By Annie Ruygt

May 6, 2019

It was a long time coming. Seeking for four plus years gets tiring; all the therapy, self-help books, solo travel, meditation retreats, eco retreats, plant medicine, psychic visits. Psychic training sounds calming and luxurious, but oftentimes it was just plain isolating. 

But that’s what I needed to realize I must learn to be happy alone.  

It was when I signed up for an eco-retreat with twelve other women in Ireland that I had my epiphany, a discovery outside of my mind. Here I was, spending seven days in the Burren countryside with interesting and compassionate women, yet I still felt alone. What was I doing wrong? Hoping for a softening of the heart, I wrote in my journal daily and excused myself in the mornings and afternoons to do yoga. I tried to eat as simple and clean as I could, thinking my sadness was from poor dietary choices (which was hilarious because almost everything at the retreat center was organic, whole food, and gluten free). But I sat on the Atlantic beach one day, cold, yet surviving, thanks to herbal medicine, additional clothing, and gloves gracefully handed to me by these incredible women, bam! Something clicked.

They were taking care of me, but I hadn’t let them in.

This was not a new insight, you see. I’d had many miserably dark boughts of depression before and had to reconnect after holing up in my room with yoga books and TED talks. In fact, this had been the last several years of my life, but with every low spell, there was love and joy on the other side, and it became less and less of a constant struggle. So, when I had this spark of truth cross back into my nervous system, open my heart, and remind me of old patterns, I looked to these women for their wisdom since my own ways were keeping me stuck.

Two of them had “married” themselves on the retreat. The villages nearby had beautiful jewelry shops, and they purchased rings and had their own ceremony on the beach. Their commitment to themselves struck me as a missing piece to my puzzle – the fire that would illuminate those dark treks when I started feeling lost.

A few days after the retreat ended, I found my ring: simple, sterling silver, a banded feather to represent freedom.

“I will take care of you,” I whispered to myself. And when I saw that ring on my finger, I felt a gentle power flood through me that allowed me to hold myself like never before.

I married myself. And, from that day, I have walked through life knowing that I am cared for. Knowing that I will be okay.

Yes, I have been on this path for awhile, and the path, more than anything, is a practice. For so long, I was looking at my life as a shedding of old patterns, which is partly true, but what I needed was the freedom to build something new. Here is to celebrating it all. Here’s to destruction and construction. To process and practice. To dying and healing. And here is to doing it every single day over and over and over again.

Annie Ruygt is an author and illustrator living in Northern California. You can find more of her work on her website: https://annieruygtillustration.com.