Is Your Brain Attracting Others?

I have observed an interesting phenomena of my brain. I am sure if all of us dig deeply, they will find the same examples. What I am about to describe is the way the brain works with attracting people. To make myself very clear – I think of a person and this person either calls, texts me or simply appears in my life quite quickly. Do not get confused – my brain does not attract each person that is in a way present in my life, so it does not work the way that I think of a lady working as a shop assistant in a shop I visit every day, and suddenly she texts me when she does not even have my phone number. I rather mean how our brain attracts people we are in a kind of relationship with – friendship, marital, or parental one. We, as people, build different relationships in which some tend to be emotionally stronger and some weaker. The phenomena I am talking about happens, as my observation shows, when two aspects are fulfilled – we need to be in a quite close relationship with the other person (emotional, physical or both) and we need to think quite intensively about them. In such cases many times I noticed, my brain drew attention to the person I was thinking about and kind of made them contact me, subconsciously I presume.

Examples are best, so here is mine. I was involved, for a couple of years, in a very toxic relationship. It was an in and out one in which I was never really understanding my behavior that was only destroying me. Till the time I started psychoanalysis. However I noticed such a phenomena that when I was thinking about this guy, usually before going to sleep, the moment I woke up the next day I had several missed calls. I cannot say it was happening each time and just a simple thought of him draw his attention to me, because it was not that way. I just noticed the repeatable schema. Just because we were somehow emotionally connected, my brain was able to draw his attention into me when I was thinking about him in 80% of cases. Knowing this and thanks to understanding why this relationship was so toxic to me, I started changing my habit. Now, when I catch myself thinking of him I immediately stop myself and explain my brain I do not really want to repeat the past. After a 20-year-old fucked up relation, I will probably never get rid this guy from my brain and memories as he is part of my past experience, however I can stop hurting myself.

The above example was a negative one, as it spoke of attracting a person who was causing me harm. On the other hand, there are many positive examples. Lately I got closer to a colleague, a girl who I meet from time to time, travel with from time to time, spend time together. We managed to build a kind of emotional relation between us as we support each other and speak openly about everything that is happening in our lives, yet I cannot say we are addicted to each other – healthy relationship I would say. What I noticed lately is that when I think of her, she usually texts me with a quick note of what has just happened in her life or how she feels. She told me I do the same 🙂 It means we attract each other, or rather our brains do that 🙂 The same phenomena is happening with my father with whom I have a very close relation. In 9 out of 10 examples when I think of him, here it comes – I get a phone call from him the same day or even a few minutes later! 🙂 Amazing, isn’t it?

The most important to me is that by realizing how phenomenal my brain is, I am able to have it on my side and improve my life by attracting only people I want to be surrounded by and geting rid of the ones I was hurt by! 🙂

One of my Dreaming Symbols – Water

During my whole psychotherapy I have discovered there is one symbol that appears quite often in my dreams. This symbol is water. When I started digging into it with the therapist as well as with myself, I managed to figure it out. Water means my subconscious itself reflected in my consciousness. It is also one of the archetypical symbols Jung was speaking of and analyzing. The way I managed to interpret it correctly – I hope finally – helped me understand my subconscious better. I need to admit water appears in my dreams at least once a month. At the beginning, I was usually dreaming I was diving deeply into the water, swimming in it or dipping into it. Now I know it means that in my conscious life I was acting led by my subconscious needs. That also proves the power of it – most of our actions are led by our subconscious and we are not even aware of it! Once I started working on my subconscious, trying to understand it by analyzing its needs and use its power – my dreams also changed. Especially the ones with water. Now when I dream of a swimming poor, ocean, lake or anything that represents water, I see myself rather standing on a beach and admiring an ocean view along with a strong feeling I do not want to dive into it. If I did dive that would mean coming back to my old, unconcious habits! I know it is safer for me to stay attached to my conscious part for the time being. However, my dreams remind me there is still the unconscious one that does not want to be forgotten. I am aware I do not allow myself to any subconscious acts, I try to stay away from these. Do I really manage? My observation shows that subconscious is incredibly powerful in our lives and getting to know it is a very hard job as well as painful in most cases. Will I ever be able to get to know it 100%? I do not think so. I do not think it is possible to get to know ourselves 100%. However expanding the knowledge about our subconscious and its way of leading our lives is an amazing adventure! My therapy sessions helped me a lot in getting to know why I am acting the way I am and in the same gave me an opportunity to choose – if I still want to act led by my subconscious needs or there are some of my behaviors I am not really proud of and would like to change. That is probably why now, when I am dreaming of water, it is rather drifting on its surface trying not to touch it or diving into it – that is out of the question! I try to stay away from water as much as possible. That means in some ways I am trying to kill my subconscious and do not allow it to speak anymore. Is that a better solution than acting based on my subconscious needs? I know that sometimes listening to it is a good idea. Anyway how do I know which needs written in my subconscious part bring me filfillment, make me happy and which harm me? Probably I will find it out eventually. For the time being, at least, I know what my subconscious wants to tell me when the water symbol appears in my dreams. If not the therapy I would probably never be able to figure out what such a symbol may mean in my life and how it may help me to get to know myself better.

