When most people think about changing their lives, they think about overnight changes.

The reality is that sudden changes shock your nervous system and leave you feeling like a fish out of water.

You panic, become anxious and fearful and ultimately fall back into your familiar routines.

This is why a new job, a new relationship or a new home can often leave you feeling the same way you felt before the change. It’s not because your circumstances are the same, but because your mind, belief systems and perception of reality are the same.

In this post, I recount my adventures after taking my first step into the unknown and buying a one way ticket to Peru.

I talk about putting myself out there in baby steps and the small actions I took to regulate my nervous system amidst the drastic changes to my circumstances.

Listening to my Inner Voice

I was always afraid of being on my own.

I always wanted a partner in crime, someone to confide in and strategize my next move with.

Like most people, my actions were always influenced by media, society and the people around me. At the end of high school, I hustled to get university admission because that was what everyone else was doing. I dressed a certain way, because that was the norm. I wore make-up, uncomfortable heels, and nail polish because that is what women do.

Five years later, I finally listened to that quiet voice inside me that was incessantly telling me that my life didn’t have to be this way – that I didn’t need to settle. So I graduated, bought a backpacking bag and flew to Lima, Peru in an attempt to break out of the societal mould I was born in.

Once there, I holed myself up in a room, terrified. ‘What am I doing?’ I thought to myself. ‘I don’t speak the language. I don’t know anyone here. I don’t have a plan. Why am I here?’

Panicking, I did the only thing I knew how – I began to search on Google:

• Things to do in Peru
• Travelling South America
• Peru tourist attractions

Reading about other people’s experiences helped me settle my anxiety and about my third day in, I bolstered up enough courage to leave my safe haven and explore the city.

My host showed me where I could purchase Peruvian pesos and then left me to my own devices. I wandered around and eventually found my way to a nearby beach. About 15-20 feet from the ocean, the overpowering scents of the crowded city finally let up, dispersed by the salty ocean breeze. I inhaled deeply and sat down to think.

There, I met a bubbly American woman with kind, grey eyes who looked just as lost as I felt.

We spent the day together, exchanging stories and contact information and she became something of an oasis for me, a raft in unfamiliar waters.

Putting Myself out there in Baby Steps

Another day passed and my new friend and I began discussing what to do next.

That night, she was getting on a tour bus to visit pre-selected tourist hot-spots in Peru. She begged me to get on that bus with her.

That small voice inside immediately began pestering me again. Had I left all that was comfortable behind and come all the way out here just to continue being told what to do, where to go and what to enjoy?

I politely declined her offer and purchased an overnight bus ticket to Ica, Peru, on my way to sand-board down dramatic sand dunes in Huacachina, Peru.

It just so happened that that was the first stop on my friend’s tour bus and our paths crossed once again.

With racing hearts, we rode through the desert in bouncing dune buggies and surfed down towering beige sand dunes.

The buggies left all their passengers in a popular hostel for the night and she pressed me once again to get on the bus with her, stoking an intense, inner battle within me. It took all my willpower to decline her offer a second time, but I was adamant. I hadn’t come to foreign waters to remain in my raft; I had come to learn how to swim.

I decided to leave that night. Full of enthusiasm and adrenaline from my resolution, I made fast friends with my cab driver using the limited Spanish I had learned with Duolingo. Ready to face the world, I directed myself away from the next stop along the tourist trail in Peru (lovingly called the Gringo trail) and headed south instead, toward Bolivia.

I didn’t know why I was suffering but I knew I was suffering.

Looking back now, I can see that the pain and suffering I went through were caused by my own self-limiting beliefs.

It was fear and a pattern of negative thoughts that kept me stuck in the grips of those beliefs and the traumatizing patterns caused by them.

By acknowledging my fears and putting myself out there in baby steps, I was able to grow at my own pace, heal and successfully break free of my self-limiting beliefs. This process taught me that being afraid is okay, and that my intuition will always know what I need and when I need it more so than the infinite voices that bombard me from the outside world.

The spiritual awakening journey is a journey away from old perspectives and patterns toward new, unconditioned world views and my spiritual journey taught me how to take in and unconditionally accept every moment as it is without any filters or preconceived notions about what it means.

My journey showed me that the more I let go of my old thought patterns, the more my horizon grows.

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