The adult and the overpowering child ego states

The adult and the child

In people with developing or childhood trauma it’s common to fall back into their childhood states in specific situations. These tend to be difficult situations, which are similar to situations from their childhood. Triggering situations such as a relationship with a partner who reminds them of an abusive or neglecting parent. If such a situation occurs in their adulthood, instead of dealing with the situation as an adult, they would fall into dealing with the situation as a child.

 To give a specific example I’ll talk about Lisa.

 Lisa, a young woman who suffered a lot of abandonment in her early childhood from both caregivers (foster family) one was addicted to drugs, other was workaholic and emotionally unavailable. She developed an insecure attachment in romantic relationships. Lisa gets into an argument with her partner (this is the difficult situation, which is triggering) over the fact that partner gives more attention and spends more time with his daughter from previous marriage. Partner spends three days of the week with his daughter from previous marriage. In an adult healthy state, Lisa would have a talk with her partner who would also on an adult level listen to her feelings about it and they would both look for a solution where Lisa wouldn’t feel abandoned and her partner would still give enough attention to his daughter.

On a child level, Lisa falls into a behaviour of attracting attention. She either says that her partner doesn’t care enough about her. She will say that she can’t see him when he is finally back from his daughter, even though she can, just to ‘ get back at him for not being available.‘ , which will make both of them suffer. Or whilst he is away, she will try to ‘attract his attention‘  by making him worried saying she feels unwell, making her health situation seem a lot worse than it actually is . This is what a child would do when they aren’t getting the attention they need from their parent. Try with all means possible to get it. The main thing for Lisa to realise is that her partner isn’t her parent, nor is she a child anymore, but rather her small hurt child is acting up here. She won’t necessarily realise that she is doing any of these things and that she’s fallen into the child state ( or child ego state). And why does this falling into a child state, as I call it, actually happen?

According to many researchers on childhood trauma, this happens because certain of our needs in childhood weren’t met.

 Therefore, the little child wasn’t taken care of the way he or she would have deserved, so the little child stayed in us and eventually crawled its way back out when we least want it to.

 Very often it happens in an adult romantic relationship that our hurt little child expects the partner to save us or take care of us and replace the parent who for any reasons couldn’t do enough. Sadly, as you may have guessed, our partner is not meant to be there as a parent replacement.

Through the right approach in psychotherapy, an individual can soon start to recognise when they fall into child ego state, and that’s a crucial moment. From there on they learn how to work with these situations, how to give child the attention they needed when they were little and how to take back responsibility over themselves as adults.

The use of a term ‘child ego state’ is taken from Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis theory and it has often been adapted in trauma research.

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I do it for myself and not for anyone else

Hello beautiful people,

I want to touch the topic of a parent-pleaser. To take it as it is – we all are/ have been a parent pleaser when growing up or still, haven’t we? In some cases, your parents were projecting on you their own desires and wanted YOU to achieve for them what they never did. Often, parents can make a certain picture of what they expect their child to be without allowing for the option of ‘reshaping’ this picture in their head.

And so, the child growing up doesn’t get to do what their desire might be. Maybe the child wants to try circus, however the parent gets them to attend anatomy courses. And so on. Then the child doesn’t get to explore nor discover what their real passion could be. They study hard, but not for themselves, however, they feel they do it so that their parents are happy with their kids’ results. They may develop this pattern or habit of satisfying the loved one, but never satisfying themselves. They may believe, that the parents’ satisfaction is more important than theirs is.

For a parent, it is hard not to be there a certain expectation of what their child should be like. ‘It’ is something they had created and put their hopes into. Sadly, many parents get blinded and keep pushing and pushing their kids into something they don’t wish for.

And on the other (good?) hand, there are also parents, who do know how to give their kids the base for a fulfilling life. They wouldn’t force them do something that’s ‘in the family’ even if the kid doesn’t want it. They will rather help them explore what they develop their passion for and encourage them in pursuing the path. So, it’s not that a good parent would leave their child alone not pushing them to do a homework or study for school, telling them ‘ if you don’t study, wou fill fail!’, a good parent will support their child in understanding that learning new things (at school or outside) will enrich their own life in the future and they might motivate them in different ways. This parent is the one that would primarily want their child to be happy whether it is happy as a lawyer with a first class degree and a prestigious position or as a gardener in the neighborhood.

But what would I say? I am not a parent and have no clue about parenting, do I?