Home Alone for Christmas?

This time of the year is coming when it feels strange if you spend Christmas alone. For the first time I felt the same. I thought how come I am spending such a wonderful time a year alone when I am not even old, my parents and my brother still are alive and I feel I do not want to spend Christmas with them?! Everybody around tells you it is such a special time you should (I hate this word!) spend it with your relatives. What if you do not really like your relatives? Shall you force yourself to be with them? Shall you visit them, pretend you want to be with them when in fact you are praying for the evening to be over? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we force ourselves to spend time with people we do not feel good with? Because the society says so? Because before Christmas and on TV as well as billboards we see these perfect commercials with perfect people sitting around the table who seem to be sharing and enjoying every moment of this special time? Do we live in such an illusion we can also have it with our own families when most of them are very imperfect? Do we think someting might change and improve our relationships with relatives during Christmas? Does this time really bring miracles?

I need to admit, the first time I decided not to visit my parents for Christmas, hurt. I spent Christmas Eve alone! Yep, alone! My father did not really show the respect for this time as he decided to work till midnight that day, to earn more money. He is a tram driver, so shifts he does are different ones and I do understand he needs to work in barbarian hours sometimes, but hey – it was Christmas! He did not need to take such a long shift, he could have finished at 6 pm, he had a choice! Yet he decided to neglect, in my opinion, Christmas Eve, and negate his own words when he was each year saying that Christmas is a family time and everyone should be with their families then. And he did exactly the opposite! It also made me wonder why grown ups say different things and later on act differently? If he said he did not give a damn about Christmas, I would understand his behaviour. Everyone has right to their own perspectives. So adults can act in a funny way some of the time. He went to work, and me, I decided I am spending this time at home, alone. As my relationship with my mother sucks and my brother is kind of good but totally irresponsible person, I admitted to myself I prefer to be home alone than in a bad company, even though this bad company occurred to be my own family Felt strange at the beginning. The plan was simple – I had some dinner, a glass of wine, watched some TV. Nothing special, yet the company was special, because it was my own. 🙂 And the next day, when I woke up, I realized the drama did not happen. I was still alive and smiling. It only proved me the worst is always the first time. Whatever you do, the first time will always be most scary. I cannot say I was very happy about the fact my family sucks and is incredibly imperfect, but I realized if I do not want to take part in it, I do not have to. I am not going to force myself into spending time with people who have negative influence on me just because it is Christmas and they take part of my family. I prefered to visit my aunt the day after Christmas Eve instead. She lives a few kilometers outside of Warsaw and with her I can talk about everything – my life, my emotions, my travels and future plans. Even though she is 70 we get along perfectly and she supports me in every aspect of my life! This part of my family I love the most! 🙂 And I want to be surrounded only by people who wish me well and support me in achieving my goals. It makes me sad these are not my parents, yet I know I cannot change it. We do not choose families we are born into. However as an adult I can choose people I want to spend time with.

