Where to start?
They always say to start at the beginning, right?
Beginning or end? It depends on where you’re looking from, like everything else.
Today I can look at it through rose-colored glasses, but when it all began, I could see nothing but myself curled up in bed, on nights that felt endless, sometimes turning into days.
A ball of fears, desolation, and the desperate desire to be living in some damn movie that I could turn off with a remote—anything but my own life.
That urge to wake up from a bad dream that had become flesh, but still felt like madness.
The alienation of being at a crossroads that didn’t feel like mine.
That feeling of being a mere witness, as your own life slips through your hands too quickly to recalculate.
Wanting to extract my mind, the questions, and the anguish that overwhelmed me. Wanting to be anywhere but in my own body.
But as you can see, everything has a beginning and an end, and here both were.
Who am I?
Many things.
I could say I was and am a world traveler, young but with an old soul. A psychologist, a craftswoman, a traveler, a musician, a teacher, a woman, a daughter, and after India, a yogi and a writer.
I like the word seeker.
I could say that each of those parts shaped from a young age a particular sensitivity, a perspective, and a constant search for my true self, which led me to make this decision, with fear but also with courage.
I could say many things, but for the purpose of these writings and to place you and myself in time, I would start by saying I am a woman who left her home in Argentina to finally do what she had always wanted: to fulfill her dream of living somewhere other than the concrete jungle of Buenos Aires, the city of fury where I was born.
That woman loved to travel. Every time she traveled through the Argentine routes with her backpack, she dreamed of living in one of those remote villages with incredible landscapes. It was a recurring dream, but she had never dared.
When her father died, she found the courage to fly and leave everything behind.
The idea to travel abroad arose with some friends.
By the time she realized it, she had been living in the Nordic lands of Denmark for four years, with a climate, culture, and language completely different.
That woman learned to travel alone, to be far from home, to overcome difficulties, and to work many jobs that weren’t her profession as a psychologist.
Until, finally, when happiness eluded her, she realized it wasn’t there either. Not there, not in her last 4-year relationship, with its ups and downs that had left her broken and were failing her while slowly consuming her.
Not there, not in living in another country, not in walking through movie-like streets, not in incredible landscapes. Not there, not anywhere.
The key point is that she was realizing happiness was no longer in her life, and perhaps it had been gone for a long time.
And almost like a cold splash of water, she made the decision to make the biggest, most terrifying turn she never thought she would make: for the first time, she decided to let go of control, the wrong kind of control she had mastered but that was no longer taking her to happy places.
And after 34 years of constructing a certain “identity,” she once again had to open her eyes inward and make room for what she didn’t want: to face the fact that things weren’t going well inside her and that her life was slipping through her fingers. She was no longer who she was, and her body, appetite, dreams, and mental stability had been showing her this for a while.
She had to do something, but she didn’t know where to start.
To make things harder, an idea arose, which had turned into an escape plan: go to India alone, for an indefinite time. She needed to find truths. Like an electric shock and a slap in the face at the same time. To solve it all once and for all and to flip the table.
She needed both.
And without much clarity, strength, or timing, she left her things in a suitcase in a basement and left everything “arranged” as if she would never return, with a one-way ticket in one hand, the resignation of her old life in the other, and a secret: she couldn’t tell anyone about this decision, not even her mother, who was her entire family.
On one hand, she thought she felt ashamed.
Was she still searching for herself?
On the other hand, it was too risky. Her mother was too scared, and so was she. She didn’t have a clear plan, and this debt was her own and heavy, so she had to carry it at her own cost.
And wait!
The funniest part is that she didn’t even really want to go to India, but her soul had already dissociated from herself without her knowing. She had connected with forces bigger and more powerful than her mind.
She didn’t know it, but her body was already too small for her.
She was as terrified, angry, and desolate as she had ever been in her life, but the calling was so real she couldn’t avoid it, because that would have been the greatest betrayal to herself she would never forgive.
And although she was scared and completely fragile, she remained a warrior and decided to trust her intuition.
Paradoxically, this form of battle was one she had never fought. It was the complete opposite of what she had always done: it seemed more like simply stopping the fight and letting go of control. It was a surrender, but in a sense she had never known.
What mothers and society don’t teach us. Not all battles are won with sword and blood. Sometimes, we need to step away from the battlefield when the fight is not the right one and let go, even if it’s the same battle that has kept us standing for so long.
And we retreat, with the necessary love to see the other path that opens, one we might not want but is probably the one that’s meant for us, the one we need.Surrendering to that obstinacy that made us slaves and opening another door.That was her challenge.
So, this scared woman decided to trust the signs she was receiving, which began to multiply. She could truly feel deep inside her that a force was pushing her to move in this direction, one she didn’t want but could understand.Universe, God, destiny, her father’s spirit, her own soul, or all of that together.
So she flew to India, the only place she felt could give her new answers and some truth that would bring her back to a path. Any path, because she felt completely lost.
And she jumped, she just jumped… But this time, instead of falling, She started flying.
Through my writings, I share the travel story of that woman, who is myself. I share my “Leap into the Void,” which for me started—or culminated—with that trip to India, but I don’t think it’s much different from all those leaps, small or big, that many of us go through in life.Those that put us in a great crossroads, in that place of emptiness of answers, in that solitude so personal that it terrifies even when you’re not alone. Those challenges and lessons that lead us to the deepest growths we find in our lives.
In each personal story, the elements will be different, with other names and forms, but surely they’ll lead to the same outcome: we go through them, with enough courage to find our own truth and let our uniqueness arise, our true path, and the peace we’re looking for.
Questions, mandates, challenges, karmas, and a liberation process that I’m sure will resonate with those who read it, as they are nothing but the questions we all ask ourselves on this journey called life.
Filled with fear at times, Spartan warriors at others, and with the ups and downs of the middle ground where learning probably happens, we keep walking because we have faith that there is something more. Each person will bring what their heart feels, but how beautiful it is to allow ourselves to feel.
The fears shared with others are less strange, they become kinder and less monstrous. The complicity of not being alone in those pains allows us to laugh a little at them and free them from the mask where we hide them.
Perhaps, at some point, we won’t need any more masks to hide what doesn’t need to be hidden.
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I hope my words can accompany you in your own processes to learn to feel less alone in these searches.
Thank you for giving me your eyes to accompany you for a while, and thank you for accompanying me with them too. Opening the sensitivity that resides within us to resonate, validate ourselves in these searches, and discover new possible paths together.Walking in a tribe is always more enriching. It allows us to create networks that connect us, but also support us.
Realizing that we’re not really so alone and that we’re much stronger than we think.
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I lived in India for 6 months and 3 more in Asia.
And after that, I returned.
To India, of course.
In these writings that will be part of a book,
I share with much love the beginning of this story and how it all began.
I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I do now.
Namasté.
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