The generational gap between us and the generation of our parents and grand-parents also plays a role, because before, kids had to listen more to what their parents wanted and thought was good for them and the decisions of their parents were almost sacred. At least in many countries and cultures. My grandma was forced to marry a man, because her mother had said so, then he turned to be an alcoholic.

And I am sure, many, or most, grown-ups still have a feeling of being responsible towards their parents. What if they don’t like my new partner? What if they will think this job I do now is low standard?

‘Well, and what do I think? Am I happy with my partner the way things are? Am I happy with the job I do, despite it being a bit lower standard for me? I am pround of my self for having achieved what I have and if parents’ expectations aren’t met here, it is not up for me to change anything, but up to them.’

However, it is entirely normal to feel this need to share with your parents ‘I got promoted!’ ‘I got A results on my exam!’ etc.. when, if the bad news come, you just don’t want to disappoint them and want to show them that you can do really well and they can be proud of you. This is something common and natural between kids and parents.

So did you just leave a high placed job that was mentally draining you to find one that’s easier to handle and less ,?paid?, be proud of yourself, because that’s success. May not be for your parents or other people around you, but it is for yourself and it is you to look out for yourself.

Yogic approach to the pandemic ~ How can you transform your ‘negative’ thinking?

Hello dear people around the world,

And let me talk to you in a positive light this time, offering some different insights and solutions into what’s happening with the virus situation, seen by majority as negative, as a new war, locking us inside our houses, disabling us from meeting with our friends and doing all the activities. Well, yogic approach might tell you something else. What I talk about in this article is mostly the experience I learned from an ashram, where I was staying, not saying it was an easy one.

To be honest, my view on this is not much different from the standard opinion ‘ I want to do things, go to festivals, enjoy life and travel and not be so limited and without freedom’. Right, do you read the word freedom? We will stop here. What is freedom for you? Is it to go to a country you’d like or meet anyone you like, drink as much alcohol as you like (well this you might as well do at home now haha), or what is it? And what if Yoga was to tell you that freedom is all about your mind and you achieve freedom inside rather than the way you seem to know for all your life.

Did you hear about or have you seen those monks high in the mountains just sitting and meditating? Do they need to travel anywhere? I know, now you may say ‘but who wants to live a life of a monk, it’s incredibly boring’. But how do you know it is? What if most of the interesting and exceptionally freeing experiences are happening in their minds when meditating or just being? Have you thought about it? It is said to be those people, who are not looking anywhere else, that are just happy ‘here and now’. It’s them who found their freedom. If you’re consistently urged by your temptation for going somewhere and feel some adrenaline in your veins, are you sure that’s freedom? Or are you just driven by your minds temptations and desires? This is harsh, right? But I’m telling you, it might be beautiful and freeing to find yourself within you and be happy. That doesn’t mean I am anywhere near there; I am not, haha. However, this is one of the reasons why this might not affect as much the yogi population.

What yogic approach tries to tell you is to find contentment and happiness in your daily routine. This means:

early morning getting up

……. cleaning yourself, doing your netti pot, tongue scrubbing and other Ayurvedic methods.

After a kriya and asana session; this should be minimum one hour.

Ideally you share living with other human creatures and practise with them as well, so they can help you improve and spot your defects.

Then you can have a small breakfast and get on with the day.

Don’t forget to have an early lunch. This is during Pitta time between 11 and 13 hours, ideally not later than that, because during this time your digestive fire is very strong. Eat healthy and fresh, not too salty or too fried foods.

you get on with the rest of your day and maybe go for a walk or do more asana practise in the afternoon. At around 6 and 7, you should have your dinner.

Do not go to sleep much later than 10 pm or 11 pm in the summer (hot months).

Sounds like fun, right? When I was staying in the ashram, I couldn’t understand, or didn’t want to, that this routine for activities and especially for exact times for eating balances your mind, and your body knows exactly what’s right and easily gets used to this. Don’t believe it? just try it if you can and you will see. Finding the beauty in a healthy routine? Well that’s what Ayurveda and Yoga want for you.

But, are you dying for some social contact as an extrovert, but you live alone and can’t meet with anyone? Practising yoga in the morning with someone else is impossible for you? Well are there options for you or have you considered living in a community? By saying a community, I don’t mean a community with unhealthy habits, but that kind of community, which will encourage you in the right way.

My approach; I’m not sure if this is entirely yogic, since I’ve never been told so, but it should be right? Just connect with the nature, it’s giving you all you need. Go for a walk with the sunset or with a sunrise, it’s magic.