So this 2018 Christmas I am going to the mountains with a friend. The plan is to relax, do some hiking, maybe skiing, spend Christmas Eve just the two of us and share only positive emotions! Finally I am allowing myself to choose how and with who I want to spend this special time, instead of pretending I have a wonderful family that cares about each other when in fact it happens to be a very dysfunctional one. No point sacrificing my precious time with people who do not know how to love. This Christmas I am going to love my friend, and the mountains, and the snow, and the cold weather! 🙂

And I wish everybody to spend this special Christmas time with people you feel good with, who bring only positive emotions into your lives and make you happy! Life it too short to be surrounded by any aspect of the negativity 🙂

Sex and Warsaw City

I have lately realized that I like ruining stereotypes. The one I have just ruined concerns relationships. Usually it is considered quite normal for an older guy to be dating a very young girl. I’m not going to speak of the exact age while they are dating, because it doesn’t matter, what matters the most is the age difference between two people. When it comes to a woman, dating much younger guy is not considered to be accepted and normal within the society we happen to be surrounded by. So I got involved, a few months ago, into a relationship with a guy 14 years younger than me 🙂 I am 35, he is 21. We are both quite young though. At the beginning I also got a bit attached to the stereotype and considered him too young for a relationship. I falsely assumed I am too old for him and we probably wouldn’t get along. However seeing him as a friend was not a big problem for me. Why? Why would I be able to make him one of my friends, but when it comes to love affair I was stopping myself from any emotional involvements? But then I changed my way of thinking as I followed my heart. I need to admit this relationship was one of the best ones I have ever created! From the moment we met, we had lots of things in common, lots of subjects to discuss, lots of similar interests, and there was this amazing chemistry between us that you don’t get with everybody. The only thing stopping me from having sex with this guy was his age! We felt so at ease with each other that we could spend all night talking about life, exchanging our points of view and sharing life experience. So after a few days I realized there is no way I’m going to control myself more as I felt an incredible emotional connection between us. The question arose – why would I discipline myself and hide the feelings I had toward this guy just because of the age difference? There is 14 years difference between, so what?! 🙂 When I compare him to some of the guys I happened to date and were a bit older than me – around 40, I found them so immature, insecure, not understanding my emotions and acting like kids, that I did not want to get into any relationships with them. Yet they were older what seems fine for the judgmental society. However their ego and insecurity made me realize I do not want to stick to such men. And then comes into my life this 21-year-old, brings peace and quiet, is emotionally well-balanced and doesn’t fight any battles inside himself. I feel and see how easy-going, relaxed and cheerful this person is and then I start wondering how come such a young guy can be so matured compared to much older ones that I totally do not want to date?!In one of an interview with a psychologist I read that women tend to get along best with men who lived in symbiosis with their mothers. My latest experience only proves this theory right! Do not interpret it that these mothers were overprotective, it only means they were able to create and be in a healthy emotional relationship with their sons. So thank you these types of mothers – you are really doing a great job!

After a few days I spent with him I realized I’m not going to stick into this stereotype and stop myself from having sex with him only because I’m much older. I felt shouldn’t be doing that only because from a 35-year-old woman you would expect decency. What a crap! 🙂 I listened to myself, followed my emotions and do not regret every single minute of it, because I spent the most incredible time with him full of love, calmness, interesting conversations, amazing sex, chemistry, passion, and tenderness. 🙂 It only leaves me with wanting more of him and his incredible well-balanced personality. Even though he had to leave, as he was only visiting Warsaw for a few weeks, I will never forget him and will try the see him again as soon as possible.

What is very important to me in this story is that I ruined another stereotype in my life. That is that a woman can get involved in a relationship with a much younger guy and it can work out! It is only a matter of personality when it comes to people we meet and invite into our lives, not a matter of age. It doesn’t mean the older you are the smarter you get. That is bullshit! We, as people, tend to judge everything – relationships, the way others act and think, their opinions, their way of life and many other things. I know the only person that can live and feel my life is myself. I have always liked doing things in a totally different way the society tells to do. In this case, if I listened to another stereotype I would have never allowed myself to get involved with 21-year-old and I would have never experienced such a wonderful relationship. The best was for me to listen to myself, my needs, my emotions and follow my heart. 🙂 I wish he didn’t leave, I wish he stayed longer, yet I know he has his plans for life and we managed to meet only for a certain amount of time. I’m grateful I allowed myself to make the best use of this time and gained in return not only another life experience, but a lot of love, respect and tenderness! I know now that men I want to build relationships with, must be the ones that don’t have any problems with their egos and are well-balanced. I love learning through my own actions and need to say I don’t care what the society says. I am aware I might be judged, but these who do not allow themselves to live a real life will never experience what I had with this 14 years old younger guy! 🙂 So thank you my life for this incredible experience!

