When I began this trip I had one objective and in many ways one real question I wanted answered;
How do I stop being afraid?
I figured if I put myself in the most overwhelming and chaotic circumstances, eventually nothing would frighten me any more. And my plan was going surprisingly well. Then one night in the back of a nightclub in Van Vieng, Lao I met an Irish guy (typical) who was asking himself the same question. He said he was a “normal”, confident, popular guy. He was content with his life and yet almost sporadically he would awake in the night gasping for air.
It wasn’t until he asked me the question; “How do I stop being afraid?”, that I realised I’d been asking the wrong question. It’s wasn’t how. That’s why nothing had worked. I had drank and prayed and willed the fear to be gone with no success for almost 16 years.
It was why.
Why are two happy, content, “normal” 20 something year olds waking in the middle of the night, after a seemingly regular day, unable to breathe. And as soon as I’d asked the real question, I knew the answer. They aren’t content.
It is said that the body knows. It knows things we don’t understand yet. It feels danger before we sense it. And once I’d asked the first right question. a thousand new questions unfolded.
What about my life am I not content with? If the body truly knows then what is it trying to tell me? Am I acting in a way that is true to my truest sense of self? That person we are when we’re small; unchanged by loss and deceit. And why here? Why did I have to come half way round the world to allow myself to ask these questions?
What exactly is it that I’m running from, or perhaps the real question:
What am I running toward? 
This is breathing 
