Hanna: Hey friends! Welcome to episode number 43. I need a wake up call. I want to share a story with you today because I made a post about this on my instagram the other day. Are we instagram friends yet btw? At hannakokovai go find me if you want to follow along. But on instagram I posted this story and I got so many responses that I just knew I had to make it into a short episode for you.
The post was about this experience I had in Vietnam back in 2017 that was basically what I thought was the closest thing to a near death experience I’ve had. I had one more that scared me almost as much in South Africa but was pretty fleeting and involved the ocean. Don’t mess around with the ocean people, she’s fierce. But this one thing that happened in Vietnam was a doozy and I shared my recollection of it and also kinda of my takeaway from it which was kind of a “you only get one life so use it well,” kinda idea. That’s the thought I had coming out of an experience of feeling like I might have died. And I will retell the whole story here in a second but the thought error or the dirty little thought that I was noticing coming in as a response to me sharing this story was a couple of people said to me like, “wow talk about a sign” or there was another girl that said “ugh, I need a wake up call like this lol.” And I know she was sort of joking because she probably isn’t actually hoping to have a near death experience but I wanted to address this idea of needing a sign or needing a wake up call to realize that you can change some things about your life. Because while this story that I’m about to tell is powerful, my message is not to wait around for the life changing experience, but rather to decide that you can be the catalyst for that all on your own if you want to.
Ok so I am going to just tell you the story here first and I’ll talk more about this again afterwards.
So, once upon a time. I was in Vietnam and I had gone there actually with the intention of doing this thing that I did a lot in my previous relationship where there was a lot of enmeshment and unhealthy attachment that I was avoiding working through. I’d feel so frustrated and stuck and so in an attempt to feel better and do something different I’d go on a solo trip and like, try to reset, get some space and soak up some sun, find what I thought was clarity and think that I was going to like go back home and make some changes, set boundaries, etc and then I’d just go back and do everything exactly the same.
Because as we know, changing locations or changing the circumstances doesn’t heal you, right?
So I was on one of these journeys and I had planned to do this completely solo, but, this is whole side note that honestly I don’t know if it even makes a difference to the story but maybe just to share candidly with you how completely ridiculous my life was at the time and to just reassure you that I will never ever be in judgment of you wherever you are in your journey because believe me I have created some really asinine situations to dig myself out of…So I was planning to do this solo thing and I was going around South East Asia and at that time I had already, what I called “energetically separated “ from my partner at the time. So we had broken up. But we were still living together. I knew in my heart that this was not a partnership I wanted to continue but I was like making it extra special and difficult for me AND him by not committing either way. In retrospect, my decision about that partnership was essentially to keep suffering. And living in our house together, I was in the downstairs and he was upstairs, while I “looked for a place” but really that just meant I was like staying with friends whenever I could and then like going to the downstairs and crying alot. And to make it all really special, he asked if he could come for part of the trip as friends and I was like yeah that’s a great idea. So for part of this journey we were actually traveling together. We were literally getting hotels with two beds.
So anyways, all that to try to set the scene here and just demonstrate for that at this point in time my life was definitely a straight shit show. Like not to mention all the other craziness I was creating like outside of my love life, with just being the worst friend, daughter, sister, partner to myself. I had alot of body image stuff happening. I was an anxious mess. I had like 10 jobs that I was hustling through and drowning in. ANYWAYS.
Here I was, in Vietnam and actually having a pretty nice time mostly. If you have a chance to visit that country please do, this has absolutely nothing to do with the country or the people there because both were so wonderful, truly.
But, there was one day that happened and I thought I was going to die. My friends know this story well for sure because it’s always my answer to “what’s the craziest thing that has ever happened or like the most scared you’ve ever been or anything really that invites an epic tale of near death because, for real. I was mentally preparing to be dead. I have never before or since been so sure I was going to die, like when I was processing with my logical brain.I mean I have had the thought that I might die during a panic attack many times but that passes and then I can be like ok that was just my brain going bonkers about anxiety and all that but this was very like “ok so this situation is dangerous and I am thinking very sensibly and clearly about this that the next realistic step for me is likely death.” And it’s crazy to think about in retrospect obviously not having actually died that there are so many people who have that same thought process and the result is actually death. Like I know what that part feels like now. That part leading up to. And it just gives me chills. Anyways.
So here’s what happened:
It was a HUGE travel faux pas. I had gone for what I thought was going to be a quick walk to a waterfall in Vietnam, and ended up 12 hours in, up the side of a 10k ft mountain (nicknamed The Roof of Indochina) with no gear, maps, food or water. Actually I had my phone which had no service but I had downloaded an app called Maps.me. And so I could actually sort of see because the map was semi downloaded. I could sort of see where I was but how that app works if you don’t know and you want a hot tip, that app shows you if you drop a pin at your final destination it will tell you at the bottom of the screen how far away your destination is from where you are standing right now and when I dropped the pin it said that I was 1.89 miles away. Which to me doesn’t really sound far at all. That to me is a short walk. What I didn’t know was that the app tells you how far it is as the crow flies. Which means it doesn’t take into consideration elevation changes or the actual trail or path that you’ll be taking. So 2 miles was as if I was just going to levitate and zoom straight through the sky to the top, but what I was really, unknowingly about to do was take a trail that circled the mountain 3 or 4 times and gail over 10 thousand feet in elevation.
This was a trail that was used only by experienced climbers with ropes, trekking for days not hours, or by indigenous hunters. Which by the way I heard at one point along the way. To give you another idea of the gravity of this venture: The worlds longest three wire cable car transports people to the top to see the views.
The way I did it, it would have been like going to free solo El Cap in Haviannas.
