- Being alone with my children and experiencing the weight of single-parenting
- Slowly awakening to openness and inner spirituality and how Bali helped me a lot
- Moments of full bliss and inner joy
The kids and I went to Bali in the middle of December leaving Greg in Vietnam. He had two days to himself before he departed to see his family back in the USA (in Chicago).
Flying alone with the boys always has me anxious about everything that could happen and go wrong, but most of all that we wouldn’t make it to our Airbnb which was an hour ride away from the airport in Ubud.
I had a very great coaching the day before we left Vietnam and tried to stay in the positive energy that I had created for myself and my children for the trip ahead.
It was hard to say goodbye to my Hubby and I teared up a bit at the airport. Thankfully, the travels went pretty well. We only had a little bit of a problem at the ATM at the airport in Bali and I knew not being able to get money would have made the rest of that day really interesting…
I was very determined on not stressing at all that day and persisted until we had our money. I then got a sim card for my phone and we left the airport and went straight to a café outside which helped us all settle. We each got a snack and shared a big yummy smoothie before ordering the taxi. It got a little tricky when we couldn’t find the driver, but it all worked out.
On the way the driver stopped to buy a bottle of water for himself and right then Noah needed to go potty. We jumped out of the car and made it just in time for him to have diarrhea in a very dirty toilet without toilet paper, but even for that I was prepared and all worked out just fine.
Finally in Ubud, we checked into our very nice outdoor living villa and chilled for an hour or so, before walking 20 minutes to the big grocery store.
Loaded with 4 bags of groceries, we had no problem getting a Grab car back to our place. Later we learned how lucky we were, as we never again were able to get a Grab car in Ubud, as the service is not supposed to be available there; but we seemed to be operating on a good energy level that day.
We stayed in Ubud for 17 days without Greg. I had many days when I felt like my needs were not met. I felt like a servant to my children and entirely deprived of my own desires. At the same time I opened up to really feeling everything that came up.
I did not give up my meditations, nor on my morning workout routine. These are very special to me and I want my kids to understand and respect that I need these times to energize and fill my bucket of love for myself, so that I can be a better mama for them in being more present, more empathetic and more balanced in general.
Being away from Greg I did have more time to go deep into myself in the evenings when the kids were asleep. I must say that often I fell asleep with the kids between 8 and 9pm, but more sleep was very good for me and having them sleep with me in bed also limited the usual middle of the night wake up calls. Although I did wake whenever Niki rolled onto me in the middle of the night..
Bali culture is very spiritual. The Hindi pray at least three times a day when they do their offerings of colorful flowers, pieces of food and incense sticks to the different gods. Our homestay was part of our Balinese host home, and he graciously invited us to join their ceremonies and was very open to explain whatever we wanted to know.
Some people say that the tourists in Ubud are very fake, pretender yogis and such and being around this energy of dishonesty may feel very disturbing to them. While I may have seen some of these pretenders too, I stayed in a very different energy.
For me it was very liberating and good to feel the energy of the Balinese people, especially our host and his family who were so very welcoming.
The whole time being there I felt like I was about to going into an enlightenment stage. It was interesting because I was struggling not to complain too much about the kids and wanting to get out to explore much more than we did, but at the same time there was this very calm place inside of me that seemed to be growing.
When my husband finally joined us again, we spent a wonderful time reconnecting. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to emotional stay open as I did when being intimate with him. It was for sure a glimpse of spiritual enlightenment that I’ve never experienced before to connect with him sexually while feeling so open and grounded in myself.
A day later we went to experience a Melukat ceremony at a waterfall. It’s a ritual to cleanse the body, both spiritually and physically, from our present life as well as past lives, from negative energies. It was the most empowering thing I’ve ever done beside giving birth to my two sons.
Lots of different cleansings in different waterfalls and then three screams under a big waterfall. Screaming as loud as I can is always doing me quite well, but this was very special. Also because we did the ceremony together, me and my lover, and my family. This day opened my heart even further and gave me more trust in believing that I am taken care of, by myself, the universe and by my beautiful husband.
I am very thankful for the time I spent on Bali. I think Bali has much more to offer, but not stressing about having to see and do it all was exactly how I got to this place of openness and grounding. I found a big piece of myself and my female energy by just being open to receiving it. I feel whole and wouldn’t have missed this time of great self-development. Bali, I am grateful. You are my place of total freedom and bliss. I will take your energy with me!
Bali, I will be back!