What's the lesson..??

Malaika

The Force is Strong With This One
Hello to all friends of the forum!

I feel a little lost because of the experience I'm living and some light would be useful.

I put you in context:
The closure of borders in March by the covid19 surprised me while traveling in the Pacific, on a small island in a country I didn't even know existed, Tuvalu. The country is free of virus.
Because of its geographical isolation and its low level of development, connections with the outside world were already very limited and since March non-existent, so I've been isolated here for 6 months as its borders remain closed.
It is not a tourist country, I'm the only traveler here at the moment.
I arrived in Tuvalu from Fiji Islands where I started my 6 month trip in January without much planning.
I volunteered for a couple of months in projects rebuilding houses damaged by Cyclone Winston and permaculture.
I got to know Tuvalu in a causal way during my stay in Fiji, the circumstances were there and I had the option of boarding a merchant ship to Tuvalu, I'm attracted to remote and inaccessible places.

At the beginning of closing borders I wasn't worried, I thought that the situation would be solved soon, I even thought about my good luck, the cosmic mind had given me the best prison for lockdown in a paradise island free of virus and far from the reality that was being lived in Spain by the news that was coming to me, the health collapse, the strict confinement and social isolation and the fear that everyone felt generated mostly by the media, I wasn't suffering anything like that here and it seemed to me that I was being told a science fiction movie.

My idea was to return to Spain in May, when my trip was over and I had to resume my work and daily life.
The authorities of Tuvalu didn't give me any information, everything was very uncertain and I decided to contact the Spanish consulates of nearby countries like Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, hoping that they would help me get out of here somehow. Obviously this wasn't the case, their messages full of empty diplomatic words speculating about remote possibilities that never materialized provoked, over the months, very strong emotions of helplessness, frustration and anger.
I had the opportunity in July to be on spanish newspapers and my case reached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but nothing changed.

My emotional process has been stumbling and I've tried to figure out what my lesson is here.
First of all, faced with the uncertainty of not knowing when or how I would be able to return to Spain, I came to the conclusion that this was a wonderful opportunity to work on patience and confidence that things will work out when the time comes.

I was hosted by a local family of 14 people, which has allowed me to enter the culture as one of the family.
Living together in the house generated different internal conflicts.
It's an island culture very taken to the extreme where a collective energy of laziness reigns and if you are not attentive it catches you. I found this detail curious, since I consider myself an active and dynamic person and that the universe would have given me this golden prison "in appearance" but where its habitants spend most of their time lying in the hammock doing nothing, I thought this was also a good lesson for me, to learn to do nothing and also to see my reflection on the lazyness mirrow...I'm lazy too in many aspects of my life that I don't like to look at ..
The rules of hygiene and respect very opposed to mine were another resistance to overcome, for a time I was tormented by continuous mental conversations based on criticism and judgment of others and my mood was conditioned by how others acted, my blood boiled to see everyone lying in the house without even bothering to collect and clean their dirty plate after eating that ended up being grassed by ants and bugs for days.
Finally I appreciated that it was my attitude focused on external criticism that caused my discomfort, the others do nothing against me, they do the better than they know with the tools they have, I can't control what others do but I can decide what my attitude is towards what others do,
I started to clean up what was bothering me and bring my attention to what I was doing, this changed my focus and perspective and freed me from the criticism and judgment that was evidently talking about me and not them, even though it was hard for me to see myself reflected in the mirror.
The uncertainty of when I could return to Spain was still latent and so my helplessness and frustration, I understood that these feelings were provoked by myself because the reality did not fit my expectations, I abandoned the expectations gradually and accepted my reality trying to take advantage of my time here learning local crafts, exercising, yoga, reading, writing, beach, ukulele, walks.