Guilty Laziness

Today I came into thinking why do I, and probably most of the people, while resting and doing nothing, feel guilty about it. I woke up in the morning, around 9 am, as it was a Sunday and I did not need to rush anywhere, had some breakfast, some morning coffee, watched a bit of TV, and by 11 am I decided to lay down again and have some rest. A few hours later I found myself lying on my bed, hugging a teddy bear, [I know I’m 35 and still hugging a teddy bear ;)] and almost falling asleep again. I did not allow myself to do so, as I kept having this thought on my mind that I’m not being productive. It did not matter it was a lazy Sunday morning, and I did not have to rush anywhere, I was being unproductive!

Then the question came to my mind – why the hell do I feel guilty? It’s my day off, I don’t have any kids to take care of, moreover it’s a national holiday in Poland, so all of the shops and shopping malls are closed. Not that my way of spending Sunday morning is shopping, it just came into my mind as an excuse and explanation to allow myself a bit of laziness. Why don’t I allow myself just to lay down for a couple of hours on a Sunday? Do I always need to be productive? Do I always need to do something to feel useful for the society? Isn’t it good sometimes just to do nothing even if it takes the whole morning? Where does it come from that we quite often feel guilty when we allow ourselves to take things slow, even very slow? 🙂 Probably these who are mothers would envy me having such an opportunity to do nothing for a few hours, yet even by being a bit privileged I felt guilty. On the other hand I don’t feel that guilty when I’m lying down on the couch watching TV, but lying down on my bed and being with myself in silence made me feel acting lazy. The weather also wasn’t helping, because it was grey outside. And after a few hours of doing nothing I decided to put my clothes on and go out jogging. It made me feel at least a bit productive for the day 🙂

However it still makes me wonder why, even if I allow myself such a Sunday once in a few months for this kind of laziness, it still makes me feel remorseful. Why do I always demand from myself to be so responsible and reasonable and not to waste time? Isn’t spending time in silence, just with yourself and your own thoughts, also a productive time? May you then find out many things about yourself as well as develop emotionally? I decided that I will allow myself to be lazy on Sunday mornings more often 🙂 It is really not a bad thing, especially if you don’t have a day fully planned and booked with tasks. That is usually how my working week looks. Isn’t it that we kind of feel obliged by the society to be always in shape with many tasks on our hands, just to feel useful? And it feels soooo good to lay down, from time to time, and just do nothing! 😀

When Enough is Really Enough?

I was wondering lately what does it mean to have enough. When enough is really enough? And what does it mean to have enough in life?

I started analyzing it was after hearing in a radio a commercial created for one of a discount shop in Poland. The guys there were singing about buying more and again buying more. It made me then wonder when it will be enough? Not only for them, but mostly for myself. What enough means for each of us? What is enough for me? Do I still want more? Do I really need more? Or do I have enough?

In my case enough was buying my own flat, even though I am still paying the mortgage for it. I can’t say I need a bigger one or I would like to buy a house – that would mean not having enough and still wanting more. Do I want more? No I don’t. So I think I have fulfilled my need of having enough. 🙂 By realizing this fact I am now able to enjoy my “enough” fulfilled dream 🙂

However what is enough for others? Have they reached their enough level? Will they ever have enough? Will they always want more or will they get into the point when they will finally have enough? Will they even enjoy their enough? Or are we, as human beings, will always be wanting more and will never have enough? Is this happening because of the society always requiring from us to have and want more? Do we feel better by buying more and more things we usually don’t need that much, but the commercials we see around and on every corners are so convincing, that we believe we don’t have enough and shall want more?

For me enough is to have a nice and warm flat; to fulfill my basic needs as having something to eat and a central heating for the winter; to afford incredible and adventurous travels; read an interesting and educating books; go to the cinema or theatre once in a while; meet and talk to interesting people over a glass of wine or a beer from time to time and exchange our points of view about life; host some foreigners and learn from them their way of life; and the most important – to feel free. Kind of basic needs I would say 🙂

Summing up I need to admit I have reached my enough level. It makes me feel happy in my life 🙂 How about you? Have you reached your enough level? Or are you still searching to get an answer of what enough means in your life?

