What I know for sure is, you (Nosy-Be) are challenging me and I take this very serious.
No wonder so many people speak about going on a trip to find themselves. I get it! We’ve been traveling for exactly 4 months today and this journey has me feeling all the ‘feels’ and is throwing me all the challenges that I need to grow every day. I have been striving to be the best me for a long time, but what I experience right now is a very concentrated version of my life. There aren’t many distractions and triggers get to me quickly. My heart is open to listen. And that’s great and exhausting at the same time.
This place, Nosy-Be, a small island in Northern Madagascar, has had me struggling since we got here two weeks ago. After we arrived at our Airbnb, I laid down, took a nap and knew that something was off.
We had dinner that night with a Frenchman and his two sons who are the same age as our sons. Instead of eating at 5:30pm, when we asked to eat, the dinner was ready closer to 9pm, but that was just one thing after traveling for over 24 hours from Spain to get here.
The next morning, our first morning in Nosy Be, I was laying in bed and my whole body was screaming, “I don’t want to be here!”
It was an interesting feeling, because the last time I felt like that was in England, in June. I shared about this in an earlier blog (you can read it here, if you are interested).
I stayed in bed while my husband and boys went to eat breakfast at the little restaurant. They cook for people who stay in the 3 houses on their property.
I felt so stuck and unmotivated that I didn’t want to get out of bed. I just felt like curling up in a ball and crying.
I told myself to go through all the emotions that wanted to come up. I tried to feel them all. Then I made a list of things that really bothered me and that needed to be changed, so that I could feel better being here.
It was not a surprise that everything that came up had to do with my heart topic, FREEDOM. I don’t like to feel dependent on calling a taxi to drive us anywhere we want to go, because there is just nothing around that can be reached by foot or it’s too dangerous to walk in the dark. (Sun sets at 5:30 pm here.)
To feel free and balanced I need to be able to be in contact with my clients and I need to have internet that supports 1-2 hour video calls. The wifi at our house comes and goes and never reaches more than 0.3 MB/s.
Other than that, the energy on this island seems very low. And this does not only have to do with the poverty of the people living here.
The thing is that if we had booked this stay as our honeymoon or just a 3-7 day vacation, I am sure that everything would have been great and we would have made it work, but we were supposed to live here for one month. I am saying ‘live’, because that’s what we do. We don’t have a home right now. We live at the places we go. This trip is our life and we need to figure out how to live our lifestyle in different places. So, being able to work is a must for me, unless I am purposefully taking time off for a vacation.
After I had the clarity of what was really going on and making me feel so low, I knew that the only way to change my reality was to get up and get into ‘doing mode’ and actively work on changing things.
BUT I couldn’t get up.
I felt so heavy and unmotivated that moving was difficult. It took another half hour to sleep and rest and think and what came up for me was, WOW, that’s exactly how some of my clients feel! They feel so stuck that they are paralysed. They can’t go into ‘doing mode’. Usually, it comes to me naturally as I am a doer, but this experience was new to me, or at least I felt it as a new kind of intensity.
I finally got up and wanted to shower and start the day. But after I turned on the water, it just dribbled and then stopped. There was a power outage! No power meant no running water from the electrically drawn well pump. We were told power normally comes back in 10-20 min, but it took over 3 hours that day.
That sent me right back into my spiral of negative thoughts. I put on clothes, but went right back into bed for another half hour, until my husband came home.
He was very supportive and asked me if I needed more time to myself or if he could talk to me. I was worried he would want to start fixing things for me, but he knows that I don’t always want him to step right into fix-it mode when I just want to vent. (Isn’t he sweet?)
But now, I really needed some fixes!
We planned on figuring out how I could get a SIM card for my phone, so that my internet situation would be solved and I would be able to work without relying on the poor wifi, as well as many other things.
We were ready to tackle my list, but had to wait for the English speaking owner of the AirBnb to wake up, which finally happened at 1pm. The rest of the workers all spoke only French and could offer no solutions, they just said to wait for the owner to wake up.