Six months have passed, and my last reflections have led me to the conclusion that, contradictorily to what it means to be "imprisoned" against my will, I believe that this is the moment in my life when I am most free. This place has liberated me from practically all my addictions and external distractions to which I continually resort to avoid feeling the emptiness that is inside me.
First of all, it has freed me from the tremendous slavery of work for 8 hours a day,
I no longer have to work to make money; the modern addiction par excellence : social networks and the Internet have vanished to 70% I would say, I have no data so I no longer live by my cell phone although it is true that I am still addicted and I come to connect to the wifi almost every afternoon for an hour. The soil is not fertile, it does not grow anything, neither marijuana, one of my sporadic addictions also eliminated; I do not have friends of confidence with whom to escape with a few beers or to speak of my sensations, it has been a long time since I have tried a drop of alcohol and my conversations with the locals are quite superficial: social relations eliminated.
The sexual market does not attract me, there is no television or radio in my house and even the biggest of my escape routes is gone: traveling; being in continuous movement and projecting,; also outside, everything is gone, all my chains, here we are my loneliness and I, my emptiness and I looking at us from the front, and then I say to myself ... well actually this is life ... free of conditionings and external complements and self-imposed needs... this is freedom! then my life before has no sense... however I feel impotence and frustration and I want to return home imperiously, why? is it because I am so addicted to slavery that I want to return to my chains because that is where I feel comfortable...?? and I vent my anger on the consulate because I am waiting for someone to come and save me when no one is going to save me from anything...maybe that's the lesson...I don't know...I think about Mandela...Gandhi...Mujica...all these characters that were held captive for a long time...I even recently read "Man in Search of Meaning" by Victor Frank, a psychologist who survived the Auswitch extermination camp. Of course, nothing like this can be compared with my experience, but I feel identified in some way with how the experience of being in a place against your will without any certainty of when it will end, makes you stronger...

Starting from the base that we are corresponding with our experiences and these are absolutely necessary for our development, I want to think that what is happening to me is a great opportunity and the situation will be resolved when I'm able to see the lesson, but I sincerely believe that I have lost the perspective ...
 
What a lesson!
You're basically avoiding being imprisoned by being imprisoned in another way. I try to get my head around it how this must feel.
2 years ago my partner and I got stranded for 2 more days in Madeira after all flights were cancelled due to dangerous winds. I nearly lost it when I realised we couldn't leave as planned. In your situation probably every person working at your consulate would know my name by now.
So what are your options now? It sounds as if you are finding some kind of peace there though. When it comes to perspective I have no answer. This kind of life is so far removed from all we have been conditioned to that it looks as if your very personal wave has already hit you and everything's changed.
I truly hope things will clear up for you and that you stay strong at heart.
 
Starting from the base that we are corresponding with our experiences and these are absolutely necessary for our development, I want to think that what is happening to me is a great opportunity and the situation will be resolved when I'm able to see the lesson, but I sincerely believe that I have lost the perspective ...
So ..., if you have lost perspective, it means that before ..., you had perspective.

What is important in us?

We are STS, so we want or want something for ourselves ... always.

Maybe something in your life (in you) at this moment, would not exist, if the "domino" tiles falling one after the other had not led you to the "moment" where you are?

All lessons there is nothing else, as you well know ...

So everything is as it should be.

Regards and best wishes.

By the way, almost the entire rest of the planet is being "forced" to have many unpleasant lessons.

So ... how can we do the following:

(Joe) I dunno if other people feel the same way, but these days I have a sense that the stuff going on in the world in terms of the political stuff, infighting, and that kind of stuff is increasingly kind of irrelevant in a certain sense...

A: It is. We have said that you should enjoy the show.

Q: (Andromeda) In other words, paying attention to it should be accompanied also by non-attachment. (L) I guess that's a very difficult state to achieve, and perhaps the object of the lesson?

A: Yes
:-):hug:
 
Hi Malaika. Thank you for sharing your story - and your most illuminating self insights. The paradox between paradise and hell being found in the one place never clearer. Makes me think of all those fairy stories such as the Snow Queen where a character is brought to a place of apparent abundance and peace only to discover its really a mirage and a trap. So as you say the lesson offers you an enormous and rare opportunity for self-observation. May I suggest you take what you have started here and use it as an opportunity via regular networking to keep us abreast of your understandable fluctuations of mood and perspective and we'll try and keep offering feedback - because the isolation is obviously going to be one of the toughest things to cope with long term should this continue much more.

I was struck by your comments about our STS natures making us feel the need to always 'want' something else which of course in a positive sense can be seen as being goal orientated and if those goals are healthy (e.g. aimed at shedding our attachment to 3rd density and all its trappings) then these lessons can be very beneficial in ones development. Maybe consider writing something every day - a diary of external and internal observations... seems to me as if the universe has given you a rare opportunity to accelerate learning (and I can already see the book or movie that could come from this!) and its down to you to decide how to use it.

