Clinical Psychologist Dr. Saliha Afridi On Discovering Yourself Through Solo Travel
The Managing Director of The LightHouse Arabia and Bazaar’s columnist, explores the joys and the self-awareness that comes from taking solo voyages
Who would I be if I woke up in a new place without anyone I know? Would I recognise myself without the mirror of reactions and expectations from the people in my life? What would I like to do if there was no one watching? What would I dislike? What would I spend my days doing?
The places we inhabit, what we do in those places, and the people we share those places with, all evoke certain roles or personas within us and embedded in those roles are sets of expectations, ways of being, and ways of relating. Our day to day lives are filled with such roles – the mother, the child, the sibling, the partner, the friend, the student, the professional, the colleague – the list goes on and on. It isn’t just relationships, but also the places we move throughout the day which pulls forth different parts of us – the work place, the friend’s home, the beach, the gym. Each person, each place, each relationship pulls and highlights different parts of our identity.
So what happens when we spend all our days, and all our time within such roles and relationships, and then suddenly one day that person or place that defined so much of how we spent our days is no longer there? Maybe we move, or they graduate, or they pass-on – and we are left feeling lost, confused, and disassembled. It is difficult figuring out who we are without these people and places.
While relationships are an important factor that determine our happiness, when we become overly identified and overly invested in relationships, at the expense of disconnecting with ourself, then we endanger losing contact with our ‘authentic self’ – the part of us that remains when we are alone. This is why many people will say “I lost myself when I had kids” or “I don’t know who I am without my partner” or “I don’t know who I am now that I am retired.” They became overly identified with the role of the partner, the parent, or the professional and neglected the part of themselves that was before all the roles came into play.
The case for travelling alone
Spending time alone, especially travelling alone – if done with intention – has the power to bring us closer to our authentic self. This is because when we are not around familiar people and places, we have access to parts of our identity that get silenced when we are playing all the different roles.
And by stepping away from our lives and our roles, we not only hear the silenced parts clearly, we also have access to parts that we have not made contact with yet. Perhaps for this very reason gurus, monks, prophets and artists spend time alone – in the desert, in a cave, or on top of a mountain – they leave their homes and their families so that they can hear clearly the voice of their higher self, God, or their spirit.
Travelling within as without
So what happens when you go on a journey by yourself?
You learn to set personal intentions for your days.
When you are alone you realise how much you depend on others to orient your day. The first few days or even the first few times you will travel alone will feel strange. Many people report feeling lost or confused, others report sleeping all day or spending their days watching TV. This makes one aware of how externally driven they might have become in their day to day life, reacting and responding to people’s needs, rather than checking in with themselves at the start or setting personal intentions for their day. How would you spend your day if you could spend it any way you wanted?
You understand your personal preferences
Do you know what time you would wake up or how you would spend the day if you were not responding to an expectation? Do you know what type of food you would eat or whether you prefer to skip a meal and indulge in another? Do you enjoy sightseeing, or perhaps walking where the streets have no name?
By not having people around you, you come to a stark realisation of your personal preferences and hopefully you are able to ask for more of what you want when you return back to your day to day life.
You learn to absorb the moment fully
Most of us, when we see something beautiful, are immediately compelled to take out our phone and send a picture of that moment to someone we love. It might be because we want to share those beautiful moments with people we are close to, but it could also be because there is a part of us that feels guilty or anxious that we are experiencing something only for ourself. What would happen if you didn’t share that moment? If all you could do was memorise it? How deeply would you engage with that moment? What feelings would come up for you if you just kept that moment for yourself? The answers to these questions will reveal to you more about how you feel when you care, enjoy and consider yourself.
It is important that ahead of a trip you handle all your affairs at home and at work, and make the intention to spend time with yourself. Fill every hour of your day doing the things you have always wanted to do but didn’t have time to, and turn off social media because it defeats the purpose if you take your thousands of virtual followers along with you.
So next time you make plans to travel, or make some extended time for yourself, make an intention to step away, and if you do this with enough discipline and commitment, you finally arrive at a place you can truly call home – the home within.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s May 2022 issue.