Week Six: Re-surfacing

Chatterbox, enter stage left.

Steve: “I’m 72 hours late posting my blog post."

Chatterbox: "You’ve failed.”

It’s now Thursday evening in the Philippines, and I’ve just arrived at Puerto Princesa in Palawan, after a 5-hour, 200km+ van (air-conditioned thank god!) ride to my hotel before I start the journey back towards the UK. The last 4 days I’ve not had a wi-fi connection (first world problems). If I’d foreseen this 6 weeks ago when I started to write this blog series, the old Steve would have panicked. Even ‘the new Steve’ has been panicking slightly. Getting anxious each time he tried to connect on the first day, and failed. But after the second day I cared less, and by the third day I realised that I may not have quite reached the lofty heights that I’m aiming for yet, where you’ve all been sat waiting to read my latest post, and that having no wifi really wasn't something to be getting stressed about. Anyway…

It’s been a busy week for me here in the Philippines. No really, it has. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this busy. Busy relaxing. Busy reading (I’m on to book 4 of the trip today). Busy being selfish and focusing on me. Figuring out what to do next. How to move forward. Re-surface. However out of all the words that have washed over me and filled my thoughts for the last week, it was these below which ‘stuck’ especially after reading the next chapter of Williams and Penman's mindfulness programme - 'Trapped in the past or living in the present?'

"A setback changes you - fixing something to how it used to be is impossible"

in other words, a comeback is not a go-back. The thoughts of acclaimed author, motivational speaker, ordained minister and life adviser Tim Storey talking to Oprah, on her Super Soul Conversations podcast last month, about finding deeper meaning in your life to transform a setback into a comeback at any age.

Finding Myself?

When I first told some that I was planning a trip to the Philippines alone (I've since recruited an Australian friend as a travel buddy) many joked that I was off to 'find myself'. And on one level perhaps I was. An attempt to reclaim what I felt I’d lost. But after reading Mark Manson’s ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ I agree that this isn’t something that any of us should be aiming to do when we look to escape for a while (perhaps even to make the world go away when life gets too complicated, or we feel we are letting people down). Why? Because if you were to have actually found myself on this trip, what else would there be to work towards in life? After all, the only thing that I’ve found this week is Dory and Nemo whilst I was snorkelling and even that’s a long-stretch of the imagination after I’d been transported on a boat for an hour and plonked in the best snorkelling spot in the Archipelago. If I’d found myself here then I might as well just drop the mic Beyonce-style and exit stage left, right?

Round-Round

So why do so many people travel to the other side of the world on a mission to ‘find’ themselves? Could it be to escape? We only have to look at the analogy of a hamster in a wheel, often used to describe a situation where we feel trapped by our circumstances to understand why. Once that wheel has turned for long enough thoughts begin to flood our minds - ‘there is nothing I can do’, ‘I’ve lost something’, ‘I’m a burden to others’. All are states of mind which entrap us and stop us from moving on, and can indicate that we have difficulty in letting go of the past - we become experts at brooding, asking questions of ourselves such as ‘what did it all go wrong?’ - magnified by our social feeds where our culture of ‘likes’ has in many ways created in Western Society a series of expectations which we all need to live up to, resulting in emotions such as guilty and shame taking centre stage in a performance showcasing the foundations of fear, failure and not being ‘good enough’. But as @expectationtherapy summarised so perfectly yesterday on Instagram:

"until you change your thinking, you will always recycle your experiences"

Never Be The Same Again

I can relate to this. Before now I’ve maintained my defences to protect myself from feeling over-whelmed by that relentless spinning wheel. The exhausted hamster, looking for the nearest exit. I’ve given in to one fear after another, allowing them to feed upon one another creating a cycle for myself which felt irreversible. Why? Well, Williams and Penman believe that this can be linked to the way in which we remember events from the past - it’s easier to retrieve a happy memory; harder a traumatic one. As a result our brains tend to summarise a series of unhappy memories, making it harder for us to let go as these combine. Rings as bell here. This ‘dance of ideas’ choreographed in our minds creates different meanings for each of us creating destructive ‘self-talk’ effective at freezing ‘the dance’. Encouraging us to dwell on the past, looking for answers, rather than focusing on the present. 

Listen and then Shout

So what does this mean for my journey? I’m learning to accept ‘the now’ - taking an inventory and 'signing for the package' as Tim suggests to Oprah. Learning to become more connected again - whether to myself, new people that I meet or others who I have drifted from and miss. Or even in the case of my travel buddy, someone who I’ve not seen for 18 months, and who is a great friend. A surprising connection we have made has been the people running the hotel in which we were staying, in particular a retired (I’ve insisted this should be just seen as a break after witnessing his death-drop skills) Manilan drag queen now working as the site manager. Over the last five days he, and the rest of the team, have gone above and beyond to make our stay here exceptional. I’m grateful to them for making this part of our trip special, and can’t wait to see Darryl’s debut show (we’re leaving a review for the owners insisting that his talent is going to waste!) at the resort posted. And if the next step in my career fails then I've already told him I'll be his tour manager.

Some of my connections have been lost in the last couple of years as I’ve allowed them to take the back seat. I turned the volume down on them to accommodate the noise in my head. Many reading this, especially if they follow my social media channels may laugh at this statement as I’m well-known for my voice in the professional world championing apprenticeships and informed career choices, and this will continue in a new guise (watch this space!). The next step for me will be turning the volume back up. The volume of my own voice. And if you want to understand that a little more then this statement sums it up nicely: I may not (completely) be who I want to be right now, but I am thankful I’m no longer who I’d become. I’m learning to ‘fail forward’ and embrace my setbacks and the power within them. That power is going to be what turns that volume nob slowly clockwise. And will bring back my ‘shout’. As I’ve said countless times on this trip when the tricycle I’m riding looks like it’s about to crash, ore when a boat hits another in the Bascuit, or as Darryl approached the pool with his cheeky grin - ‘hold on to your knickers girls’ (credit: posh spice, SpiceWorld: Movie)

Feeling Myself

The first step towards this? Shifting my satellite dish, so that I am in charge of what’s being picked up. Using my setback to plan forwards, whilst reclaiming the parts of my life that once energised and enabled me to live my fullest life. Identifying those people and things who Tim suggests may have taken me ‘off the yellow brick road’ is an important part of this. But also reconnecting with the activities that I love is already helping. I brought a resistance training brand with me on this trip which I’m actually using (the last time I did this I used it once in a whole month), and I’ve been swimming one kilometre in the pool every morning. My bookworm tendencies have been largely rebooted by the 2 hours each day that the hotel generator is switched off to rest. I’m already planning the ways I will force myself to switch off in a similar fashion each day when I return to the UK in June. Because after all, as our dear RuPaul says: 

"If you can’t learn to love yourself, then how the hell you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an Amen?"

Happy #MindfulMonday ;) 

Previously - Week Five: The moment I started creating choices for myself

Up Next - Week Seven: Learning to dance (again)