I was also struck by the powerful draw of 'home', and how our identity is so wrapped up in where we are and what that says about us. How we are one person one place but perceive ourselves as someone other when elsewhere. Does Spain suddenly represent something to you about how you see yourself that you weren't previously aware of and how your identity was wrapped up in that place and 'idea'?

Anyway, thinking of you all the way round the world on your paradise-prison. I hope you are managing to resist the temptation of falling into the ways of the natives you describe and keeping some kind of self possession? Remember, though you no doubt feel an outcast, we're here for you and ready to help keep you grounded.
 
Michael B-C has already mentioned a lot of the impressions that came to mind for me when I read your experience and observations of it.

I know your immediate future is uncertain, but it’s only as uncertain as anyone else’s. So the main thing I’m wondering is, is there something you can do there that would be interesting or fulfilling to you, but where you could be of service in some way? I just wonder if your struggles with the situation are rooted in some feeling of aimlessness or uselessness (not useless in a bad way; just that you may not be getting much experience of the rewarding feelings that come from being of use to others or having a positive effect on your environment).

You said you had gotten involved in some projects. Is this still something you are doing? Are there any areas you have a particular interest or talent in?

Maybe you could view your situation as a question of not so much what lesson the universe sent you there to learn, but of what it is the universe sent you there to do?

If you were to keep that in mind at all times while you are there, maybe an answer will present itself.

I don’t know if this reply is of any help to you. You gave a very detailed and fascinating story, but six months is a long time and I don’t know what kinds of interactions you have each day and what opportunities are available.
 
You perceive your island as a prison. This is just another type of prison we all live in - especially in these Covid-19 times. Well, 3D life is a prison, mostly a prison of our own self-limitations, but a prison nonetheless. And our task is to escape this prison, not physically, but mentally - or as the Cs and Laura are wont to say “simple and karmic understandings”.

You have - like we all have in our individual circumstances, some a little bit better, some a little bit worse - basically two choices.

One is to wallow in self-pity (and I am not saying that you are doing that), blame circumstances and build up resentment. The victim mentality essentially.

The other option is the Stoic approach: This is my situation, I have no control about what is happening to me from ‘outside’, but what I have full control about is my attitude - how I deal with the situation and what emotional content I color it with.

As you justly said, all there is is lessons, and I agree with others before me, that this could be a unique opportunity for you, if you choose wisely.

And as MB-C wrote, we are here to support you on your journey, as best as we can.

As an aside - have you followed the thread New title: Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work? This might be a project for you - as long as you have WiFi access and can download books. The aim of this thread is a reading exercise - romantic Regency era novels to imagine a better future. Sounds weird? Well, read the books and you’ll be amazed at the depth of the psychological descriptions in them.

Keep us uptodate - and the head high!
 
Tuvalu ,eh? yes I know of them , they had a delegation here a while back , fundraising off the warming hippies and extinction rebels, because they have been told their islands will be swallowed by raising sea levels...their whole economy is based on foreign aid
no wonder they are lazy
maybe your mission is to tell them about the coming cooling and that sea levels will fall

here is an article from last year 'One day we'll disappear': Tuvalu's sinking islands | Eleanor Ainge Roy

mind you they said that about the Maldives 20 years ago ...still above water today and built new airports

so give your hosts some hope :lol:
 
The uncertainty of when I could return to Spain was still latent and so my helplessness and frustration, I understood that these feelings were provoked by myself because the reality did not fit my expectations, I abandoned the expectations gradually and accepted my reality trying to take advantage of my time here learning local crafts, exercising, yoga, reading, writing, beach, ukulele, walks.
You said you had gotten involved in some projects. Is this still something you are doing? Are there any areas you have a particular interest or talent in?

Maybe you could view your situation as a question of not so much what lesson the universe sent you there to learn, but of what it is the universe sent you there to do?

Basically, what you have been doing is what Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calls 'sharpening the saw'. But sharpening the saw is only useful if we utilise it in order to recuperate, regroup, so we can be of use to others, if I understand it correctly.

