My Eat Pray Love Journey Part 1
From July to September my husband and I have been to 3 different places around the world and have gained so much from each and every experience. I want to say that these journeys reminded me of Julia Roberts in the movie Eat, Pray, Love. Each location brought me healing in different ways that has changed my life for the better. Traveling is such a gift! You get to experience different life styles, cultures, languages, food and the actual land itself. Everyone of these aspects of life changed my prospective on my own life and allowed me to pop the bubble I created myself and expand my reality with the wisdom I gained. I believe that traveling is so important for our humanity. It allowed me to meet people of completely different cultures and create a beautiful connection with them that will last a lifetime. It made me realize that just because we were born on opposite sides of the world or completely different continents that we are all the same. We all eat, we breath, we drink, we bleed the same and we all need companionship. We are no different than each other. From learning so much history about the places we traveled (which were Peru, Kenya and California) I realized that it was only us, humanity, that has created this divide between each other. It was only us who decided that because we practiced a different religion or preached a different philosophy that the other ones are wrong. It was humanity that imposed their views and ideals on places that had different views of the world. We are all created in the image of God. We are all put on this world for a reason and I do not believe that reason is to make others feel shame or disconnection because of a different ideal or belief. I believe the reason is to coexist with the acceptance of all. Each and every place we traveled to really helped me fully understand this concept and also brought so much more healing to my own personal journey as well. So lets start with Peru….
My trip to Peru, if we had to give it a word, I would say it represented PRAY. We took an extended training on serving Kambo on ourselves and others in the Amazon. During this stay we also tried different plant medicines like Ayauacsca (which was facilitated by the Shipibo tribe) and San Pedro. Between these three different medicines, I feel that I am still (after 3 months) integrating everything I learned from that week. We were 7 days in the Amazon with no phones and no hot water. It was so beautiful to disconnect from the outside world and to be fully present in the moment. It was so incredible serving Kambo to the people of the local village. Seeing them being so open to this medicine and willing to heal was very inspiring. We served people from all different ages, from 1 years old to 70 years old. I served a young 15 year old girl who already had a heart attack and came every day to do the work and heal. I asked myself so many times, how can a 15 year old girl have a heart attack?! And then I realized that every person is dealt with struggles and trauma to teach us these lessons so that we can come closer to fulfilling our souls purpose. However traveling to the local village also made me understand what could of been another reason. When we went to visit them in their village we saw lots of poverty. They didn’t have a proper sewage system, they didn’t have proper education and the majority of the young kids had no shoes and dirty clothes. They deal with the struggles of surviving and here I am getting upset at a restaurant when they dont get my order right (sigh). It was hard for me to not judge the way people lived in Peru. When we first got to Iquitos we went to visit the Bora Tribe and on our way we stopped off at a port where we saw a women and her 6 kids living on a platform with no walls. I was so devastated at this image and instantly started crying. I learned through my travels in Peru to not judge the way people live because you can have a home, food on the table, money to go out and enjoy but still not be happy. When I looked at the majority of the people in the village they didn’t look sad and miserable at all. This is how they grew up, this how their ancestors grew up. They didn’t have the need to want more because they were taught to be happy with what they have, to be happy to be alive and well. It made me understand our culture more. The more were exposed to, the more we want because we are able to see other people live these lives that “seem” better and that seem “more rich”. However, it is just a false sense of reality. We are constantly looking outward for the answers when we need to look inside ourselves to really truly be happy and to heal. Governments, dynasties, rulers all have a big impact on the quality of life for an individual. These are the people who believe they know what is best for the people of their land. But do they really know what is best for everyone? Learning about the Incan Empire and how it influenced Peru’s culture today was incredible to see. Back in the day, money didn’t exist to them. The idea of exchanging money for work was unheard of. They exchanged work for work, in order to help their community. They took many breaks to eat and relax and be with friends and family and then went back to work. They made sure the community grew as a whole and if someone fell short in helping out, they were exiled. Sounds harsh and not ideal in our time, right? but think about this… in our culture now we are all about the “I” and not about the “we”. How can I get more money? How can I get a better car? How can I get a bigger house? How can I get a promotion? I am sure that you have asked yourself one of these questions before. Humanity is not meant to thrive alone. We are meant to live in communities, we are meant to have companionship. So ask yourself this, if we thought about “we” instead of “I” do you think that our society would be so divided. Do you believe that there would be such a huge gap in classes? Would classes even exist? When we were in Peru, we became very close to our guides and they would tell us, the best way to pay your worker was with food, beer and the knowing that if they needed help they would be helped. They helped each other out. They didn’t have this idea that everyone needs to survive on their own, they had people to help them even if they couldn’t help themselves. On our travels to Kenya, we saw the same thing....
TO BE CONTINUED!