This part of my journey has reminded me that travelling is not always about the places you see or the things you accomplish. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is stop.
Over the past few days, I experienced some illness and pain. I do not feel the need to go into the details of what happened, but the experience affected me both physically and mentally. What surprised me most was how something happening in the present could bring feelings from the past so quickly back to the surface.
I think sometimes we believe that because something happened a long time ago, we have dealt with it. We put it somewhere in the back of our minds and continue living our lives. Then something happens that unexpectedly opens that door again.
It reminded me that buried trauma does not necessarily disappear just because we do not think about it everyday, week, month, or year. Sometimes our minds and bodies remember things before we even understand why we are reacting the way we are.
Knowing that from a social work perspective is one thing. Recognizing it happening to yourself is completely different.
I needed to give myself permission to take care of both my physical and mental health. That meant resting, giving myself some space, and accepting that I did not have to explain everything I was feeling in order for those feelings to be valid.
It also meant missing things.
The FOMO was real.
While everyone else was out enjoying the group shopping day, I was resting. I knew it was the right decision, but that did not make it an easy one. We are only in India for a short period of time, and every experience feels like something I may never have the opportunity to do again. There is a strong temptation to push through because I do not want to waste a single day.
But taking care of myself is not wasting a day.
Sometimes self-care is doing exactly what you do not want to do because you know it is what you need.
One of the things that made this experience easier was the team around me. They were wonderful. They checked on me, helped when I needed it, and most importantly, never made me feel bad about any of it.
I find accepting help much harder than giving it.
That has probably been one of my personal lessons throughout this trip. I am comfortable being useful. I am comfortable helping someone else. Being the person who needs other people to look after me is much more difficult.
But there was no judgment from my team. There was just support.
It made me think about the kind of social worker I want to be. People should not have to tell their entire story or justify why they need something before we offer them compassion. Sometimes we will never know what someone is carrying underneath what we can see. Creating a safe space can be as simple as allowing someone to have what they need without making them feel guilty for needing it.
After taking the time I needed, I was happy to get back to mentoring.
Today’s group was a small group of young women around their twenties, and they were incredibly sweet. They seemed to really understand what we were discussing and engaged with the ideas around consent in a thoughtful way.
The setting itself was something I will remember.
Instead of a typical classroom with desks and chairs, we were sitting on church pews, and all of us were barefoot. There was something strangely peaceful about it. Here I was, halfway around the world, barefoot on a church pew in India having conversations about consent.
Sometimes I stop and wonder how this became my life.
The session went well. We finished our activities, took pictures, and received feedback. Everything was essentially over.
Then, almost as an afterthought, one of the young women came up to me and said:
**“Even God asks for consent.”**
And I went quiet for a long while.
It was not part of an activity. Nobody had asked her a question that required that answer. She was not trying to give us the response she thought we wanted. It was simply something she had taken from the conversation and connected to her own understanding of the world.
I think that is why it affected me so much.
We came here with activities and ways of explaining consent, but ultimately we cannot decide what part of a conversation will stay with another person. She had taken something we had discussed and connected it with something meaningful to her.
For a moment, there really was nothing I needed to say. I just needed to listen.
That small interaction also reminded me why being here matters to me. Social work talks so much about meeting people where they are, but being in another country has made me think much more deeply about what that actually means. I cannot assume that the way I understand an idea will be the way someone else understands it. Culture, family, religion, community, and personal experiences all influence the meaning we give things.
My role is not to provide the meaning. It is to create enough space for someone else to find their own.
Sometimes the smallest moments are the ones that leave the biggest impression.