Photography:

Bonz

Editing:

Lightroom

Location:

Italy

Self-care and spirituality are becoming a trend.  Because of the fast fashion and fast world we live in, we need a more chilled view. We need to reconnected with our deeper self, drink the energy of nature and be more kind with ourselves. So yes, self-care is an urge of this moment in life.

Or at least, it is very much speaking to me. My journey to self awakening started a few months ago. No, wait, it happened even before just I didn’t realise it then.

Where My Curiosity Started: Astrology and Tarots

Two years ago me and my good friend Shirel we went visiting Venice (she was traveling throughout Europe from Peru and she had never been to Venice before) – I wrote a mini travel guide with tons of photographs – and there I spotted something I was always unsure of buying.

We arrived at the Acqua Alta bookstore and there I was immediately drown to a deck of Egyptian Tarots. I am fascinated by astrology, the influence of the moon and fate so I decided to get the deck and to start learning how to read them.

My Travel Guide to Venice + a lot of photographs

Then after some play with the cards, I left it on my bedside table. It is still there, waiting. Instead, last year it was a collection of dark times, awesome moments and again painful experiences. It was a rollercoaster and I couldn’t deal with the negative times. I felt they were eating me and I couldn’t react back. The good times, on the other hand, I felt I didn’t deserve to be happy because they were always temporary. I couldn’t simply accept that.

I was looking for an answer in books, in friends and in more than a friend. But I didn’t receive the exhausting answer I was looking for. Although there has been a book at that time that was my introduction to self-care and to the power of women. In there, old stories of how the wild, instinctive feminine self comes out. 

yes, the wild self.

I then could classify some of my happiest moments with that instinctive self reigning over the polite everyday self.

“Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” by Clarissa Pinkola Estès is a book I really recommend.

I didn’t read it all but it empowered me and help me start my journey of self-awakening I guess.

In November 2018 my body couldn’t stand it anymore. I ended up in the hospital because of an unchecked cyst. As soon as I was able to write on my laptop, I started the Self-care section with a post dedicated to accepting our weaknesses. I understood more or less that I had to change. I had to change the way I was seeing life.

But then one day while photographing at work, I started listening to Estee Lalonde Podcasts On the line where she talked with people about different subjects, one was on yoga, another on reiki healing and one on getting zen.

I finally realised I wasn’t mad but in the world there is somebody who actually understand what I was feeling: lost, lonely, unsuitable for love and acceptance. And from there I found groups who listen and talk of these feelings and practice self awakening.

Still other podcasts I love listening to are:

• Rewinding for Women because it is a bomb of full energy
• Rewilding by Ella Grace Denton because of her natural empathy.

My Journey of Self Acceptance has just started 

Through other magazines – Breathe mag and Flow mag – and books I started my journey. Self Acceptance is my biggest achievement but I feel like I see clearer now. I know why I need to go to rave parties. It is because they free up my mind allowing all my negative thoughts to coexist with the happy ones and all I do is dancing with non judgemental people. It is a friendly place for me. I feel home.

What I need to Do now

I need to fully listen to my heart and soul. Basic stuff. If I wish to have a tattoo, I need to stop worrying about the negative response of my parents but just do it. If I don’t want to travel solo anymore, then it is okay, it doesn’t mean I am a lot weaker now. If I can’t quit a toxic relation from my life, it means I need it to know what is my weakness and to control it.

I really wanted to share with post with you because all of this has helped me build a wild me. Wait, what I mean is that this wild self has always been in me but it just pop out a few times. Instead now I trying to take care of it because it is the strongest part of me – the real me. The only one who can deal with the positivity and negativity of life.

Hope this might be a good read for you. We really need to slow down, take a walk in a park, smell the trees, the taste of pouring rain, the blowing wind, a kind smile: each one of these things now I really appreciate. They speak to me.