I thought the following passage could be helpful:
Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by: otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awarenesss and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren't living: they are "being lived." They are reacting, unaware of the unique endowments that lie dormant and undeveloped within.
And there is no shortcut in developing them. The law of the harvest governs; we will always reap what we sow - no more, not less. The law of justice is immutable, and the closer we align ourselves with correct principles, the better our judgement will be about how the world operates and the more accurate our paradigms - our maps of the territory - will be

You don't have to do anything I suggest, but perhaps you could read some romantic novels as nicklebleu suggested and write a post in the thread. You could teach the local kids some skills you excel at. Younger kids are still more energetic than the adults or adolescents on the island and more likely to be receptive to activities and/or new knowledge?

When my internet was down for a few weeks I was restless and grumpy in the beginning and I think I was almost literally detoxing at the time.:-D I felt frustrated that I couldn't do anything for others, until I just let it be and started reading and watching old films always with the thought in the back of my mind that I had an aim (gathering knowledge and possibly sharing it on the forum later).
 
Thank you for your description of your situation. Discovering that we are all in a prison here in 3D no matter where we are is a good sobering realization. I noticed that you read Victor Frankl's book and perhaps it put meaning in focus. It is an excellent book and he shows and speaks highly about finding meaning in life, to have a purpose, a raison d'être. This event seems to have forced you to try to answer that question for yourself, just as Covid-10 might have done for a lot of people around the world as the usual distractions of holidaying, sports etc. have been taken away.

I was also reminded of the year when I attended first year anthropology classes and how early anthropologists went to remote islands to study kinship relations, culture, island economics etc., while living with a family as a member of it. Perhaps you can take note of all what you observe and perhaps write about it. Even though you write that you are loosing perspective, then perhaps this experience also gives you a unique perspective about yourself and your struggle of finding meaning where you came from (Spain) and now in 'paradise' or what appeared as paradise.

If you haven't followed the Darwinism versus intelligent design debate, then I would also suggest to look in to it as Darwinism/materialism has been key in destroying meaning in living. Apart from a number of books suggested on the Forum, there have been some very good summary articles on SOTT, such as
Natural Selection - The Jesus of Evolution
How the Incoherent Theory of Evolution Distorts Our Thinking
Richard Dawkins and Half a Wing
The Theory of Evolution is Anti-Science
The Probability of Evolution
Evolution - A Modern Fairy Tale
Darwinism Is Dead, Now What? Towards A Rational Spirituality
Why Darwinism Is Wrong, Dead Wrong - Part 1: Intelligent Design and Information

Mindmatters have also made some podcasts about evolution (and on many other good subjects) which you can download and listen to while lying in the hammock (insert hammock emoji here)
 
Thank you all for your answers, advices, the recommended titles and words of encouragement.

Tauriel said:
"..it sounds like you are finding some kind of peace there though."


This is something that came to my mind as an amusing sign, I have ended up on a Pacific island, (in spanish "pacífico" is the adjective of the noun "paz", peace in english) so a peaceful island, of peace, as its name indicates, what better place to work on my inner peace...!
Another paradox besides paradise/hell, is to feel lost on an island 15km long by 400 meters wide where there is only one street.

Wandering star said:
"So..., if you have lost perspective, it means that before..., you had perspective.."


Your accurate statement clearly shows me that I didn't have any perspective before either.
And indeed the dominoes have fallen one after another until this very moment.
The decision to start a long journey in the Pacific was the result of not being able to continue my project in Africa.

I am a bus driver.
In 2017 I started a personal project in Africa, of which I am the coordinator and volunteer driver. My company donated old buses still in use, I filled them with material for schools and clinics and drove them by road from Spain to Mali. I collected money and with these donations I built wells, bakeries, schools, sewing workshops .
Last year, when I returned from a small village in Dogon Country, northern Mali, where I had been working for 3 months and after the experience there, I started to question what the objective of this project really was, if I was really helping these people or I just had the need to satisfy my ego, to feel important and valued by others, which is an evident sign of my feeling of inferiority, low self-esteem and lack of confidence, and I was disguising all this with the false costume of altruism, believing that I am helping someone when the one who really needs help is me.