Another aspect of why it might be helpful for you to have all the activities cancelled is – less disturbances from the outer world, more focus on your inner world. This means, if you are on something now, such as studying for something, no matter what, working on your art, on a new project. This helps you to be more mindful. Many people, especially living in a city, will get distracted by all the things going around (well at least me and some friends I know), like concerts, singing sessions, this festival, that food market etc. etc.. fear of missing out is strong here.. Why did many big creators isolate in order to achieve what they’d planned to do? Well this involuntary isolation is giving you the same opportunity and it is what yoga says too – you aim for less distractions in your life, in order to focus on what’s really important. I know this is just… too much, isn’t it? You want to enjoy life too, right? Do crazy things, oh tell me about it, writing this now takes me back to the crazy days. But what your body and mind generally want to tell you is that it’s more harming them rather than being beneficial for them. Don’t take me wrong. Yoga doesn’t want to tell you that you should live hard life either, but rather finding the beauty and enjoyment in other activities.

Love and take care, watch sunsets and eat well

Adela

Are you a co-dependent people pleaser ?

Have you ever felt in a relationship that you could do anything to keep your second part happy ? This could be because you can’t imagine them suffer the same way you had to suffer for example when you were a child.

It doesn’t only have to be an intimate relationship, but any kind of social relationship. This often comes associated with the term people pleaser.

Why do I bring this topic into my article? You can guess. And you are right if you guessed that this used to be my case too.

Being a people pleaser can easily relate to an inability to create and keep your own healthy borders. You feel you need to help once you’re asked, because you are convinced they wouldn’t manage without your help. What you don’t realise is the more you are unable to say ‘No’ to helping someone, the more they get used to you always helping them and will be asking you over and over until one day you feel it’s too much and maybe you’re doing too much and need to stop, but you can’t find a way out with saying no, because if you try, they might not accept this sudden change in you and call you selfish.

And it could be that you just can’t handle that someone thinks of you as selfish because you want people to love you and think you are always helpful. This can take you to feeling unfulfilled and a of meaningless as existence if you suddenly can’t be helping anyone. What are you here for?

Not finding a sense in your own existence regardless of the approval of others is excruciating.

What happens if you find a partner who is just perfect to fit into your tendencies of looking after someone? You may become someone who’s called an enabler. This already relates to a romantic relationship in which one struggles with any kind of addiction and the other one, the pleaser, enables their addiction. This kind of relationship is usually also called co-dependent, who hides any evidence of such addiction and makes it disappear. You want to take care of your loved one’s problems, you don’t want them to feel lonely and suffer in the same way you did. You don’t want them to lack the love you lacked, because you know damn well what this feels like. This may even mean you exist only for them and they can’t imagine it other way. You try to satisfy every one of their needs at the expense of your own needs.

Nowadays we often hear about self love and how it’s so important to think of yourself mainly and not others. When a manipulator can call you a selfish person when you want to take care of your own needs and not theirs. So yeah, back to the self love stuff, the internet and all the self help books are so full of it aren’t they ? You may just end up feeling overwhelmed by all the information and don’t know what to start with at first. It may often seem easy to some working on our self love, but unbelievably difficult to others.

What I’d say is every individual needs their own time. As this is something I always talk about, it may even take you years to develop a healthy relationship with yourself from the moment you start realising you are neglecting yourself. Some people manage on their own, some people need help from a professional. Most of us have suffered in our early childhood and learned we’re not worth the love and we are unable to give ourselves the love throughout growing up and in our adulthood, hence where most of the addictive and self-destructive behaviours come from. A self destructive behaviour can be even when you stay in a relationship knowing it’s not healthy for you, but you stay. Because you believe it’s what you deserve after all.

Who on Earth is there to tell you what you are worth? Were your parents (or fosters?). Well don’t be mad at yourself believing they were. As a child they were the ones you looked up to. Understanding now there is no one else than you to establish your own value is one of the first steps. It can be that you need to completely reprogram yourself at the age you’re at now, 24, or 34, the older the harder it can be. But I believe it’s never impossible.

* If you want to know – I took this picture at the end of August by the lake Walchensee in Bavaria, exceptional views

Why did I decide to study Psychology? Everyone’s journey is different and yet unique and important

Hello lovely souls,

how I would use to begin my articles. I haven’t written one for a while although I have made my list of ideas and I must admit it’s blooming. Like in general my mind has been blooming and flourishing and I am slowly overcoming the burnout and the pointlessness in life.

