Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Travel can expand the mind, shed light on the world and provide salve for the soul. It can also reveal our dormant strengths
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Several years ago I set out on what would become four solo journeys to Ireland, a country I had yearned to visit for several years, to conquer fears, take risks, and tame the depression that thwarted my ability to feel happy. I was tired of waiting for the right person or the right time to go so I decided to travel solo. Doing so would allow me to set my own schedule and explore the places I wanted to explore without having to compromise with another traveler. I could have taken any road toward self-discovery, but I chose Ireland because my study of Celtic spirituality and music convinced me that Ireland was my spiritual home. I had an intuition that traveling to Ireland would lead to some much-needed emotional healing from my painful childhood and my unhappy marriage which had ended in divorce six years earlier. Here are some life discoveries I learned from my travels:
Conquering Fears
Driving Ireland’s roads by myself was the first and biggest fear I had to conquer, and it wasn’t easy. On my first trip, I was petrified of driving and that fear manifested itself in my gut with frequent stops for a toilet followed by handfuls of Imodium. I needed to learn to stay on the left side of the road and not scrape my side-view mirror along the stone walls. I had to learn to manage the clutch and shift with my left hand. (I was smart enough to rent an automatic transmission on my subsequent trips.) I entered my first roundabout the wrong way and, after exiting, I had to pull over and convince myself not to give up. I felt less fearful on trips 2-4, but driving continued to require much concentration, especially in the years before GPS, and it exhausted me. However, there were places in western Ireland I longed to see so I fought the fear and ended up driving the expanse of the western coastline from the Dingle Peninsula up to County Sligo, into County Leitrim and back down to where I felt most at home––County Clare.
I had to learn to conquer the “what ifs” that manifested into negative self-talk. What if I botch the journey? What if I’m in an accident? What if I end up in the hospital? What if I end up dead? What if I caused an accident and end up in jail? Finally coming to the realization that I could sit in the car feeling terrified and sorry for myself or I could get my ass in gear and get on with it, fear and all. I learned that my desire to visit places I had always wanted to see outweighed my fears.
Learning to Put Myself Outside My Comfort Zone
I’m an introvert. I treasure my solitude, but I’m not anti-social. I didn’t know anyone on my first trip, and though I was fortunate to meet new people on my subsequent visits, I still had to learn to engage in conversation with strangers and make myself vulnerable to building new friendships. As any introvert will tell you, that’s exhausting too. Exhausting, but oh so rewarding.
I took risks, mostly good, a few not-so-good. I engaged with people I met through musicians’ internet fan sites, and I became friends with “Anne from West Clare,” whom I later discovered was the sister of a famous Irish musician. I later became friends with the musician too. I arranged a visit with a hermit nun who turned out to be neither a hermit nor a nun, thus giving me a cautionary lesson about trusting those you meet online.
I walked along the trail to the Cliffs of Moher and discovered how it could be both beautiful and dangerous. I booked a stay at a hostel in Galway where I attended a New Year’s Eve concert by a well-known Irish rock band and found that rooming with a bunch of young Irish women and being in a riotous concert crowd was not for me. I underestimated the sheer magnitude of climbing Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain, and quickly grasped that getting halfway up was its own triumph.
Self-Discovery and Letting Go
When I began my journey, I was a middle-aged, divorced mother of two daughters who had never ventured outside of the United States. I wanted to use these journeys as an opportunity to become acquainted with my true self and to liberate myself from the demons in my past that were holding me back––demons like anger, abandonment and depression.
Anger was a powerful demon to slay. Anger from losing my father to suicide when I was ten and feeling abandoned. Anger from marrying the wrong man when I was far-too-young and whose betrayal led to a painful divorce. Anger toward myself for the inability to forgive my feelings of abandonment and for the poor choices I had made.
In order to reduce my fury, I stood on the Cliffs of Moher and imagined my anger as being flaming hot coals bursting from my heart and hissing into the water below. At St. Brigid’s Well, I drank the holy water and prayed that I would be healed. At the Dzogchen Beara Monastery, while grasping a large rock, I named everything I wanted to let go of and hurled it into the roiling waves.
I battled my depression by imagining it as a black dog and, through the synchronous meeting with a real black dog, found that it could be a source of light too.
Through my adventures I let go of caring what others thought of me. I recognized that I was more self-confident, strong, creative, and resilient than I ever perceived myself to be. I realized that I deserved to live my own life, separate from my family and my career. I identified what brought me joy and didn’t allow life’s circumstances to deter it.
My solo journeys throughout Ireland gave me the self-confidence I desperately needed to move forward. I continue to be amazed at the kindness of the Irish people, the friends I made, and the lessons learned. Erin go bragh, and best wishes on your own journey toward self-discovery.
You may also enjoy reading Travel Tall | Heeding A Passion For Travel, by Eric Giuliani.
