The Mount Batur Path

---

Arriving at 3am Mount Batur, Bali. 

My journey, going up the volcanic mountain I thought it would be easy to go up, little did I know I would face many challenges in the dark with only a torch to get up there.

However, the dusty pathways were slowly getting steeper and narrower. Listening carefully to our guides instructions and concentrating on not falling, were the only things keeping us from thinking about how high up we were going.

I got myself at the back of the group to  help another person in our group.

Then all of a sudden, our rocky path turned into a black, dusty sand. After every step I took, I went 3 steps backwards – all the rocks that were keeping me steadily disappeared and I had nothing to grab on to.

The group were ahead,  this is where my panic kicked in, the fear that I was going to be left behind and two pathways to choose; fear myself being lost which were  part of my childhood traumas which I carried me. My panic became deeper my heart was racing as past memories were racing through my monkey mind.

I went ahead, not knowing where it would lead too.   I needed a sec to think, it was as if I took one wrong step I thought I would fly off the mountain and die, I kept going my heart was racing, my calves started to feel strained, my fingers numb.

Then all of a sudden someone came up near me  and led me forward, Shocked, I followed. I pointed my light at the person – it was a guide smiling at me and we caught up with my group and we reached the top seeing Monkeys around us and the Beautiful Sunset and wow the view "Breathtaking".

It doesn't end there, still needed to come back down. We started to go back and we got to the halfway point  where we saw Monkeys, we hurdled up together to take group photos.

There were Monkeys in the background I said to myself please don't jump on me. Out of nowhere I heard a monkey leap onto my head, luckily I knew how to defend without panic, did this monkey read my mind or did it sense something whereas it could have landed on someone else. In the Chinese zodiac, My close cousin is the monkey.

We finally reached the bottom, feeling relieved and full of joy but what followed wasn't pleasant  for me  as I was up all night even morning where I felt triggered, bringing back past memories and had tears in my eyes. 

We had a Yoga session I  tried to take part however my body was saying otherwise, where my emotions were just everywhere at this point luckily Daksha was there who I could reach out too.

A week later  lockdown happened, it meant working from home and what followed was reliving the triggers from childhood/ teens over and over to the point I felt like crying and a feeling I didn't belong in this world.

Anxiety was always there since childhood and I have also had panic attacks  I guess I tried to disguise it by doing rebellious things as a teenager and finding ways to distract myself from just getting on in life, however that didn't help as it didn't resolve my traumas.

So I remember around the lockdown period through the journal I had written, my Bali retreat  experience,  I decided to go deeper into yoga, and the philosophy side and combine it with Medical/Martial Qigong with Chinese philosophy,  These I'm talking about helped me not to fight but to nurture my anxieties.

To this day I owe gratitude towards Daksha, Manisha and Prabha for their amazing Circuit training and Yoga sessions especially in the heatwave, it's definitely an experience not to be missed, to get away from the hustle and bustle of life and endure new experiences to our wellbeing. 

I will always remember the retreat as it bought many new challenges also connected with others in our group on a spiritual level, the  local people and culture. Waking  early as 3am meditating in nature,  writing a journal,  spending time with myself something I'm not used to back home.

Mount Batur, Bali I will always remember you as I took you in my heart and made my anxieties my new best friend till this day and this wouldn't have been possible without MPT Lifestyle,  amazing host.

Hari OM 🕉️🙊☯️