Something interesting happened.
I was sitting on the balcony, doing some vagal stimulation exercises (just a simple voo exercise), as I've started experimenting with these kinds of practices to alleviate GI symptoms. I've written before about my attempts to keep such issues under control through diet, exercise, etc. And while I do see a massive improvement, I still have days on which I'm quite irritable. And since GI irritability is greatly linked to vagal dysregulation, self-soothing exercises.
So I was out there, just voo-ing away, and a couple of things happened. For one, an immediate, massive relief in the gut area. Like someone had reached in and just plucked away the massive ball of tension I was feeling there. But to an extent, that was the expected (or at least, desired) effect.
What I didn't expect was the intense sense of being somewhere else. I know I wrote before about these peculiar deja-vus, this sudden sense of being somewhere else, often abroad or far from home, in a different city, in a different time. And for several seconds, you just feel like you're there. Fantastic stuff.
And for me, after practicing with vagus nerve stimulation this morning, I got this powerful sense of being somewhere else. But this time, rather than being a nostalgic self-transportation to someplace else, I think it was more tied to the huge calmness and relaxation my body was feeling.
I felt, acutely, the impression of living in Prague some years ago (which I took as fortuitous given I will be visiting again next month). It was somewhat unexpected, since I wouldn't have estimated myself to be regulated and fine and relaxed while there. Much as I enjoyed it, I think I was quite lonely and coming out of a very difficult relationship. If you had asked, rationally, I would describe the whole time as blissful, but also difficult.
And yet, my nervous system says otherwise. Apparently, we were safe in Prague. And happy. Which again, fits with some memories and experiences of that time, but if I get into the mind, it becomes more winding and complex.
Together with a sense of Prague, I got (perhaps more strongly) a sense of my beloved London which people here know feels more home to me than my actual home. I got this pregnant feeling of being in London, of it being cold, of the Thames-laden air, and the strangeness of Portobello Road, the calm in Earl's Court.
The feeling of being safe.
It moved me almost to tears. I never realized how deeply tied the places we love are to a sense of safety, especially when it comes to the "abroad". We so often divide them in places we liked or resonated with, places where we connected with the architecture, or the food, or the activities, or the people.
But seldom with places where our nervous system feels at ease, you know?
My friend and I joke about needing an Aperol or a gelato or other nice treats of feeling abroad. But maybe sometimes, in the acute sense of missing a place, we're actually missing the safety that place suggests for us. Can travel work as a form of self-regulation?
I'm well-aware (and a huge proponent) of the plethora of benefits of traveling and solo traveling, but those are mostly on a conscious level. Traveling exposes you to new worlds, allows you a tabula rasa, to be whoever you want to be, stimulates your attention and your resourcefulness, enriches more generally your experience on this Earth. Strong reasons, but all in-the-head reasons. This felt more like a gut-level reason, and a very powerful one, at that.
I don't know. I'm still learning so much about the elements that make me me.
Do you have such places, do you think?