Looking back at my articles, you might have an idea why I actually decided to ultimately focus on studying a university career in Psychology. This idea came to me during the first quarantine this spring in the moments of deepest depression and pointlessness. And, why not? In the end, this career gives me an entirely new insight into everything. And it isn’t really easy. It has been anything but easy since the start in October.

My original decision also came with the intention to help myself and live a valuable life and stop this trans-generational madness going on in our family – a summarising easy way to describe it. I would have never seen myself studying a masters, nor dealing with statistics! But when you are studying something with a much deeper purpose and interest – it’s not the same anymore. Originally I thought – oh well I will help my family. Now, understanding a bit more, I don’t think I will, but I will help myself quite a bit and won’t let the same continue onto next generations, however, thinking that this is carried in genetics, I might not be able to prevent it entirely.

I felt ashamed sharing the fact I will study psychology with several people who have known me for a while or know me with the worst of me, such as my therapist. I kept thinking what others would think over and over, such as -‘ this crazy and unstable girl….’? and why wouldn’t I? It’s much more admirable than whenever I see someone at a quite advanced age, maybe their forties still living with those patterns and such a strong unwillingness to change them with their heads full of -‘those idiots around me……’.

The development and flexibility of our brain and how much we can work with it is incredible. As you might be aware, it’s via changing our mind that we can achieve the happiness we are looking for. Not via changing the exterior conditions. Have I achieved that ? No way at all. But the fact I want to continue this process is already feeding my joy to live. Psychology is just a part of this path, not a purpose, however a super difficult part of it.

Love to you all

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Traumatised minds in times of global pandemic

Hello lovely souls,

Alright, this has been far more than difficult to get myself on top of this, at least a little bit. As you know, journaling helps you, if you’re sane, or not, traumatised, or not. This has been a topic amongst others throughout the outbreak of this pandemic – wherever this emerged from, if artificially created or real-.

I first have a quote for you, sourcing from the ‘Navigating Trauma in an Uncertain Time’ Facebook group lead by Emily Joy Rosen. This was said by Bessel van der Kolk, a doctor working with post traumatic stress and childhood adverse experiences and its effects in life of an adult.

“Beneath the surface of the protective parts of trauma survivors there exists an undamaged essence, a Self that is confident, curious, and calm, a Self that has been sheltered from destruction by the various protectors that have emerged in their efforts to ensure survival. Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate, the Self will spontaneously emerge, and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process.”

As he says, deep in, depending on the level of harm that’s been done, we are okay and healthy. However, the other parts of our psyche, many of our layers are damaged. The first important point is to realise that THIS is not us. This is not how we function in our pure self. Super hyper aroused or extremely hypo aroused, fearful and paranoid- waking up, not falling back asleep, worried about having given food to our neighbour’s dog, what if he dies? Not concentrated on the simplest, we can say, little task, followed by self-loathing.

I found out about what I am potentially struggling with about over a year ago, but still wasn’t sure. I couldn’t connect parts together, but most of it was making sense to me. I’ve listened to countless amount of different online conferences on Trauma, embodied therapies, Yoga and embodiment, did a workshop on Trauma Sensitive Yoga from TCTSY and finally, started trauma therapy. All with the intention to understand and forgive, accept and re-learn patterns. I went from excruciating anxiety and to an absolute self neglect, letting a toxic person decide over my life, accuse me of being selfish and only thinking about myself, emotional blackmailing included. I had the power to escape three times and kept coming back.

Now, with each piece of new information about the past, I am understanding more and more, which is still not enough to change those so deeply rooted patterns of fear.

A question arises, what is so much worse about it now? As I have noticed, thanks to social websites, most people now struggle with life motivation and the sense of existence. We can say even those people, who can otherwise lead a relatively okay life. We have fallen into hopelessness about the future, our finances, inability to travel and see our loved ones, fear of being controlled by the those dictators who are in charge of our country and are taking advantage of the situation to reinforce their power.

Before this happened, I couldn’t find meaning in most activities, which is combination of trauma with other factors, I believe. Just feeling there’s nowhere else to go. You see, now these feelings emerged in many people’s lives too, more subtle or more obvious. I hear people say they do not see a point in getting out of their bed, are full of anxiety related to their future, their families and the inability to move.

