The Hole of Humility
I've made my way to northern India. A place called Shimla, buried in the hills close to the Himalayan mountain range. I am sitting in a spacious corner room in the YMCA with my newest travel companion taking in his 18th hour of sleep. It smells like spoiled milk in here, and I can no longer tell if it's his body still coping with the food poisoning or if it's a smell seeping in from the washrooms just down the corridor. The windows are rattling every few minutes. It could be wind, rain, or a monkey trying to pry its way into our room. Perhaps a little of everything, but so we must sit and wait for the weather to clear as we continue an attempt to hike through a lower portion of the Himalayan range and hitch a ride with a local guide down to Rishikesh - the so called "yoga capital of the world."
Sounds like a well thought out plan, but this has all happened by chance.. Just a few days ago, I was in Delhi fresh off the plane and standing in the metro station getting pushed around by hundreds of Indian men as I tried to figure out how to buy a metro card. A few days later, I found myself on a disgusting sleeper train from Delhi to Kalka before jumping on the five car toy train here to Shimla. I had a restless night fighting stomach illness in a car full of military men, and a three hour wait in a train station filled with rats, human feces splattered on the walls, and not another foreigner in sight. I had never known true humility until faced with a rumbling stomach, a hole in the ground, two foot pegs, and a small cup of water that I knew others had used to wash their own asses. I've seen that tiny hole of humility three times in the past 18 hours...
But that was the plan for India. To arrive here and have 30 open days to see what the universe had in store for me. To embrace humility and vulnerability. To find activities that would test my comfort levels and provide the opportunity to find peace within that space. That's why I am here. That's why I signed up by myself for dance classes in Delhi, and why I'm now traveling with an ex-marine into the foothills of the himalayas when trek conditions are at their worst.. If vulnerability is strength, then I will find ways to explore it and test my own.
Perhaps this is a case of overcompensation. It's sad to say, but everything I'm currently doing is more comfortable than my last month of travel with the girl I met in Antarctica. Everything I was practicing, my plan for spiritual exploration, controlling my mind - disrupted. Not too long ago, I was sobbing in my Buenos Aires apartment. Needing to heal for a second time. Upset with the universe, upset with myself, and feeling betrayed by the travel companion I so willingly gave a month of my life to.
This is why I have not written. I was ashamed.. A feeling that I do not cross paths with often, but for many reasons, I let the thought that I wasn't good enough make its way into my mindset. And I sat there. In my own dark hole of humility. Forcing myself to look for the lesson when I was barely able to look past the pain. But I've learned that holding on to these feelings in secrecy will only eat away at me over time, and so I share the story, ever so hesitantly with you now...
There's a reason I never wrote about Antarctica. Because I didn't feel joyful emotions and gratefulness for being there. And I was ashamed for making it all the way there and letting the feelings cloud the experience that so many people could only dream of. How do you write such things when all anyone seems to be concerned about is how amazing it was? But here's my truth. I was surrounded by people, surrounded by beauty, yet it was the loneliest I had ever felt. I questioned everything about myself. Who I was, what I was trying to do.. And lost faith in my path and things to come.
Perhaps it had a lot to do with not having access to my close friends for such an extended period of time, or that I celebrated the new year on the ship amongst strangers. But whatever the case, that lonely path led me right into the arms of the woman I mentioned - the masseuse on the ship. I was lured in with affirmation, deeper connectivity, and a glimpse into a lifestyle I knew nothing about - open relationships and a life without a home.
It took me a while before I started to understand the complexity of this woman. A hippy with a soft and nurturing side that was either front and center, or buried beneath layers of protective armor. She lived her life in a way that defied the norm. Like she purposefully wanted to walk outside the lines which conflicted pretty significantly with the personality I had developed given my rules based upbringing.. But I swore I was sent to Antarctica to meet her. And I thought to myself; if I can accept someone so different than me and allow her to be without judgement, then I've come a long way in my ability to accept anyone.
In a way, she was coming up the path that I was headed down and I wondered why we met in the middle. In Antarctica. It intrigued me. Her openness to life. I wanted it too... But what I thought was going to be a lesson in pure acceptance and learning to be more open actually turned out to be something quite different. And I lost myself.
My balance, my identity, my confidence. Gone. Her independent nature cast shadows on our partnership. And I found myself in a place where I couldn't contribute. Even just as friends, I felt like I couldn't be myself without a daggering glare or a comment on how I could be different. I tried to talk to her about it but often it just made it worse and I shut down. I realized later that this wasn't an attack against me, but perhaps it was a plea for me not to worry about her happiness and just be whoever I wanted to be. That's what she wanted, someone grounded in themselves. But I wanted growth. And that's where the problem lied. I was so set on adjusting my behavior to accept her, that I couldn't even think about or define my own needs. Like I said, I lost myself. Egg shells. Jagged and fragile egg shells.
