe even for the first time. I've had glimpses of life without the glass wall, such as my time speant in Isreal but i have honestly lived Predominetly behind it. I know now that i am "stranded" in a sense. But i also know now that it is only the difference of my perspective that will either define this state as being stranded or just simply being. I know now that i need to get comfortable with not knowing where i am or who i am in ways i thought i did before. I do not know who i am but i am beginning to feel that not knowing is actually knowing more then i ever have before, that maybe not knowing will lead me back to my light.
At this time, in safe and gorgeous nz i am meant to begin to heal in peace. Its a quiet time and a time without the influence family and friends. It is not a lonely time, merely a time of contemplative recovery. I do not know what i want to do in life except that i want to truly feel life, not fear it. From that place the I believe my other purposes will be revealed and i will be ready to put my energy intothem.
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