A traumatised individual develops a set of coping strategies to escape from the trauma, the feelings or numbness in their body and from an extreme tension held in their chest. They either become aggressive, or escape from everything, shut down and become very passive or submit and start over pleasing others (these are called the 4F’s -fight,flight,fawn,freeze) which is where they find their sense of existence. Simply because being with themselves is too painful, too much, as long as they’re not getting help.

I’ve always hated being controlled by anything, the idea that something or someone decides for me and I can’t escape from such manipulation was my biggest nightmare, (hence why I escaped three times from a manipulative partner). There has always been a way out. Before getting into anything, I always needed to reassure myself, that there was a way out of this. Moving from one country to another, constantly, was truly very satisfying and partly a solution to the tension I hold, with escaping, the tension goes away too, at least until the next situation comes up. But there isn’t really a way out now, is there.

Many traumatised minds during this situation might find themselves in even worse conditions than in our life before. In a way, if this can be seen as a war, many people developed their traumas in wars or war-like conditions, this can throw us back into traumatised memories. In my case- freaking out about not getting out of this country and therefore not being able to escape and having someone (or something) control my life. We can feel like many other people don’t really understand our reactions  to the situation and we feel alienated from our surroundings, because we go into an overwhelming anxiety  when studying the statistics or reading the news and trying to feed our anxious mind more and more. Imagining the worst ever scenarios, where countries keep us locked down for ages and our rights and options to escape will never be the same. Equally, we can even alienate from our close friends, just because we see that our reaction to this is so different and they don’t really understand us.

I remember my outbursts of aggression at primary school, which I now know where they are coming from. I now know why everything takes me twice as much time and no matter how hard I try to get to the same pace as a ‘normal’ person, I won’t get there. The importance lies in accepting this situation. When seeing someone at least very apparently successful, wishing them the best and not comparing that I could be somewhere there if only I  weren’t so exhausted. Luckily, there is a hope for us, as mentioned, this is not our true nature and there are ways to reverse the brain damage, however, the most efficient ways, I found, are the most painful.

Join Facebook group ‘Navigating Trauma in an Uncertain Time’ Take care, you are not alone

Love

Adela

Becoming drug free ~ The difficulties you face letting go of antidepressants

Hello world, hello lovely souls,

Let me share an experience with you, that you might relate to. I know, I’d been planning an article on Trauma Sensitive Yoga and also on changes in our lives, but just now, this is the most worrying, energy draining and mind occupying ‘thing’.

I am going through quite intense withdrawal symptoms right now. This is due to slowly letting go off my antidepressant medication which I’ve been taking for 5 years. And as many of you may have experienced, it’s fucking hard (I apologise for use of that word but that’s how strong it is).

I’d been on this venlafaxine for years, during the whole time, I was refusing to start taking any anti-psychotics or mood stabilisers which were prescribed to me and I stayed on a relatively low dose. Throughout the time, I tried coming off twice, but I wasn’t at the right place nor circumstances and quickly started them again, as I was worried about not finishing my degree (how meaningful). Since around September 2019 I started lowering the dose even more. Not long ago, I stopped them completely.

I researched that venlafaxine is in a group of so-called short half-life antidepressants for which these withdrawal symptoms are worse than for the other group of long half-life. Other advice I read is to be in calm stress-free environment, have my support network and exercise a lot during the time you suffer from these symptoms, which depends on the time you’d been on your antideps.

All I think about now is that I simply can’t believe I stayed on something like this for 5 years and probably would have stayed for much longer with a psychiatrist who doesn’t even care about your soul. All this was doing to me was thoughts of no self-value and inner tension. I ended up in a vicious cycle of feeling a tension and urge to move away from where I was currently staying. I ended up unable to establish an emotional bond in a love relationship, because all I could feel was just really flat. Thanks to which  I hurt many people around me and mainly myself. But I didn’t know that way out was literally just there for me and no one else, only I could find it.

I’d been convinced it would never get better and started falling into a victim mode and believing the world’s burden lies on top of me. I expected everyone to understand and feel with me. I used my diagnose and my medication as a reason for everything.

This SNRI, as in serotonin and nor-epinephrine re uptake inhibitor, spirituality and emotion killer made a huge part of my life so far and I’d even been convinced that i would ideally keep it for good. I was being questioned by friends and other people if I’d considered coming off it. I know that I was experiencing so much fear inside me only thinking about coming off my ‘life saviour’. What I had to come to realise is that my only life saviour is me, my strength. I am no longer a victim, but rather responsible for my feelings, emotions, actions and consequences. All I know now is that it will take a while and I need to manage that ‘while’ the best way I can or if I’m managing it sleeping all day, crying all day, doing nothing for a week,  then it’s also totally fine.

