Haunani and I heading out on our great adventure

“Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that first, bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart”

This powerful quote, from one of my favorite of David Whyte’s poems, The Journey, rolls across the screen in the beginning of my documentary, Journey Back to Myself. This short film documents my solo journey across the Pacific Ocean in my 34’ sailboat, Haunani. I made this voyage in 2016, and eight years later, the lessons and reckonings keep coming!

As I dive deeper into this current phase of my healing journey of C-PTSD, as well as the journey of reviving my healing art business, I am reminded of many of the lessons gleaned from my amazing sailing adventure. You would think that I would say that sailing across the Pacific by myself changed me, but what it really did was to remind me of who I really am. For me, this was huge, since as a chronic fawner, I necessarily hid (and therefore didn’t get to know) my true self for most of my life. I have talked about fawning here before, but in case you don’t know what it is, it is a term coined by Pete Walker as the fourth trauma response. Walker explains that “the fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries.” (I have included links to a couple of articles on fawning below if you want to know more). As someone who had to fawn for survival as a child, I continue to have to do lots of work to “UNfawn”(a term my therapist uses). This process has been really challenging, because it is so ingrained as a self-protective behavior that for most of my life, it has felt like my actual personality. In fact, I didn’t realize that it wasn’t part of my personality until recently.

I have known, from the moment I set sail alone under the Golden Gate bridge in 2016, that my solo journey would have a huge impact on me. Within months after my finish, I knew that it was the only time I could truly be myself, and in the present moment. But what I didn’t fully understand until just the other day why that was true. I found out when I had a total a-ha moment driving down the 101: sailing across the Pacific alone was the first time in my life that I didn’t feel the unconscious drive to fawn. I felt safe to be the fullest most unadulterated version of myself.

No wonder I could breathe easy and relax despite the many challenges I faced out there. I was the only human for miles and miles for 17 days, and I had never been alone to that degree. I say that in the most positive of ways. I loved being alone out there! There were so many reasons for that, but my a-ha moment revealed the biggest one. There was no one out there to whom to meld, or appease. There was no one for whom to make myself small. Even though I couldn’t fully name it until now, I felt it in my bones the moment I left the dock. In retrospect, it feels like something out of a movie, when a comic book character morphs into a superhero from their human form. I was morphing into my own superhero form….ME! As I passed under that iconic bridge after my start, I could feel the habitual smallness shedding and my innate confidence start to take its rightful place. I felt a quiet yet powerful peace building inside me that no one could take away, let alone understand. There I was, safe to fully embrace my power and strength for the first time ever. I was capably getting things done that needed to be done, I was not second guessing myself or apologizing, I was sleeping when I needed to sleep, and crying when I needed to cry, laughing when I felt like laughing, and I was fully able to bask in the joy and challenges of each moment. At one point in my film I said “ is it weird that I kind of like this? I mean seriously… even when it sucks…”

I can see now that the reason I liked it so much, despite the hardships, was because I was feeling the truth of who I really am in a sustained way for the first time ever. I can still relate to my own words above as I rebuild my business. It sucks at times, but I love it, and I need it. I am alone a lot, and lately I have been wondering if it is too much (and it might be). But, I have recently recognized that this phase of my life and healing has called for me to be alone more than usual, and now I can more fully understand why. I need this time alone so that I can remember over and over again who I am and what I am capable of, without the energy of another tempting me backwards into fawning and self -abandonment. My creative practice fortifies me and makes me more and more conscious of the difference between fawning and being truly myself. I know this might sound elementary, and to people who grew up without sustained childhood trauma it probably is. But I am truly just learning how to do this now, and my capacity for it grows daily. This is in large part due to my daily art practice because I have come to realize that my art practice is another way that I support my “UNfawning” and learn to trust myself more deeply. When I am creating art alone, I am able be true to myself and trust my own inner compass. This practice hones these skills and helps me to remember who I am, and in that remembering lies my healing. Creativity is a powerful vehicle for healing. I believe that this is why I feel so called to share this process with with others. Making art, just like solo sailing, brings me home to myself, and I am passionate about sharing that powerful truth with anyone who wants to take a deep dive with me! “Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that first, bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart”. Making art and sailing are my “great sky”. My deepest hope and prayer is that through my work, I will help others discover their great sky!

THE JOURNEY

Above the mountains

the geese turn into

the light again

painting their

black silhouettes

on an open sky.

Sometimes

everything

has to be

enscribed across

the heavens