Working with awakened energy: My first visit to Tanzania

These are pictures from my very first visit to Tanzania at the ripe age of 20. We visited a seaweed farm and I *literally* dove in head first to what was being shared with us.

This trip for me, my very first trip to East Africa, blew me wide open in a way I still carry with me to this day. 

I came home from this trip with my world upside down and my heart full of commitment. A deep knowing was inspired within me that my place in the world was to be of service to the universal Light I saw in the eyes of the people I met. A Light I recognized so clearly and that spoke volumes to our interconnectedness as a global family. 

There was an awakening that took place for me during this trip that has taken me years to nurture, figure out, cultivate, and help mature. Not only did that trip offer me a beautiful, spiritual sense of our interconnectedness as a world, but it also gave me a firsthand, visceral understanding of the material injustices that make it up too.

Because of this, the trip was full of tears, moral grapplings, and eye-opening realizations. It inspired anger and drive and determination in me. It ultimately led me to become a development practitioner (international & sustainable development) and figure out how to be of service at the systemic level. It led me to go into the “belly of the beast” (I endearingly say) to learn our institutional world and the structures that to be to be able to do this.

I share this story with you here because much of the collective healing work I do is informed by my own personal journey. By my own need to figure out how to work with the energy that was awakened within me from my time in Tanzania and beyond. Energy that was so clear yet undefined. Energy that was so moving yet hard to constructively carry at times. 

I believe more and more of us are having these types of awakening experiences these days, each in our own way. Whether it’s awakening to the social realities of our world, its structural injustices, the ways we can and must do better for ourselves, each other, and the planet. Or it’s a spiritual awakening to our innate interconnectedness with one another and all beings; our connection with something greater than ourselves and the material world; a connection to our own inner knowing that’s here to guide us.

It’s my hope to be helpful to these awakenings in any way I can, big or small. Because I believe they’re here for a truly purposeful reason. All we need are supportive tools to help actualize what they have to offer.

What about you? Do you have your own story of awakening (social, spiritual) that feels foundational to who you are? Or perhaps you’re in the midst of an awakening process as we speak? 

Drop me a line about it (connect@wehealforall.com) or share in the comments, if you’re generously moved to. I would love to hear.