This morning I had an epiphany!
I used to have a lot of these, and I feel like lately they haven’t been happening nearly as much. So much so that having one made me miss that feeling. Such a great feeling isn’t it!? That moment of absolute insight, understanding and sudden complete clarity… Wow.
Now, that I stop to acknowledge the fact that I haven’t had many epiphanies of late I wonder why that is?… Possibly simply because there was that period of my life where I went through such rapid, transformational change that it couldn’t have been any other way than to have had bulk epiphanies (my little mind was blown daily, hourly, minutely in fact). Perhaps now that I’m on a steadier road of still constant but undeniably less drastic change epiphanies are just not as readily available. Perhaps now that I am on a road of building on the foundations I created, versus a complete life overhaul as my entire reality metamorphosed from one existence to another, epiphanies just can’t factor in as often.
Sad because epiphanies are fun, and I sure enjoy having them! But also, fantastic because that period of change as I transitioned from one way of doing life (anorexia nervosa) to another (being me) was exhausting. But all that aside in honour of the fun and ripe promise that epiphanies bring I’ve raced inside to share the one I’ve just had, about 10 minutes ago actually, with you.
I want to share it with you because I think it is worth sharing (not everything is worth sharing).
I want to share it with you because I think it is life changing for me and perhaps it can be for you also. Maybe now, maybe tomorrow or maybe sometime later down the twisting, winding track of life. Or maybe you’ll never get it or maybe you’ve already gotten it and I am the one who is late to the show. You decide what you want to do with the story I’m about to share…
Once Upon A Time
The origins of this epiphany date back a few years now. All the way back to 2015 to a time when I was travelling solo through Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America (yep that’s me in the cover pic sporting my colourful Ecuadorian bum bag at the incredible Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico).
So, you could say this particular epiphany has been quite a long time in the making. Maybe it could go into the Guinness Book of Records for the most prolonged epiphany ever?
I had just flown into bustling Cancun after 4 months of living and working in quiet Puerto Rico and within hours of landing I met two people. Let’s call them Max (Maximillian) and David because that was their names.
They couldn’t have been more different.
Max was young and what I can only describe as painfully handsome. I remember well how gorgeous he was (and I’m sure my imagination has only increased that over time).
He had the most readily available smile that lit up his whole face. It was amazing. From the way he spoke to the way he held his body everything about him was alluring. You could see that others knew it and you could see that he knew it too.
We connected well, hung out until sunset and agreed that I’d join him and two of his mates to go on a tour they had booked for the next day. We exchanged phone numbers and left for our separate hostels. His was full and I still had to find a place to stay. Tomorrow we planned we’d stay together, his last night.
Moments after I’d finally checked into what seemed to be the only hostel in Cancun with any beds left (I found out why when the nightclub next door really started to kick off at 2am) I met David.
David was tall, white and an amazingly diverse mix of shades of pink (the Mexican sun clearly not agreeing with his skin complexion). He caught my eye with his green and gold eyes and waved for me to come over, arms open a beer in hand. I was standing on the rooftop balcony after a long day’s travel and the exhaustion of finding myself in an unfamiliar place. I was already missing the sound of the ocean and the 7 dogs I’d come to adore. Cancun was worlds away from the calmness of Puerto Rico. I was attempting to get a minute to myself to sort out the questions inside my mind of just what I was doing in this moment, tomorrow, with my life. A one-way ticket to Mexico? What had I been thinking?
I reluctantly walked over and joined him. He shared his bread and avocados with me, and I shared my dragonfruits and bananas. Four hours later I knew I wasn’t seeing Max tomorrow (or likely ever again). David was flying out the following night and needed a second person to see some caves he wanted to visit before he left. The guides wouldn’t take him alone as he was too old and a liability (no one over the age of 60 was supposed to entre these caves).
The next day David and I got up early and caught what seemed like an endless convoy of buses. Dave sweating profusely in the heat and chatting away happily with anyone that would listen in his American accent and his unique mix of Spanish and English. Me mostly sitting in silence beside him listening and staring out the window in wonder at the scenes, smells and sounds that flashed by. I was in awe. My worries and concerns of the evening before forgotten. I have never felt more alive than those years I spent travelling. Everything was incredible, brand new, unknown, exhilarating.
As we paraded on and off what seemed like 10 or so buses never was it clear if we were headed in the right direction until we’d somehow finally arrived at the entrance tunnel to the system of ancient and very much forgotten caves I’d never heard of but David had his heart set on exploring.
After a full day of exploring the caves, swimming in cenotes and bumpy bus rides back to Cancun David and I were finishing our meal together (tacos) before he headed to the airport to fly to somewhere in South America. I’ve forgotten just where he was off to next… when he said something that annoyed me. Something which struck a nerve within me at the time, and I couldn’t have known why until now.
So, 6 years later I’m taking the time to share it with you.
Because 6 years later I’ve had my epiphany.
76-year-old David said 7 words in the offhanded way he had of saying most things, of slipping insights and wisdom you just weren’t expecting into common conversation.
“Travelling won’t bring you what you’re seeking” (or perhaps he said “what you want” but seeking sounds wiser, don’t you think?)
I did a double take and shrugged it off. He doesn’t know me I remember thinking petulantly. Travelling was the best thing I’d ever done and exactly where I needed to be.
I didn’t know it then.
And I didn’t know it in the next 6 years to come.
But I know it now.
He was right.
I travelled to get away.
It’s only 6 years later that I can admit that.
I travelled to fit in, I travelled to find someplace I belonged, I travelled to be something I wasn’t, I travelled to feel something different, I travelled to understand.
