I have written quite a lot about the cruise in the past few days. I owe it to myself to write down what I think about this trip in summary. Even if I have already said this and that here and there.
First of all, I think that I have had quite a few really great experiences in my life, but this trip is one of the outstanding experiences, right now. And I think that the adjective unrepeatable will also be there with it. I hope I am right in thinking that I will go on another Nomad Cruise in my life – which will definitely be a good experience (yes, my life and the Cruise too) – but the next one will definitely not be as good as this one.
What did I find? What changed?
On the last day in Athens, someone asked me if I had found what I was looking for. I answered that I was not looking for anything, but I found a lot. I had no prior expectations about the trip, but if I had, the reality would definitely surpass my expectations.
An important question was what the trip had changed in me. To which I said nothing. I arrived on this trip ready. Of course not ready for everything. But I feel completely ready to leave my previous homeland and start a new life, for months. So this is the current direction of my life, a current weight and state. With that, because I firmly believe in it and I am ready for the next steps, the cruise could not change anything. It could neither take away from it nor add to it. I did not gain more courage, nor did I find anything scary. I did not become more impatient, nor can I think about the trip any more relaxed.
That is why I feel that this trip did nothing for me. Rather, I feel that it energized me. I did not build, I did not lose anything. These many beautiful days have pushed energy into every corner of the current finished structure.
I enjoyed every minute of these days.
It was very good to experience the two discoveries aimed at myself.
My discoveries
What were these self-discoveries?
One is that I am not ready to find a partner yet. At the Deep Connection workshop, I felt that I did not need to deal with this question yet. I still need to give myself time to heal and grow. The wounds from my last relationship have not healed yet, so the best thing to do is to wait. I will feel ready one day.
The other discovery also came to me during this workshop. Before you continue reading, please be prepared for a question to follow. Try to answer the question before you continue reading! Are you prepared? Try to honestly find an answer to this question, and if you feel like it, let me know your answer! The question: what is the opposite of control? I will give you time to answer.
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The question caught me because I had already discovered the importance of control in my life. It is precisely what I want to loosen up and change. And I had no idea what my answer to this question would be. Obviously, there are many answers, but the speaker said that the opposite of control is trust. This struck me right then and there – and even now – to the heart. Because, as I mentioned earlier, I am a person who is overly controlled in almost every area of my life, and I realized that I had to let go of that. It occurred to me then and there that there was an area of my life where I did not want to apply control, but only complete trust. The other issue is that when I lost trust – in both cases – control crept in. In other words, in another key area of my life, I was working only with trust, and I realized that control was missing from here. In other words, I should have pulled it here. Letting go on one side of my life, pulling on the other. This is how balance can be achieved in all areas.
I am grateful for these discoveries!
My Connections
What I found was a lot of connections with a lot of good people. I met a lot of open-hearted and open-minded people on the ship. Some of us connected for days, others for hours, and some even for minutes. In any case, these connections happened with natural simplicity, because openness and friendliness were the basis for the entire trip, for almost everyone.
I met introverted people who got tired sooner than the others, but I had the feeling that everyone was standing still and wanted to participate in as many programs as possible for their own benefit. So we connected with each other crosswise and lengthwise. The result of these connections was that last Friday I felt so recharged that I myself overflowed.
I felt a bit like someone who had 20% more happiness added to their 100%. It’s not the first time I’ve felt lately that being overloaded on the positive side of the scale can also cause fatigue. It’s good to have the experience that it’s not just pain that can make your eyes itch, sometimes excessive happiness can also be so painful that it almost hurts. How interesting! Painful happiness…
I’m grateful for the connections! For the ones that were just here, for the ones that will continue in the future, and for the ones that were in the past and are still going on or not going on.
At the end of last week, a discovery came to me.
What makes you happy?
The daily emphasis on connections has led me to the discovery that I am about to describe. Which I cannot put into words in any other way than the way I feel right now. I think that connecting with people makes me happy. I have a feeling that this makes many people happy, but since I can only say for sure about my own feelings, I will only talk about myself for now. And I will not start writing my book “I Found the Secret to Happiness!”. I still need to analyze and mature this question.
I have always felt good about connecting with others. Others have often confirmed that it is good to connect with me. More than once in my life I have received the recognition that “I don’t usually talk about this with anyone, I don’t know why I am telling you, but somehow I have to tell you…” So I have this feeling that this comes easily to me. There is a lot of feedback that I am doing it well. Now I have a discovery that I am not doing this selflessly – probably – but because it makes me happy. If I have this, then I feel good.
Since I believe that we are all the same, we come from the same place and are going to the same place, whether I think about it or not, I believe that something connects us. I have felt countless signs and evidence of this in my life, and now with this discovery – simply along the lines of faith – I feel that I have understood something about myself again, for which I do not need to look for evidence, I simply consider my intuition and my experiences to be enough.
If – I feel – I have found what makes me happy, then the next steps are very simple: to nurture my existing relationships and look for the next ones to see if I remain happy. If not, then I was wrong, and I am either looking for or waiting for what makes me happy to arrive.
I am grateful for this discovery as well. I will slowly start using the term enlightenment.
Ivan
I wrote so many serious things in the above that I need some loose closure.
The pronunciation of my name caused some pretty serious problems for some people. One of the bartenders called me Ivan, although he didn’t use that name. And I noticed an interesting wordplay here. If I take out the ST from ISTVÁN, it really remains IVÁN. If I put this taken out ST in front of IVÁN, I get the expression St. Ivan.
I won’t write any more now…