Parentification

During my whole therapy I came across a term parentification. What does it really mean? And how does it affect adult life of these who have been through such a trauma?

Parentification is simply quickly becoming a parent once you’re still a child. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? There are two types of parentification, one is a physical one meaning you need to take care of a sick parent, for example a handicapped one; the second is an emotional one and happens when you take care of, in an emotional way, a parent who is incapable of handling their emotions. I am sure many of us have been through such situations, yet we do not realise it. However it has an incredible affection on our adult lives and the way we build relationships with others. I noticed, and it also concerns my example, that people who lived through parentification always know everything best, always have the best solution, always try to predict consequences of somebody else’s actions, most of the time feel insecure, and the worst is that they think they have the power to make somebody else’s life better by giving good advice. At least now I am aware of me not being able to have the best solution to every problem and I just don’t give my opinion when I am not asked. Everyone has their own way of living their lives and it is not possible to make anyone happy if they do not want to feel so.

The parentification that happened in my life was an emotional one. As my mother abandoned me emotionally when I was a child, I instinctively got closer to my father, and everything would be totally fine if not the fact that I became his partner while still being a kid. My mother was not able to handle her own emotions, be right next to him and create a partnership marriage. For me it is incredible how subconsciously we, as people, create toxic relation within the same family. Handling my father emotionally, while being a kid and later on a teenager, was too much. Listening to his complaints, to what he’s been through at work, comforting him, cheering him up while he was in a bad mood, in my opinion was really too much for a young girl. I think when people get married, both of them a man and a woman, are looking for partners in their lives. If it happens they do not find a partner relation with the one they married, they are looking for it somewhere else. That is probably why people cheat. In my family case my father could’ve cheated on my mother and find another woman who would fulfil his emotional needs, yet he didn’t do so. In return he found in his daughter, that is me, a potential to become his life partner and unconsciously continued it for about 20 years. That was the amount of time for me to realize it and change dependency between us. Amazing, isn’t it?

Another hard example from my life showing parentification, and the one I still remember, is paying the bills when being a seven-year-old girl. The technology was not that well-developed as it is now. Today what I do is just several online bank account money transfers and within a few seconds all of my bills are paid 🙂 However in 1990s in Poland, and probably in other countries too, to pay the bills you had to go to the post office. As everyone was getting their salaries by the 10th every month, you can imagine the queues there! My duty, as a kid, beginning of each month and after school going to the post office and stand there for about two hours to pay all of the monthly bills. Was that really a task for a seven-year-old? Now I know it was not. Now I know they shouldn’t have done that. What is more, during the time I was standing in the queue paying all of my parents bills, my father was sitting in front of TV smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. At least he was not an alcoholic 🙂 Thank you the universe he usually was drinking tea after work! 🙂

From one hand I know it was too much for me to handle, as managing a grown-up while still being a kid is not really a task to fulfill in the childhood. On the other hand it taught me incredible responsibility, but now when I observe myself I would even say too much of it as I keep demanding a lot from myself as well as I can be quite hard on me too. Anyway I am on a good path in changing that 🙂 I start being less responsible, give myself permission to make mistakes and not being perfect all of the time.

How was it in other people’s’ lives? How much parents demanded from them? How much of their unsolved emotional problems were put on kids? Are there people who had a great childhood with parents who knew what love is all about? In my case and in my childhood life everything was all about my parents, it was never about their kids. However now, when I am myself an adult, and try to live consciously, I am able not to repeat my parents’ mistakes. Becoming self-aware is the best thing that ever happened to me! 🙂

Psychoanalysis – to Go or Not to Go?

Why did I decide to go to a therapy and what is its result? There were three reasons for me to do so. The first one was the toxic relationship I was involved in with in and out for the past 20 years, the second was my friend who encouraged for me to do so by revealing his life story and a nasty divorce, and the third one was a new manager at work I couldn’t completely get along with.