I still decided to continue with the project but from another approach: the Africans help me.
But the cosmic mind had other plans, there were problems in my company and they did not donate another bus, I had already requested the 6 months off and overnight I bought a ticket to Fiji without knowing very well why.

T.C said:
"I just wonder if your struggles with the situation are rooted in some feeling of aimlessness or uselessness."


I felt that I was going to undertake a journey alone without having a clear objective or sense, another clear sign of my existential emptiness and the need to work for an end, to receive a reward in some way, in this case emotional reward... Maybe I felt empty because the ego suddenly had no food?

Michael said:
"Does Spain represents something to you about how you see yourself that you weren't previously aware of and how your identity was wrapeed in that place and "idea"?"


I do not feel a special identity of belonging to Spain or my culture, obviously I am conditioned by it, but traveling and spending long periods of time in remote places discovering other cultures I think has helped to expand my capacity for tolerance and understanding, to get out of my western bubble and question my belief system and to discard many of them through my own experience.

I try to write,.as you advise me, about my reflections and internal and external observations, it helps me to order my thoughts.
 
Mariana said:
"T.C said:
You said you had gotten involved in some projects. Is this still something you are doing? Are there any areas you have a particular interest or talent in?

Maybe you could view your situation as a question of not so much what lesson the universe sent you there to learn, but of what it is the universe sent you there to do?

Basically, what you have been doing is what Stephen Covey in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People calls ' sharpening the saw'. But sharpening the saw is only useful if we utilise it in order to recover, regroup, so we can be of use to others, if I understand it correctly."


There is no official or serious project I am involved in here. What attracted me to Tuvalu was, in the first place, that I didn't even know it existed, its isolation, it is the second smallest country in the world and the fourth least visited, I was attracted to see with my own eyes what an atoll was and to discover and observe how and what people lived on a flat and tiny piece of land in the middle of the ocean.
I wasn't sure how long I would be here, but obviously not 6 months or more.
I followed the signs that were presented to me from my interpretation, with no other objective than to satisfy my curiosity.
I think that everything happens for a reason and I have no doubt that the universe directed me here to learn a lesson and possibly, as you point out, also to do something, although this last one I have not discovered yet...

I have a special interest in local crafts and their process and I am good at working with my hands, cooking and baking, my parents blew up a bakery for 45 years where I was born, raised and worked until I was 21.
During my time here I have met interesting old women, I love to listen to the old women, their stories and they are the ones who know the most about handicrafts. They make all kinds of textiles with the leaves of the palms: carpets, hats, fans, baskets, plates ...
I learned day by day the manual process of the palm leaves from cutting them to weaving the carpet and so on. The locals were surprised to see a white woman weaving and some women even asked me to teach them how to weave, very crazy!
I have learned to extract milk and oil from coconut by hand, to cook fish wrapped in leaves with hot stones under the ground, to extract the "toddy" from the palms, the local honey, and to make candies with it.

It occurred to me that I could make sponge cakes, pancakes and small bread rolls and sell them to the store next to the school. The women of the house spend most of the day lying around and complaining that there is no money or work. I told them about the idea and some days we bake together and sell it.

A woman of the house asked me if I could help her primary children with their English and math homework, my English is not very good but I can help in the basics, those children were joined by others who come from time to time to help them with their homework.

Bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyles make more than half of the population diabetic and overweight, with joint and muscle pain. I practice yoga and breathing techniques every morning, at first they just looked at me, then they started asking me and I told them that some simple exercises every day could relieve their pain and help them feel more agile physically and mentally. Now some women are joining the practice of yoga some days.

I did not consider all this as a "project" since it is not something continuous and I do not feel especially useful for them, although of course these activities keep us entertained.
 
Aeneas said:
"I noticed that you read Victor Frankl's book and perhaps it put meaning in focus. It is an excellent book and he shows and speaks highly about finding meaning in life, yo have a purpose, a raison d'etre. This event seems to have forced you I try to answer that questions for yourself just as Covid 10 might have done for a lot of people around the world as the usual distraccions have taken away."

In fact this reading made me reflect a lot and become aware that I should take this long and uncertain confinement as a great opportunity for internal and external learning, a prolonged time is necessary to really know the culture and I encouraged myself to find a motivation however small it was, attending a reflection ... nbsp; of his book where he says: To the human being can be taken away everything except the last of his freedoms, the attitude with which he faces his destiny", as nicklebleu said in his commentary on the option of the stoic approach.

