Week 17: June 5th – 11th, 2023 // Connecting All Over Again
Has been such a fun and very social week!
Quick reminder about my fundraiser for mental health and suicide prevention. Please share and donate if you can to help me reach my goal of raising $1000 to go towards resources for mental health support: https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/fundraisers/hunterbergen/the-push-up-challenge
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Monday and Tuesday weren’t anything too notable – just spent the days working, going to the gym, getting personal project work done, reading, practicing guitar. The usual. BUT – I did start a plan for mapping out some local hikes and getting some initial planning done for the Larapinta Trail which I’m hoping to do early August! Coincidentally, while I was in the middle of an AllTrails deep dive into Alice Spring trails, our co-worker Emma sent me a message about doing a hike this Saturday! With everything surrounding not feeling all that great the past couple weeks, I’ve been finding myself slipping into a more sedentary state, which may have been necessary for processing whatever was going on, but I’m finding myself eager to get out more again and actually start properly exploring Alice Springs – I really haven’t taken advantage of it at all (which is probably playing a decent factor into the sedentary shift). It’s weird how staying in one place (for me at least), can so easily slip you into a place of stillness? It’s like the momentum for adventure dies down and it’s so easy to say “oh I’ve got plenty of time, I’ll get there eventually/one day/another time.” When in reality, life is still moving forward, and you choosing to put off the things you’re wanting to do is only reducing the amount of time you actually have to do all those things. I hope that makes sense? Like the bucket list is always growing and this life is so short and will pass you by SO quickly. If you keep putting off the things to “another day,” there eventually won’t be enough days to do them…
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Wednesday a fun little professional bucket list item got ticked off – I got my Level 1 First Aid Certificate! It’s mandatory for work, so the whole crew got set up with St John’s Hospital in Alice Springs to take the full day course. It was actually pretty fun, especially getting to do it with the group, and we had such a good teacher. At some point I’d really love to take a wilderness first aid course, but I think I’m really going to need to work on my queasiness over certain injuries lol. Rest of the evening was spent getting groceries and cooking a big pot of curry, and hanging out with Ash, Troy, Pablo and Pia at the hostel.
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Thursday I had a good start to the day practicing being resourceful rather than reactive. Long story short, a guy blocked my car in the hostel parking even though we had talked the night before and there was a perfectly good open spot where he wouldn’t be blocking anyone… but no… he still decided to park right in front of me and two other cars. It was fine because he did get up in time for me to leave for work, but it was just the principle of the whole thing. ANYWAYS. I woke up wanting to go to the gym before work (took some convincing this particular morning too which I think is what added more fuel to the flames lol), but then obviously I couldn’t. I was feeling really frustrated and annoyed and it’s just not a great way to start your day – but after a little bit of fuming about it, I took a moment and assessed what it was that was bothering me, what it was that I was needing, and how I could go about still getting that. I reminded myself I have a perfectly good yoga mat, and the hostel has an empty living room with plenty of space for me to move my body, which honestly I think turned out to be more of what I needed than a gym workout.
The rest of the day was pretty chill - we had a full day at Uni and spent it working as a group on some driver’s licence assignments. I got in lots of reading at lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening sorting out photo storage issues (trying to…), and playing some cards with Pablo and Ash.
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Friday was a good, slow, and social day. I had a really good counselling appointment in the morning and got to spend the rest of the day working from home. Spent most of the afternoon hanging out and sorting through some more photo storage stuff on my computer, reading in the hammocks for a bit, going to the gym, and meeting up with the rest of the crew (Troy, Ash, Pablo, Cata, Pia, Gianfranco, and Jono) for some drinks and card games at the hostel! We were supposed to go out to the local bar for 90’s night later on but everyone ended up too tired to go… was a little sad ‘cause I was pretty stoked to go dancing, but alas, we’ll have to wait for another night lol.
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Saturday was another great day and reminder of how important it is to do the things that feed your soul. I got to have a nice morning of setting no alarms and allowing my body to wake up when it wanted to and found myself immediately craving some yoga in the sun. A frequent occurrence in moments like this though, is I won’t act on that feeling right away and I’ll end up distracted by other things, or talking myself into other things I could/should be doing, where I’ll end up in a decision paralysis and then don’t do a lot of the things I said I wanted/should be doing (or I’m rushing them all at once towards the end of the day). But this morning was one of the rarer occasions where I reminded myself of how I feel 1. When I get that movement in the sun and 2. When I don’t act on those needs/wants. This time I actually listened to what my mind and body were wanting. With practices and moments like this, I’ve been trying to make it a habit to leave my phone and watch in the van so that it allows me to be fully present and not get caught up on or be pulled away by concerns of people trying to get a hold of me, or how much time I’m spending on the practice. It allows me to listen to the distractions and move through them, rather than allowing them to have full control and take over.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on projects before heading out with Emma, Takk, Pia, Cata, Jono and Gian for a sunset hike! Was such a beautiful, quick little trail up to some really stunning views of Alice Springs and the surrounding landscape. I’ve been finding myself getting so hung up on the natural beauty and landscapes I’m missing (lush forests, lakes, the ocean) than I’m not really allowing myself to fully appreciate the unique beauty the desert holds, which is such a great reminder that the more you tell yourself you don’t like something, or you wish you were elsewhere, etc. the more barriers you put up for yourself and just end up dragging yourself down. What you speak/think to yourself matters – in every aspect.
The rest of the evening started as what was going to be editing photos, practicing guitar, blog work and an early night – but Gian and I ended up making friends with an Aussie (Chris) trying to find a place for the night as he was passing through Alice Springs, and all stayed up chatting till like 2am – now I have a new friend in Melbourne to visit/stay with when I make my way out that direction! Probably my favourite part of traveling is the connections like this that get formed just so naturally and effortlessly (and unexpectedly), the ones where they just click right off the bat and you know they’ll end up playing more parts in your life than you probably realize.
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The next day I woke up surprisingly early considering how late I went to bed lol but got motivated to jump on this week’s blog right away. We had Pablo’s birthday this afternoon and I knew I wasn’t going to get much time to work on it later (boy was I right lol – we had a great day). After a couple hours of work and a quick power nap, I got in a really good workout then joined the whole crew for the festivities! Pablo made a delicious pasta for everyone for lunch, played some card games, and spent time just all hanging out together in the hammocks at the hostel. Everyone was feeling a bit lower energy for the evening, so we ended up having a movie night in the hostel living room and set up Jono’s projector to watch the horror movie ‘Smile.’ Chris joined us afterwards, and myself, Gian, Chris and two other girls staying the night at the hostel went out to one of the local pubs for a couple hours. It’s a public holiday this Monday, so it wasn’t really busy and was a much more low-key hangout vibe rather than going out dancing like we initially thought, but was nice to get out and connect more with some new people!
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It’s been nice working through that balance of creating my alone time and investing in my wants + needs, while stepping into my more social side this week. Tapping back into a lot of the things that make me feel grounded and alive with more intention, as well as re-assessing my limits. It’s been a long time since I’ve had this kind of solid, consistent friend group to always be able to do things with, without it always having to be big plans; a group who simply enjoys being with each other and able to communicate openly and fully be ourselves with no judgment. It’s been so so refreshing, and I’m realizing now as I write this, this is exactly what I had been hoping for when I was realizing how much I wanted that sense of community after leaving Tasmania. It’s really, truly amazing what you can bring into your life when you put that energy out there, and I’m so grateful and thankful for the people coming in/out of my life, the lessons I’m learning, and the understanding I’m gaining about myself.
Stay passionate and curious,
Hunter💛