So I searched the Internet for a good psychologist. At the beginning I did not know if she was good or not, yet I decided to give it a try. It’s been around three years I am going to the therapy and now I know it was the best decision I have ever made. Quite an expensive one though. The whole therapy and revealing the biggest subconscious secrets from your life to a stranger, and in the same time realising them yourself, made me more self-aware, more conscious, and more intelligent. I do admit at the beginning it was painful and I remembered many evenings after the sessions that ended up in tears. Anyway the pain was worth it. Now I am able to lead a very conscious life and the relationships I am building with others are more honest, sincere and real.

In my opinion not everyone had toxic parents, yet there are always things in our minds we are not aware of and in some cases they may lead our subconscious resulting in making decisions that hurt us. And later on we keep asking ourselves why did we do that to us?

I knew that I was always doing a lot of analysing and I loved thinking why things happen and what was the reason for them to happen, and the psychoanalysis helped me in putting all of my thoughts together and getting a result out of it. It also gave me knowledge how to analyse my dreams. Previously when there was a person in my dream I knew like a friend, or a parent, or an aunt, or somebody else, I always thought the dream was about them. Now I know it was always about me. These people were only symbols reflecting my subconscious. Once I learnt how to read them, I know what my subconscious wants to tell me. And I listen to it as it has an incredible power.

I was always interested in psychology, so thanks to the therapy I got to know how my brain works, read a lot of interesting books that helped me to understand the emotional part of human being that I was never really able to show because of my toxic mother and became smarter. I have also learned what my parents were through in their childhood. That made me realise the way they treated me wasn’t because they wanted to hurt me deliberately, but it was the result of their unsolved emotions along with their childhood issues. As a small kid I was an easy target to suck all of their toxic emotions as I did not know how to protect myself from these. Now I do and now I do not allow others to cross my boundaries. I do feel sorry for what my parents have been put throughout their early lives, yet I think they were not allowed to hurt me the way they did. On the other hand I’m grateful for what happened because it made me an amazing, strong and independent woman who knows how to enjoy life and is not afraid of living 🙂 It only proves the relationships we have with our parents are always difficult to judge and to be in. Now I’m trying to rebuild and learn how to create a healthy relationship with my father. I am aware I’ll never have a normal one with my mother, because it’s just not possible, and it will never be as she ended up mentally sick.

Coming back to the clue, in my opinion it is worth going to the therapy. The only factor that may stop you is the fear of getting to know the truth with the whole pain that goes with it. Once you deal with the pain, in return you get consciousness, honesty, self-awareness and then you can do whatever you want with that knowledge. I chose to be happy, to enjoy every day life and being grateful that even though my childhood was not a perfect one and my parents occurred to be weak human beings, I managed to grow up a wonderful person who loves to live, loves people and appreciates small things that every day life bring 🙂 Thanks to the therapy I am able not to hurt people the way I was probably doing subconsciously. And not to hurt the person I love the most – that is myself 🙂

A girl – a Lonely Traveler

Why I am travelling alone? Is it still such a strange thing to see a girl who travels on her own? Lots of my friends tend to admire me for doing such a thing. And for me it is not a big thing. I just want to do it, and I am doing it!

From the beginning now 🙂 I think it was my dad who subconsciously encouraged me to travel. I remember when I was young he was reading me to sleep “Gulliver’s travels”. It might have been that time my mind started getting used to the idea of traveling. When I was 19 I left Poland and went living as an au-pair girl in Paris for a few years. I need to mention I did not speak French at all then. I spoke English, yet those who know a bit of French culture will immediately figure out knowing English was not much of a help 🙂 I leant French there. Brave, isn’t it? As some may claim that going to a foreign country may be risky for such a young girl, I think it was just an adventure for a 19-year-old girl. It taught her how to manage in such a cosmopolitan city like Paris. It was 2002. In Poland capitalism was only 13 years old, and even though the capital and the country itself was quickly developing, it was nothing in comparaison to a 12 million Ile-de-France region. My 3 years adventure of living in France taught me only amazing skills, like: becoming very independent and more tolerant, counting only on myself, managing in all kinds of situations and finding out what freedom means to me. I am now not afraid of buying flight tickets and going abroad alone. I would even say I love it! What I love about traveling alone is that I do not need to compromise on anything. I go to places I want to see and visit. I do not need to ask anyone for their opinion or plans for the trip or for the day. It may sound egoist, and yes I am aware of it. Yet I prefer to travel alone than in a bad company. Most of us know how hard it is to find a good companion, especially when it comes to traveling. People have different needs and expectations. In my life there are only 2 people I am willing to travel with – my father and one of my girlfriends. The reason I can fly with them is that they know some unpredictable things and situations will happen and they do not panic then. They are both chilled out and relaxed, they love enjoying life, so if we feel like sitting in a café and drinking some, we just do so. Both of them do not care about money that much, so we are not counting penny for each meal in a restaurant or each souvenir that we buy to know how much we have left. Of course we are being reasonable and not wasting money on stupid things, just enjoying every single moment of our journey. Rest of my friends do not travel the same way I do, so there is no point going anywhere with them, as it would be only waste of my energy.

