The World Of Traveling
I have been to counseling 20 times in the last 4 months.
In the beginning,
I thought my problem was about traumatic events I had experienced.
But as time passed,
I realized the main issue,
problem for me was the story I told myself.
From now on,
I will talk about my recovery story and traveling.
I dropped out of the Self-Defence when I was age 23.
From that time,
I lost my mental balance and my family protected me so carefully.
My parents protected me from society.
I cured soon,
but mentally I lost many opportunities to grow up as a human I thought.
Because I took a long rest, 4 years rest.
My second job was a kitchen assistant.
I worked very hard,
but I didn't like cooking in that time.
So after work I was always reading books.
Reading books was my healing time for hard work.
I just did physical work for 7 years at the kitchen.
But I was bored of the chores at the end of that job,
and I took a long holiday for traveling.
My plan was to travel around the "Kumano Kodo",
which is a world heritage pilgrimage road.
But I couldn't read maps and big typhoon came to the place where I was at.
I called my father and he checked local hotel for me.
And I reached a hotel,
that was a guest house for travelers.
The GREEN building!
In that day the hotel capacity was full, so I couldn't get a bed to stay.
However, the owner told me that you could sleep on this GREEN SOFA! instead of a bed.
The SOFA was in the common room,
which was an open space.
We can talk freely in the common room,
the open space.
But I just wanted a bed to sleep in,
on the first night.
The common room space was a extremely interesting space to talk with travelers from all over the world.
My topic was knowledge from books and imagination.
Although I had never lived in another country,
I was to be able to communicate with foreign people all through the night.
I stayed one night,
I was excited,
then I extended my stay another night.
And on the second day,
I was so excited,
then I extended my stay another night.
And on the third day I was soo excited,
I extended my stay again.
I did this for two weeks.
I stayed on the GREEN SOFA for 2 weeks,
despite having a bed vacancy for the final week.
If I wanted a bed, I could.
But I didn't.
Because I love the GREEN SOFA.
It felt pretty good to stay and talk all day long with my POOR ENGLISH.
By that experience I overcame the shame to speak INCORRECT ENGLISH.
I made close friends at the guest house.
One is the painter, Ken.
We talk sometimes at night by phone.
The other is entrepreneur Ryo.
He gave me jobs sometimes.
And I found a girlfriend,
although it was a very short time relationship.
I still have some contact with them.
From that time,
I was absorbed with staying on the GREEN SOFA when I could have a holiday and I quit job,
then I would visit the guest house.
I am now making and changing the story of myself.
I realized the counseling is helping to make my own story.
So it is all about the story making job.
What is my life and story like?
My memory is like a messy desk,
there are so many ideas, documents, images, and unknown things and bad things so on.
So I have to organize it.
So I have to put the things to their right place,
it is the same with physical organize.
I started to organize my items from last year,
and I still keep doing it.
I feel I have a lack of experience compared with the normal people.
But I can change the interpretation by remaking my story.
My dream is to TRAVEL and WRITE.
I want to earn my living from that.
If I could make my story by writing,
I could heal my soul and I can go to the next step.
LIVING BY TRAVELING AND WRITING.
Previously most of all my experience was from books.
But now I am moving to practical, daily things.
Organizing clothes and documents.
Cleaning up the room.
Buying food and cooking.
Repairing the screen net against mosquitos.
But I feel a lack in my heart that I need something to fill.
Every time I took a counseling session,
I started to underdtand that my sight is made by the story of my life.
If my story was sad,
then I searched for sad things.
So I focused on trauma,
I tried to find traumatic story based reality.
One day I tried to take a picture with smart phone,
I found good flowers and interesting snail.
The snail made his trail with his wet body,
there were many dots he moved from.
I found it because I focused on it.
So my sight was changed by taking pictures.
It changed my view.
If I could change my sight and focus, then my life would be changed.
This can change my story.
Traveling and writing down my memories,
it gave me the chance to remake my story.
I understand it now and started to write my own story.
It is healing me.
And my energy flows from the Negative to the Positive.
Making a story is like experiencing traveling.
Once you experience something,
you can make your own story automatically in your memory.
If you didn't like your experience,
you could change the story.
I am doing that now.
I understand that this is the result of the counseling.
Organizing, Correcting, Remaking the story-
All the materials exist inside you.
Do you like to take the rest on the GREEN SOFA?
Thank you!