I’m going to be completely honest with you. Malaysia was probably the hardest month for me. And this blog has been one of the hardest to write. Although, blogs are just hard to write when you’re 24/7 mentally exhausted and have to type it all out on your phone…
Anyway, on January 31st, our squad landed in the capital of Malaysia— Kuala Lumpur— flying in from Kenya. As soon as we got in, we had debrief.
We went from living in places with the worst WiFi ever, seeing squatty pottys as a normal “toilet,” running on Africa time (late…always late), using bodas as the normal transportation, having our clothes stained by the red dirt, walking past livestock and seeing all sorts of animals on the daily, and being surrounded by beautiful greenery to a city overloaded with flashy shopping malls and high rise buildings— and I simply became overwhelmed by the modern skyline.
Kuala Lumpur is known as one of Asia’s biggest, busiest and liveliest metropolises. Only a 5-7 minute walk from the hostel we stayed at, you could find the latest and most expensive fashion. Somehow, our budget of $5 a day, per person afforded us a room in a penthouse for lodging. Sure, it was a conference room and not really a “sleeping” room, but we made it work. We had easy access to a pool and a gym. I was feeling like a champion, physically. I was working out and/or swimming every day— a routine hard to manage on the Race when you are constantly unsettled. All around me, I was surrounded by the comfort of a meal at McDonald’s, KFC, Johnny Rockets, ColdStone, etc.
It wasn’t long before I found myself sucked into a state of mind revolving mostly and foremost around consumerism and hedonism. Sound familiar? That state of mind is what I operate out of in the States. Consumerism, hedonism, materialism, convenience, “busy”ness— it’s a Western phenomenon and this city was just showing that to me at another level.
My body was thriving and so were my taste buds; but, I was an internal wreck. Most of the month is a blur in my memory and, now, I’m glad I wrote things out in my journal or documented with pictures because without that, the things that really stick out in my mind about my time there are all the tears and the anxiety attacks I experienced.
This month was a harsh reminder of the things I get so easily caught up in when I’m surrounded by the “busyness” of the Western life. I learned about myself and what I really want to value and prioritize in life and I will tell you all about that, too, but I’m going to focus on something else this time.
You might remember that I wrote about a pit of depression I had fallen into in Kenya— that was the month before Malaysia. But, this time around, it was an overwhelming state of conscious anxiety and turmoil I found myself in.
For the month of Malaysia, our team had the goal to dive into Inner Healing…together-ish. Tom would lead us in some lessons and then we would work on things and process by gender, because, healthy boundaries. Inner Healing is probably a funky term for you to run into so let me explain what it looked like for me:
Inner Healing looks different from program to program, book to book, podcast to podcast, etc. But from the way we experienced it, it is, basically, a way/method that exposes lies that you have come to believe about yourself, about God, and about others. You connect things from your past to your current behavior and mindset. But it doesn’t really work unless you choose accountability, choose vulnerability and transparency, and you CHOOSE IT.
The main concept is that, “We all need to be able to see where we’ve been to know where we’re going next.”
I thought I was totally ready to move on, take the next steps, turn the page, etc…
But the thing about digging into your past is that, the digging goes pretty deep. Usually, to reveal things you aren’t prepared to be conscious of. And admitting most of that hurt and seeing, even, the hurt you caused is…well, not fun.
But once so much of this was revealed to me, I couldn’t just run away from it and pretend I didn’t know better. I could avoid it for a few hours or fight it for a few days but it was spinning at the forefront of my mind. So, eventually, I would cave and deal with it. For me, the whole process of Inner Healing felt like dying. I was constantly being challenged to deal with my pride and my open wounds. I had to grieve things I had believed for most of my life. I had to let go of certain ideas that were giving me a false sense of security. I had to admit that I was walking proudly in some very unhealthy behaviors. Again, not fun. And, I was doing this with a group of people I barely knew! And I was getting feedback about becoming more vulnerable when I had never, in my life, felt more vulnerable than I did then.
Living with boys was a lot harder than I thought it would be. From the first day we became a team, more than half of us started dreaming, thinking, and struggling with past hurts with the opposite sex in a more intense way than we had before on the Race.
I have now come to truly love these amazing men of God— these boiz, if you will. But they have been some of the hardest relationships I have had to fight for this year. And it wasn’t because they were difficult people. It was just simply because my heart had a difficult time reconciling with the past. And I wasn’t truly aware of this until I was set off by various triggers, until we had to have hard and awkward conversations about boundaries, until I had to admit to myself I was jaded, until I had to share homes with them and rooms, until I had to say an early goodbye to a dear brother, and so many more things…
As I write it out now, I am crying and my pillow is pretty soaked. I don’t know if there are words to truly tell you how hard this all was for me— how painful. But these men, they loved me well through it. We weren’t perfect. And I am sure that some of them were as ready to give up on me as I was ready to give up on them. Sometimes it was the truly petty things, and other times, it was something so deep and internal that admitting it and confronting it scared me half to death. But I can tell you that I grew the most on this team. And I healed the most with these brothers.
But, just like in our normal living, I also had some good days and good moments. There were moments and glimmers of hope. I also want to share that with you but I’ll keep it separate from all of this. So, I want to share some memorable moments in Malaysia with you in my next blog! 🙂
Thanks for reading 🙂
I will be landing at LAX June 24th. After LA, I’ll be flying into Newark to spend some time with my dad— did you know that we have reconciled our relationship? I wrote a blog about it: Daddy Issues
So, it won’t be closer to the 4th of July that I actually make my way to good ol’ O-H-I-O.
