Traveling alone with anxiety, the best healing non nightmare ever.

The song Chamber of Reflection by Mac Demarco came to my mind as I started typing this, he’s basically singing about spending time alone and away, I am thinking he’s talking about a break up because in one of the versus he states “Understand that when you leave here
You’ll be clear
Among the better men
Alone again”.

I love this song because he’s stating that there is no fear in being alone.

I booked a trip to Los Angeles for two days, I am taking the megabus out there and I am going alone. I’ve never traveled anywhere alone before, mostly because I am mother of two, but mainly because I was stuck in codependent habits and my anxiety would never let me do anything outside of my comfort zone. So for those of you who have anxiety disorders, you know exactly what I am talking about.

One of the  spontaneous reasons I decided to do this was because I want to face my fear of being alone which is where codependency comes kicking in. Codependency and Anxiety go hand in hand the majority of the time. I just got out of a codependent relationship not even knowing it was toxic until after I got out of it, I couldn’t believe I started thinking that I couldn’t function without him, or that I felt that I was responsible for his feelings.

But that’s what usually happens in these kind of relationships. We build this bubble around ourselves and our partner’s holding on to each other tightly because he is your arm and she is your leg. Deep down inside I knew from the moment we started dating that we were meant to be friends, but you guessed it, I said yes to being with him because it made him happy. I felt guilty even for thinking that way because although he was a nice guy, we just weren’t meant to be.

What I am trying to say is, we are never responsible for anybodies happiness, and we should always honor our feelings. They’re just as valid as anyone else’s. It all boils down to fear, and the fear of being alone. And it’s all an illusion because if you really think about it we’re never really alone. There’s life all around us, whether it’s in Bali or Los Angeles.

We start realizing that there’s wonder and beauty in different cultures, we appreciate the sceneries, but most of all we start enjoying our own company. We forget that we even had anxiety to begin with. Sure, the fear might be there, but we are far too busy with being present. That’s what traveling does to us, it makes us be here now.

Traveling, whether near or far, forces us out of our comfort zones when we decide to go alone. Anxiety hate’s the unknown and it definitely doesn’t like the words travel and alone combined. But in order to kick it’s ass we just have to do it. And once we go through the beautiful darkness of not knowing what to expect, and we take the time to actually enjoy our destination, we come back as light. Nothing could stop us anymore and we are ready for the next trip.

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