Travelling Solo – the awful uncomfortableness of it.

There was a time when dining alone, checking into a hostel alone, wandering the streets alone made me feel awfully uncomfortable.

Now (thankfully) there is a sense of total empowerment that comes with being ok to be alone. To feel confident and secure within this vulnerability.

For me, this ok-ness creates space for me to observe and absorb.

Observe. Absorb.

I find at home (with hindsight of course) that I’m so busy going through the motions, that the observing and the absorbing is more fleeting and more superficial. I quickly pass over life. My senses become numb to the familiarity of it all.

When you travel, especially alone, you get to soak life up in a slightly different way. The vulnerability forces you to pay attention to your surroundings and to yourself.

***

This awareness came through to me as I was sitting, writing in a Hamburg bakery.

The bakery was all German, no English. 

Chatter surrounded me, breads were displayed – everywhere, strong black coffee surged through me. A song played overhead, I couldn’t place the tune, it was jazzy, upbeat, but I knew it. It made me smile.

The bakery was walls of yellow and wooden tables. Wall lamps offered a golden light, reflecting off brass banisters which surrounded the glass counter tops. The space was filled with a warmth, a total respite from the breezy, rainy, grey outside.

When I arrived the bakery was empty. I had woken early that morning thanks to my Cuban room mate. A burly, joyous specimen. She spoke Spanish and German and a little French. And so with my little French we butchered the language and discussed our homes, our lives. She showed me photos of her sick elderly mother, who is receiving Reiki for her cancer, she told me of ‘her love’ back home. She did all this while singing along to latino music with the occasional interruption to complain about the German weather. We bid each other ‘bonne journee’ and then she was gone.

She lit up my day and I hadn’t even left the room.

So I had arrived early, to an empty cafe. Gradually elderly couples and families with young children arrived and surrounded me. Tea cups and glass mugs clinked saucers, gourmet breads were spread with sugary (headachy) goodness, children spoke with delicate voices, couples chatted.

My surroundings filled me up. 

***

I’ve spent a lot of my trip travelling with companions. This wasn’t intentional. I touched base with people when I arrived and before I knew it we were off on mini adventures together. These moments of reconnecting, of sharing moments, are held close to my heart, really, so close.

But equally as much, the moments I shared with myself, on my own, being vulnerable are locked away too.

As I said, there was a time when being on my own made me feel so awfully uncomfortable.

But now, when I am on my own, I see the gift in it.

I notice I smile more at strangers when I’m alone. It forces me to reach out.

I connect more easily with my guides, whether that be The Universe, Angels, Saints, Intuition, Signs (call it what you will). And I follow through on these impulses, these conversations.

I create space to tune into what ‘I want’ in that moment.

I get out of my head, which sounds ironic, but true.

I sit and ponder.

I sit and write.

I sit and not apologise for wanting to stay somewhere a little longer, or take a nap, or wander down this street instead of that.

And I often get lost when I’m on my own. Totally lost.

But I always end up finding my way. Because it forces me to pay attention, to ask for help, reach out, ask questions, be alert to what’s going on and to tune into what I need in that moment.

In other words, it becomes about me and my experience. No one else’s. Just mine.

Travel has a way of nudging us to remember what’s important in life and what’s totally not.

It calls for detachment, which then allows for movement and flow.

It demands presence while giving permission to be, however we need to be, in that moment. 

It allows us to observe life. To observe ourselves. To take what we need from that moment and absorb it. Allowing it to fill us up.

If you’re apprehensive to travel alone – don’t be. You’re never really alone, honestly, and if anything it allows you to find the most important relationship we have – The one with ourself.

And now of course, the beauty of this awareness is to maintain this same state of being while at home. To observe for longer, to absorb more deeply and to be more vulnerable.