What does the travelling alone give me? Lots of positive emotions. Facing challenges. Proving myself I am invincible. Crossing my boundaries. Realizing I am amazing. I love the feeling of getting on a plane, then landing in a foreign country and the story begins – finding myself, asking for direction, searching for places I want to visit, tasting different food, enjoying sunsets and sunrises, admiring landscapes, listening to the sound of sea, ocean and wind. Feeling the universe, understanding it, being grateful for such an opportunity of being where I happen to be. This is what I get when I travel. All range of positive emotions. And people I meet on my way are amazing too: couchsurfers, pedestrians, other tourists. They are always helpful and always making me smile.

Many times, here in Poland, I heard my friends saying that traveling alone is not such a common thing, especially for a girl. I keep wondering why? Are women afraid of doing so and being alone? Are we still thinking only by having with someone around our life has a meaning? Are Polish women still brought up the way they need a man to take care of them, as they are a weaker sex and need protection? Really, are they? If so in my opinion they are missing a lot. Especially their freedom, as they have resigned from it in order to get a false sense of security provided by men. I am aware I am a grown up, does not matter a girl or a boy, as an adult human being I know I am responsible for myself. No one else! At least that is the philosophy of life of a Polish girl who travels alone 🙂 And loves doing it! There are so many amazing places for me to see and I cannot wait to buy another ticket after my 8^th Greek holiday this year I am starting soon 🙂 I am sure the moment I come back I will be googling some other flights to places I have never been before. In my opinion we are living in such amazing times and the world is so open to any of those who are willing to take the most of it. And I am one of them 🙂 I want 100% of this world! I know the opportunity is there, just waiting for me to take it. So why would I be like most of Polish girls waiting for their price charm to arrive, when I have millions of flight routes to choose from and still at least 100 countries to visit! I may be egoist, I may not be adapting to society by not having a family and kids, yet I am happy in every single day of my life as thanks to my travels I am such and my open-minded person that has so and many plans for the future! Not only these concerning traveling of course 🙂

Couchsurfing Adventure

What really couchsurfing is about and what does it mean to me?

In brief it is hosting strangers or being hosted in somebody else’s house or apartment in a foreign country. I started using the website and getting to know its community 4 years ago, 2014 to be exact. I tend to host people as I do not travel that much. I am working professionally and am allowed 26 working days off in my country – that gives one and a half month overall. I think it is a lot anyway. Till now I invited to my flat around 70 people from different continents. A lot, I know. And each of them brought something interesting into my life. I do not mean gifts, but emotions 🙂 Some brought just their presence, some their smiles, some their incredible life stories.

I do not remember each of the person I hosted, however there are some that I still have in mind. Especially my couchsurfing love story that really happened 🙂 I know in some cases people use the website for the sexsurfing. Well… their choices, I know I do not need to agree to such behaviours. My aim when starting using the website was to meet international and open-minded people. And I try to choose only those. When a person sends me a request I do not accept them immediately – I look at the profile, I look at the way the request is written, I look at the pictures of the person and then listen to myself and my intuition whether to accept them or not. In 99% of the cases my intuition was right – I chose people who brought real positive energy into my life. There happened only one that treated my apartment as a hotel Apart from that nothing wrong happened. Really?! Some would ask – nobody stole anything from your apartment? Nobody hurt you? Nobody cheated you? Well.. NO 🙂 I stick to my opinion about people that they are good, and maybe that is the reason I attract and invite to my life only these. The best is yet to come – I even give them the keys to my flat! Crazy, isn’t it? The times we are living in, when you only hear bad things happening around the globe, there is a Polish girl who hosts strangers and even gives them keys to her flat 🙂 And still nothing bad happened to her! And I am even 100% sure nothing will in the future. First of all, because I choose people I want to host carefully. Second of all, because these who do the couchsurfing are intelligent and respectful. Third of all, because you can learn so many interesting things from them and expand your knowledge about the world without leaving your flat. It just required logical way of thinking and the state of mind allowing yourself to be free.