I didn’t want it to be true that I couldn’t find what I needed through travelling because some of the best moments of my life were the moments I spent travelling and I wouldn’t go back and change my decision to travel even if I could but looking back, I can see it was true. I was travelling to try to find the answers.
I was travelling to try to find the answers out there.
The only problem is everywhere you go, there you are.
The epiphany 6 years later is that the answers I wanted, the experiences I wanted, the peace I wanted could only be found within me.
Could there be any more cliché epiphany to have?
I am doubtful and I apologise if you have read this far waiting to find out the meaning of life only to be told a cliché’ that the answers lie within you. How many times have you heard variations on that theme? But I ask you, have you got it yet? Do you believe it yet?
All the self-development I’ve done (and believe me for a few years there when I was really committed to recovery I did little else because that’s what it took to recover) I’d never had this epiphany. Not in the way I did this morning where it felt like I’d been whacked over the head with a fry pan only the fry pan was a soft cloud filled with rainbows and exploding gold stars of knowing, of letting go and in that instant my life changed. Again.
In that instant it felt like finding the final piece to a puzzle I didn’t even know I was desperately trying to complete.
Honestly, it felt like I had discovered the answer to the universe. I suppose that is the definition of a epiphany is it not? But for someone who spent so many years priding themselves on their intelligence and their creativity surely, I could have come up with a better epiphany than this cliché?…
But it is exactly it’s clichéness, it’s simpleness, it’s “oh but of coarseness” that I love.
Even as I type this, I know there is no way to truly convey the feeling behind the epiphany and it is one of my regular hopes that when mere words fail that enough of you reading this have had the deeper experiences of being human that allow you to understand the difference I am talking about. The difference between knowing something theoretically and really and truly knowing it.
Why Now?
Why would David’s words all of a sudden make sense to me and fall into perfect place now of all times? After 6 years of quiet incubation? Really?
I can only guess, and my guess is a fun one! So, I’ll share it with you because the bounds of the human mind astound me, and I hope my sharing a snippet of insight into my mind ignites some fun within you and inspires you to delve a little deeper into your mind and the minds of those in your life.
You know that saying “when the student’s ready, the teacher will appear?” Well turns out I wasn’t a ready student with the first teacher, and it took a second teacher 6 years later for the student to receive the message fully.
Last night I was lying in bed snuggled up to the man I love as he read through some papers in preparation for work the next day. He was pointing out all the things the authors had stuffed up including sentences not making sense or words out of place. He was explaining that some of these studies he’d been asked to read couldn’t really show anything of value because they were systematic reviews of a bunch of studies that were entirely dodgy to begin with.
For someone who once lived for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and who needed to have a plethora of evidence before allowing myself to make any kind of statement or form an opinion on a topic and who has now (I realised last night as we chatted about these papers) really come quite the full circle in loving and valuing individual stories and anecdotal evidence. There is always an exception to the rule. Maybe it was my hypnotherapy training that expanded my mind – we hypnotherapists truly are trained to have the most curious, open and non-judgemental minds on the planet. The belief that anything is possible has been installed so deep within my being it’s hard to imagine that I once lived a life of the complete opposite.
Anyhow, my unconscious mind must have processed all this talk about scientific papers perhaps not being all they’re cracked up to be (think when someone in the comments section of Instagram demands to know the source of where this or that person got their information) overnight as I slept and by the time I’d finished breakfast thought it was time to share its findings with me (me being my conscious mind which could never have come up with this stuff alone).
My unconscious mind connected the dots between those words spoken 6 years ago and the scientific papers my boyfriend was not impressed with to come to the climax point of a juicy epiphany that the answers I’ve been seeking are within me.
Simple.
I finally understood that there does not exist nor will there ever exist a study, outside authority, person, thing I can look to in order to get the answers I need. They are within me.
I offer that you please take what you need from this story. If it is nothing more than an interesting story to you then fantastic after all there is endless value in the enjoyment of a good story and who knows 6 years or 26 years down the track your unconscious might connect the dots in all the right ways for you to have your own epiphany. If through reading these words you experience a life changing moment immediately then fantastic. It is not for me to judge or tell you how it should be. It is for you.
Because guess what? Your answers are within you.
Having the evidence, the outside information and feedback is wonderful, useful and indeed necessary and if you want to truly be successful and live a purposeful life you must use it and enjoy using it, but you’d have to be a fool to have one experience and discredit and ignore it because it was not supported by society or science. Wouldn’t you? I did that for years. Not any longer.
The outside world is where we live and is always available to help but the truth you seek is within you.
P.s
For anyone that’s concerned about Max.
I did let Max know I wouldn’t be joining him on the tour the next day. We stayed in touch a little over the years. He went back home to Germany, finished his degree, got a job and got married. His life went on. My life went on. I’ll never know if he cared too much (or just how attractive our babies would have been) that I stood him up for 76-year-old Dave.
For anyone who wants to know a little more about David.
David was an interesting man. I met him when he was backpacking through Latin America after the death of his wife and in his words “the one true love of my life”.
He had a presence and an energy that was humbling in its honesty and genuineness. I found out later that he was actually incredibly wealthy, and I will never know exactly why it was that he chose to sleep in bunk beds in loud and often messy dorm rooms of hostels with people literally a quarter of his age and get around on “chicken busses”. I don’t know why but I suspect it was because he valued humans. For the brief snippet of time, I got to spend with this remarkable man that had insight into my life beyond what some of my closest friends have and long before I had that insight into myself I can suppose that he valued connection more than he valued his comfort.
Dave died a few years after I met him, so I never got the chance to ask.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