Thank you Aenea for your suggestion on the debate Darwinism versus intelligent and materialism, I have started the reading and it is proving very interesting.

I hope to be able to avoid adhering to my emotions and mental programs less and less often at least, and thus be able to enjoy the show as Laura and Cs say.
 
Hi Malaika, thank you for sharing through what you are going through. From what you have shared I get the feeling that until lately you had a tendency to escape/dissociate from the reality, through the use of Marijuana, traveling and maybe other methods of dissociation? I may be way off here so I would like to apologize beforehand if that's the case.

I don't want to sound rude or disrespectful though I was wondering if the use of Marijuana was a casual one time-consuming habit or it was a usual often time 'habit'? Consciously or unconsciously did you wanted to get rid of these addictions? I'm sorry, the last question it's only a hypothesis of mine supposing there were present some addictions in your life.

What i'm trying to say is that the addictions in general are the worst habits to whom a person subjects himself to. And choosing to subject himself even to a small degree to an addiction it can drag you into the abyss of despair, it's a trap for the soul, it's a prison designed to keep you weak thus unable to escape and free yourself from the control and manipulation of the predator mind, the tool, the link through which the entropyc center is trying to subject you to his will.

The fact that you are 'stranded' on a remote island in the pacific ocean i think it may not be a coincidence at all though, it may be a great opportunity to start reflecting deeply on your life, on your past, to do a review of your life in order to understand where were you when you were younger where are you now and where you are heading?

You mentioned that you like doing yoga, in case you didn't tried it yet, I would like to recommend you doing the Eiriu Eolas deep breathing exercises and meditation, a very powerful tool of detoxification of negative emotions, releasing of stress and internal cleansing. By using the search function you can find the thread on our forum dedicated to EE where you'll find many tips, testimonials from our forum members that are practicing EE and many useful information on this matter. It helped me a lot to release some deep repressed emotions that I was carrying since childhood and I'm still doing EE to this day because it really helps me to feel better to restore the physical-emotional-psychological balance. By clicking to the following link you can find the free version online, though before doing EE I strongly recommend watching the entire introductory video you'll find by clicking on the link bellow where Laura explains carefully about the benefits of EE and the instructions on how to practice it. I know you mentioned that you have limited access to the internet, so if you'll have the possibility to watch the video i will recommend to do it: Éiriú Eolas – Growth of Knowledge

Please keep us updated on how you are doing. Stay safe. :hug2:
 
Thank you for your words Andrian.
Andrian said:
I was wondering if the use of Marijuana was a casual one time-consuming habit or it was a usual often time 'habit'?

My relationship with marijuana is a casual and even social habit, I could compare it to having a glass of wine with dinner once in a while or having a couple of beers when out with friends.
It's not something I do every day and I don't feel the need to be high all day.
I go long periods of time without smoking marijuana and this does not create any withdrawal symptoms or anxiety.
I could say that it is a small degree of addiction, as you point out, although I do not feel that I am dragged into the abyss of despair at all.
Andrian said:
I would like to recommend you doing the Eiriu Eolas deep breathing exercises and meditation

Thanks for your information, I know the Euriu Eolas method, both the conscious breathing exercises of vagal nerve stimulation, belly breathing, three stage breathing that I practice, as well as the physical ones, correspond to this tool and like you it helps me to oxygenate and keep my body and mind in balance.

Indeed there are conditioning, addictions and external distractions in my life and as you say this experience is a great opportunity to review my life and reflect on it.
 
Thanks for sharing, Malaika. As others have said, we can all be considered prisoners in one degree or another. True freedom is a state of mind while on this planet. It sounds like you've had some great adventures both on the island and in Africa and it doesn't seem that you're whiling away your time on the island mindlessly considering the activities you've been up to. It may be bittersweet when you finally do leave.

I don't have much to say except I enjoy traveling myself (or I did at one time ;-)) and like hearing of other's travel adventures. All I can say is consider this time -- and all the other time you have wherever you may go, even if it's back to Spain --a gift. Use the time to look within and learn more about yourself. The lessons involved, well, only you can say.

Have fun!
 
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