My love story from couchsurfing was unpredicted and unexpected. You never really know who enters your flat 🙂 So there was this Korean guy that was supposed to stay with me just for 4 nights. And we got on so well that he stayed for 4 months overall. He is not living with me anymore, he has his own plans in life for the time being and he has the right to do so. Who knows, maybe in 10 or 20 years we will be together again? 🙂 The most important is what I learnt back then about relationships. That these can work out, that people can live together without creating negative atmosphere around them, that it is possible to build love between two people if both are trying. I also learnt that if I did not allow myself to feel so, I would have locked myself from such positive emotions and experience. So one day he left, could not stay longer in the Schengen area and had right to continue his life somewhere else. I was not angry at all back then, just a bit sad. I know as a grown up I am the one responsible for the way I feel and my mood depends only on myself. He is not the one to make me feel good. I am just grateful I was able to live what I had with him. And my memories about these 4 months make me smile. We are still in touch, still calling each other from time to time, still caring about each other. Each month he is in a different country, yeah – a real traveler 😉 Previously I was thinking that if you love someone the person has to be right next to you and with you. I now know it is not true. You can love and care about someone who is far away. Anyway I am not waiting for him to come back, I am living my own life as it is, dating others, building relationships with other people and hosting new couchsurfing ones. This Korean guy was just such an amazing and positive story that happened to me unexpectedly during the whole hosting experience. 🙂

There are others I still remember. Like a Cuban guy that was on an exchange program in Spain and decided to travel around Europe while being here. I do remember him as I had big doubts before accepting him. First of all he was new on a website, that means he had no references, second of all he was 19 (!!!), third of all he was a man. And I did not really know if I wanted to host such a young guy I knew nothing about and had no idea if he was reliable. I am over 30, so I thought with such a young person I may not have much in common. However I told him honestly about my doubts, and got in return such a sincere response that I decided to accept him. No regrets at all! We spent an evening talking till 3 in the morning about everything! That is the couchsurfing experience I love 🙂 And imagine now he is working in CNN as a journalist. It was a few years ago that we met. He grew up and started his professional career 🙂 We are still connected on Facebook, still in touch, still remembering what we experienced together and still thinking maybe one day in life we will meet again. I would love so 🙂 He is only one of my amazing couchsurfing experiences. There were so much more, but if I wanted to describe all probably the article would be 90 minutes long 🙂

I usually host people. I do not use the website the other way round that often. However I started doing it recently and the experience I got was of course, there was just no other option, incredible! Lovely people I met, as they hosted me, in Portugal, Morocco, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway 🙂 The ones I hosted were: Greek, Finnish, Chinese, Indonesian, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Taiwanese, Angolan, Algerian, Peruvian, Romanian, American, Colombian, British, Egyptian, Canadian, Russian, German, French, Spanish, South Korean, Portuguese, Swiss, Tunisian, Filipino, Australian, Argentinian, Singaporean, Japanese, Mexican, Cuban, Italian, British and even Polish. Now when I look at the list of all of these people it amazes me! What amazes the most are the positive emotions they brought to my life as well as a bit of their culture, their lives, their stories and their freedom 🙂

When I discovered couchsurfing community I thought that in order to get something, you need to give first. So I started from giving, that is hosting. At the beginning I did not really know what to expect and who to expect. As the proverb says – expect the unexpected 😉 With some time I have learnt that when it comes to accepting people there are my rules in my place, however when I am being hosted I need to accept the host’s rules. Fair enough. If you are flexible, chilled out, like meeting new people and while being in a foreign country you prefer to see it through locals, the website is the best place to be.

I am going to continue my couchsurfing adventure. I am going to trust people as I was doing till now. I am grateful to whoever invented it that I have such an amazing possibility to meet foreigners, spend time with them, get to know their life stories, share my observations and sometimes even meet them again in another country 🙂