By that evening, we had taken a trip by taxi to Helle-Ville (yes, that’s the real name!), the biggest town on Nosy Be. The Frenchman who also stayed here helped us get SIM cards. Not knowing how much I would need, I ended up with a 50GB plan for the month. We also found a big, new French supermarket and bought a lot of foods for the week. Life looked much brighter than it had in the morning.
That was a bit over 2 weeks ago and even back then I could see what this trip was going to teach me or how this place was going to challenge me. And it sure has been a challenge!
That day I made a list of potential learning point:
- Stand up for my own needs
- Get over my fears what other people might think of me
- Strengthen my money and abundance mindset
- Surrender to what is, without sacrificing myself
- Learn French
And, WOW, has it been a ride! Yes, all of these topics have been coming up big time and I am still embracing these challenges every day.
One of the biggest panic points was our commitment of one month that we were set to stay in Nosy Be. We had flights booked to our next stop, the Seychelles, on September 7th. I say had, because looking at everything I listed above, we came to the conclusion that it would serve us better to shorten our stay in Nosy Be. We are yearning for more civilisation and the ability to walk, or at least take a car, to get food whenever we want and not rely on a taxi (whose price seems to change day-to-day), because there is nothing nearby.
Nosy Be is a very poor country and it is also very beautiful. The nature and the clear waters are pristine. As I said, if we wanted to take a nice vacation for 3-7 days, a hotel would be perfect, with tours they offer to other islands and such.
BUT for our lifestyle that we are living right now, this is just not a place we want to be!
Since we made the decision to leave next week, I have noticed that things have shifted. People have found us. We can get fresh fish, squid or octopus right on the beach or the fishermen come up to our house. We have two lovely women come to our house every morning between 8 and 9am with fresh fruits. They know that we like green bananas and big papayas and also offer us other fruits.
Greg and I like to spend time at the hotel 300 meters down the beach when we work or like to just get out, as it offers a bit more luxury. The boys now love to go there to have a mango juice while we watch the sunset. It feels abundant and we are fortunate to surround ourselves with people who speak English and that have things in common with us, like traveling the world!
I can enjoy and embrace our last couple of days much more than worrying about having to stay here for a whole month. Once again, it’s so important to stay in the ‘now’ and to not be overwhelmed by a big chunk of time.
The internet is still very slow, but it has held up through all my Zoom coaching sessions, which is very nice and important for me.
I still feel like this place has a very low energy, in contrast to other places where I have felt my energy overflowing (such as in Austin, Texas, or on the Canary Islands). I feel great when I jog at the beautiful beach, but somehow it makes me more tired than it did in Spain.
The nights here are also rather restless. The guard dogs bark a lot. It is pretty warm, and never cools at night. The beds are very uncomfortable. I am definitely looking forward to more restful nights at the next place.
Until we leave (in 5 days), I will enjoy nature around us, the lemurs that visit us almost daily, the women with their fruits, our octopus fisher, a trip we have planned to see whales and maybe dolphins or whale sharks, and a trip to Helle-Ville, which we’ll do later today.
One of the most interesting facts is that I really feel stuck here and it’s hard for me to create my own freedom, whereas our children run around very freely here. They love to be able to run around on the property, on the beach and down the beach to meet one of us at the neighboring hotel there. Their freedom needs are met.
And this is exactly what I love about my work with different women. It makes it super interesting to learn and understand that freedom means something totally different to every person on this planet. And at the same time there is a place for everybody’s very own needs and nobody should ever be judged for whatever is important to them.
I dream of a world where every person can live his and her own freedom and enjoy life to the fullest. Where everybody gets the support they need to create exactly this life. Where we get together and understand that this world is abundant and that abundance expands proportionally to match our desires. There is no competition, only love and support.
And this is possible! Let’s work on it together.
If you would like my support, please book a free introductory session here on Calendly or get in touch with me through this website!
I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Love and gratitude, Annika <3