Packing My Belongings, Letting Go of Illusions
The Eclipse, the Island, and the Choice to Stay
It has been a difficult time.
My husband and I are packing for a move—
the house cluttered with things, heavy lifting, long days that end in exhaustion.
I find myself trapped in triggers, day in and day out.
The abandonment wound speaks loudly, and an old idea rises in me: leave before I am left.
A survival mechanism I’ve used for years.
I struggle in the bitterness of the life I did not choose.
The rain clouds the sky, as tears pour from my eyes.
Sometimes, when my husband and I enter difficult emotions, that voice rises in me: leave.
Especially because I don’t live in a place I love anymore. When I left Koh Phangan, the island I adored, I questioned myself:
Am I sacrificing my life for love?
Without him, I would still be living there, on my beloved island.
As if it was not confusing enough, a tantric guru spoke over the internet about a great ending that happened around a time of powerful celestial shifts, as if whispering in my ear: This is a sign for you to leave too, to return to the familiarity you once believed in.
But that old voice is losing its power.
I see through these voices, just as I see through the false guru. These so-called teachers spoke about love and relationship in such a devoted way, and then gave abrupt reasons why their relationships ended. Often it was after meditation that they “realized” they were no longer aligned, leaving the real cause of separation unspoken. No one admitted their wounds.
For a long time this unsettled me. It was as if the ground shook. Because I held their relationships in a high place, as role models. And if even they could lose love, what was left to believe in? I felt bitterness, and separation rose in me, echoing the same wound I carried from my parents’ divorce.
It has taken me a long journey to see that what I was really leaving behind was not love—but my addiction to Koh Phangan and the idea of life I built there.
The island gave me so much—healing, wisdom, beauty, community. But I was trapped in the illusion that only there could I find love and happiness. That lifestyle felt like the whole truth about me. That only in circles and ceremonies could I thrive.
Meanwhile, my husband took me to see the world. We traveled through countries, stayed in luxury, and he provided everything. Yet often I could not see any of it. My vision was narrowed. All I saw was my longing for the island, the life I had known. Only now do I realize how small my mind had become.
I had isolated myself. Conditioned myself to believe in only one way of love. Instead of expanding, I shrank—content with one place, one way, one identity.
But in truth, I was not content.
In many areas of my life I was stuck. My career as a writer and creator suffered; when my mind was trapped, so was my expression. I abandoned choices and dreams that no longer seemed to fit the “island way.” Judgment crept in. Isolation closed me off from the wider world.
Everything felt wrong, as though the whole world spun in the wrong direction—except for my beloved island.
And then, on the morning of September 21, a partial solar eclipse comes.
The sky begins to shift. The heaviness lightens.
I see my situation with clearer eyes.
During eclipses, something is always hidden, and something revealed.
Something must end so that something new can begin.
Now I see the wisdom in those words I once heard: that something must die during times of transition. They were right. But for me, it was not my relationship with my husband.
We are not perfect. Yet with each conflict, with each disharmony, we grow stronger. What must end is not our love, but our separation.
The fear.
The trauma we both carry.
The belief that happiness lives only on an island.
The voice that told me to leave when things got hard—
that voice no longer has power over me.
But the truth is:
✨ It takes courage to stay.
✨ It takes depth to face the mirror of relationship, where every wound is reflected back.
✨ It takes love to not run, but to transform inside the fire.
I don’t want to be fooled into believing that “leaving is always the higher path.” I know in my body that sometimes true wisdom is in the staying, in the transforming.
Back to why I went to the island in the first place: I once did the same with Koh Phangan. I called it refuge, but really it was escape. It was a beautiful escape — healing, community, beauty — but still an escape.
The world hurt me, so I ran from it. And yet, as I’ve seen, what is left undone never disappears. It waits. It calls me back. The wound is not healed by running, only by facing.
That’s why my soul is asking now:
• Don’t abandon myself when it gets hard.
• Don’t dress escape as growth.
• Meet life full-on, with open eyes, even when it hurts.
So now, as I pack my belongings, I also pack away the illusions I once clung to.
And as I let go of boxes and clutter,
I let the old illusions go, too.