What I feel now is extreme tension in my body, extreme irritation, sleepiness, a bit sick from stomach, quite a headache…. All  I want to do is start running, get exhausted, go away from me? But here I am, it’s only been two days, maybe more is to come.

I am extremely grateful for all coincidences in my life, mainly since June this year, which slowly brought me to realise the truth and find a more spiritual, embodied real healing, so I could stop surviving and start thriving.

You can also start thriving when you want to. Remember it’s all in you, all the power for transformation, you hold it within. I love you all.

 

And what is the point?

Hello beautiful souls,

As you may know, I’ve recently been very unstable and I’ve travelled around from Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, there and back – finally Germany for Trauma Sensitive Yoga course, about which I will write a special post. And I was happy escaping from situations, people, bad feelings, getting into different feelings, until I ran out of ‘fuel’ and had to stop and park myself back in Czech Republic. That’s been nearly 2 weeks now. I’ve been emotionally draining myself by refusing everything about Czech Republic from weather to the system. In the end, I refuse all systems. I had to face close-minded family attitude and negative and disappointing and ‘opposite of cheering’ words.

Before having arrived ‘home’ (I consider the world my home), I was settled, balanced, I only cared about where to sleep, what to eat and how to move and connect with the nature, which I’d discovered, was the real cure for anxiety of today’s world!. Now I am back to unsettled, feeling worthless and feeling the urge to escape again.

Although I’d made plans for starting a Yoga teacher training, doing my TEFL course, so that language teaching would be easier and making my future easier, I now lost the ‘point’, the sense and meaning in these activities. I ask, what is the point in waking up into a world full of jealousy, envy and violence? I, as an energetically very sensitive individual, get strongly affected by energies around me and especially at ‘home’. These energies are envious, negative, critical and not supportive. I have a real struggle maintaining my inner child safe and feeling loved, because all I’m surrounded by is selfishness. I ask, what is the point in doing a 4 month Yoga teacher training just to be commercially, internationally certified, when that’s not what Yoga is about for me? All that these people care about prior to starting a course, is how they will get their course money in the quickest way. Have I at all been asked about my Yoga experience? I will rather remove myself from what I see as a quick commercial machine process, from which as a final product comes out a ‘professional Yogi’, who doesn’t know anything about the real philosophy of Yoga.

What is the point in washing my hair, if it gets dirty again ?

What is the point in having a super comfy bed and beautiful bedroom, if I can’t sleep? If I’m working in an indoor job and can’t spend enough time outside and in nature, how can I sleep? In the end, I will disconnect from my real nature and from nature and get back into insomnia. In fact, I am already there. Why should I care about a bed?

But I ask, why is it so difficult? All we look for are natural/artificial chemicals to help us stress less, sleep better, relax, improve our digestion etc etc., when we don’t need to spend all this money if nature gives it to us for free. Digestion issues are caused by stress and stressful life. All the ‘stressful’ aspects about our lives are created by artificial factors. All in life was made to be simple, but we, by wanting to achieve much more, earn much more and go against our nature, make it not simple. This healthy stress is the one that our body experiences when something has to be done, something life-saving such as escaping from a wild animal or finding food for our starving children. It becomes unhealthy when it reflects in our physical body and we start suffering from different minor or major illnesses.

What I often hear is ‘but how can you live like this? I wouldn’t be able to do that!’ and maybe neither would I be able to do that in long term, maybe yes. All I know is that now I desperately need to go back to walking barefoot outside, using what nature provides to live.

There are these amazing and talented people, who have their own Yoga classes, art studios and more, and I could be jealous, because I’m nowhere near them and whenever I am motivated and start working hard, there is only a certain time, during which this lasts before I fall back into ‘and what’s actually the point?’ I am not jealous, I beat that emotion that I used to feel, same, which  many other humans feel.

There are travellers, who are able to gather many pictures, information, notes from their travels and then make a presentation. I could be upset that I’m unable to stand in front of people, because most parts of my journey I don’t remember as I haven’t written them down and often dissociated because of my trauma. Often I don’t see a point in taking all these pictures and writing as all I want to live in that moment is right that moment.