When we finally went separate ways, I got an apartment in Buenos Aires for a couple weeks. I needed space to think, organize, and figure out what happened before moving on to the next leg of my journey. I created a home. I cooked for myself, called friends and family, and analyzed everything that happened over that previous month. I studied acceptance, love, belonging, defensive behavior, and organized everything on a wall. And I sat there... And thought about who I was and why I felt sad... And wondered if I would ever be brave enough to write this out.
This was the moment that I wrote the following:
I am sitting in a dark gloomy hole. A candle burns in front of me ever so dimly. It's flickering. Pulsating. Fighting for its very existence. Just above, I can see a pillow of light seductively calling me out of hiding. Its rays coil like streamers as they trickle down, working their way through speckles of dust and settle upon my closed eyes and sweated brow.
I can see my way out. I can feel the happier space just above me. Yet here I sit, muffling the voice inside that's yelling at me to leave. I know there is a lesson hidden here, but I cannot find it. All I can feel is sadness and so I sit and sob silently while I absorb the pain, knowing that at any moment my flickering light, and desire to push forward could be forever extinguished...
That's where I found it. The root to everything I had been working on and the source of all my pain.
I don't know that I am lovable.
And I hate saying it, and it feels so weird to write it out, but there is truth in that statement and it's all centered around the word 'know'. I mean I definitely think I am lovable.. But I don't know definitively that I am because I stand here alone when I long more than anything for partnership. That's why a random girl that I only knew for a month, could have such a dramatic affect on me. It wasn't her. I knew we weren’t right for each other, but I held companionship on such a pedestal that if the need was not me then I was incomplete. The hurt was based on the feeling of betrayal as she retreated back into individualism and I felt the need to push forward with transformation on my own.
In a way I was proud of myself for sticking it out and trying to look at things more objectively than emotionally. Yet this was a new low for me. Over the past year, I had worked to strip away all forms of identity and isolate myself out in the world and this is the thought I was left sitting in the dark with? That I'm not sure I'm lovable?
But then I started to really think about it
How my family didn't say 'I love you' out loud very often. How a few years ago a friend told me she loved me before hanging up the phone and I sat there afterwards and teared up. How I watched as the first person to really believe in and mentor me, lost her battle to cancer. And I couldn't even tell her how much I loved her before she died... I guess before leaving I never really had a chance to experience the unconditional love that comes with someone accepting me for me. No wonder I had a problem accepting others. I didn't know how to accept myself. No one had ever shown me how.
And so I pressed forward wondering about self love and vulnerability until the universe provided a very valuable gift. A friend of mine posted about an audio book by Dr. Brené Brown called The Power of Vulnerability. I had seen her Ted talk last year and loved it so much that I immediately had to download the book. And I listened for six hours as she explained everything I was going through. It was as if I was meant to find that book at that exact moment. And that's when it all made sense. It was so simple. And I sat there and sobbed. Not for the girl in Antarctica. But for the times when people at work said they couldn't find their balance around my individualism. For the times when my ex-girlfriend said it was like walking on eggshells when we moved in together. For the girl I was with before I left who deserved my vulnerability more than anyone else, yet selflessly accepted my desire to walk down my path of growth... I felt it all. What it must've been like to be in their shoes. How I couldn't see past myself and didn't emphasize enough how wonderful they all were.
I had stumbled upon the key to everything I had ever wanted. The root to empathy, the root to connectedness, the root to love and acceptance...
Everyone just wants to know that they're enough.
Including me. (Thank you Dr. Brown!)
That's what I was meant to find in Antarctica. This was the path I was meant to walk. Six months of following signs and it led me to the realization that I am not alone. I never was. I'm just like everyone else and we are all connected by this very basic human element.
That's why I'm writing this. Not as a cry for attention or love. But so that people can see more than just the pictures behind the journey. This life is no better than anyone else's. The life of a wanderer is a lonely path because you're constantly looking for a place to belong. But the truth is, after everything, I still want what plenty of others already have. I would love a partner, I would love to build a home, and I would love to teach my kids about everything I have learned. But that isn’t my reality.. And as much as it hurts to walk alone, and to yearn for unconditional love and acceptance, I do so with my head high. Not worrying about if one day it will all be worth it, but knowing that it already is.
I am enough.
...And so I allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness and realize that I am not alone. The seat beside me remains empty but I am surrounded by the smiling faces of my closest friends. They were here all along sitting in silence, allowing me to feel my own way around and to lose myself in my own darkness.
For as Dr. Brown put it, "Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light."