As I said, HUGE mistakes, major oops made at many stages of the experience (the biggest being not TURNING AROUND after 1, 2, 3 hours of climbing ). The utter stupidity of it all begs additional discussion. It was one of those things where I just kept like looking at the map on my phone, seeing what looked like only another .25 miles or whatever and then saying like okay it can’t be THAT much further. Plus it got to a point where turning around seemed alot harder than just going ahead. Like any of you who hike or climb, going down is always harder right? Especially with no gear like there were sections of this “trail” and I’m saying trail extremely loosely, where it was like wooden pegs drilled into the side of a sheer cliff face and you had to hold onto the pegs and traverse across a ravine to the other side. Like it was hard enough to make myself go across once, I wasn’t about to turn around and do it again to go back. So 2 hours turned into 4 and 4 into 6 and it was getting later and later and then at one point maybe like 7 hours in I could see the cable car cables ahead and I was like holy shit almost there thank god, and then the closer I got to the cables the most I could kind of see what the situation was and I could tell that the trail I needed to follow was going to pass under the cables and continue to circle the backside of the mountain and I was actually no where near the top at this point and I remember that being the moment where I started to panic a bit because the clouds had kind of lifted a bit at that point and I could really kind of see where I was and what was what and I was just like Oh no.
So yeah kept going and up and up and like at one point I was walking on these rock steps with a rope anchored to the ground on both sides of me and it was a straight drop off on both sides. Like essentially a bridge or stairway into the clouds and I was so dizzy and out of breath like couldn’t look down. I am not even that scared of heights or anything and this was next so next level. I remember now even like dissociating at points because it just felt like this couldn’t be real, like it might be a dream.
Anyway, at the 11th hour I was crawling on hands & knees, trying desperately to allow oxygen into my lungs because I was so high up at this point that the air was so thick and it felt so hard to breathe I wasn’t even moving quickly its just the oxygen was getting scarce up there, and I was just peering over the edge of a cliff, seeing nothing but clouds below me and not comprehending a way to move my body any further.
I literally believed that this was it. No one knew where I was. My body was giving out. My brain close behind. I couldn’t see how much further it was to the top anymore because of the clouds nor could I imagine descending the way I’d come, sliding down muddy ravines, holding on to bolt anchors dug into rock faces intended for roped-in climbers.
I wasn’t a spiritual person at the time but I remember how hard I was trying to connect to something greater. As each second ticked slowly by, I was begging the universe (or whoever!), trying to find strength to move my feet even one more step, acceptance for what I thought was inevitable that I would either fall at some point or my body would give out and I would have to just stop and lay here and either dehydrate, starve or just like pass out and die, and honestly, I was trying to bargain for my life. Or justify to whatever, whoever, the universe, a higher power, why I should be “allowed” to live.
I thought, if this is the end, what could I really say about my life? What would I really have to say about what I’d done and where I was in my journey.
And all I kept thinking was:
“I had more to do here.”
“There was more for me.”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t take it. I’m sorry that I didn’t do it. I had so much more to do.”
And I sat down and just put my head on the rock and I remember looking at my hand that was gripping the rope and it was white. Like all the blood had gone from my hand and it was like a ghost hand. And I cried and thought, this can’t be it. I can’t be done. I’m not done.
And I wasn’t done. (Obviously I’m still here!)
But I will never forget that heart sinking feeling—not even the fear THAT I would be dead soon but the fear and the disappointment that I had wasted my time making excuses, settling, procrastinating, and giving only 50%.
If I could live through this, I thought, things were going to be so different.
That was not an empty promise.
I literally dragged myself the rest of the way which probably at that point really was only another half mile or so to the top. I made it to the cable car, around midnight, I will never forget when the wall of the building where the cable car was came into view I was like bawling my eyes out and I even just sat down again for another like 15 minutes because I was like ok I made it like I can see the end it’s okay to rest a little now. But I made it to the cable car, I sat on the floor in the little operator box until someone arrived at 5 am and offered him all the cash (of course I had cash on me!) I had to take me down.
I left Vietnam, went to cambodia to meet up with a group of women that I was meant to be leading a retreat for and honestly I did my job there but the truth is that they led me more than anything else because I was so spent, but I left Southeast asia after another couple weeks, broke up with my boyfriend of 9 years for real and moved out, quit my job(s) I’d been talking about quitting forever, hired a life coach, moved to Bali (and back again for love), I decided that I needed to say yes alot more and so I committed to and said yes to 12 big things I’d never done before, changed my relationship with my body, my brain, my family & my friends all within one year.
And that was just me getting warmed up.
And I just decided that I never want to be sorry again, for not giving more, doing more, showing up how I want to, saying what I mean and living the life I imagine. And I think about that all the time. I think I am never going to be sorry to myself for not saying yes or going for it or doing something scary. And I don’t mean going on a fucking uninformed hike in a country you don’t know, I mean like doing the scary thing in your life that you know will move the needle forward for you and grow who you are and what you’re here for.
Honestly, if I found myself on that mountain again today, looking down into the abyss, assuming that death was imminent, I would have something a lot different to say about my life.
I’d probably say
“I did it.”
Not that I’m ready to die now, I still do think that I have more to give, but I know that if for some reason I did, I wouldn’t be sorry about how I spent my time.
I don’t think you need a 10,000 ft crevasse at your feet to compel you toward your best life. This was just my story that I chose to make mean that I was ready for something greater than what I’d been willing to give myself up until that point. But I don’t believe that you need a sign or an event or a close call or a wake up call like that.
You just need a simple thought like: “I have a lot more to do here, I’d better get goin on doing it.”
How many of us wait around for the sign, the thing, the wake up call, the call to action that is only a circumstance? And by only a circumstance I mean that things happen every day and we can make them mean whatever we want. For one person getting drunk and throwing a brick at someone’s window is a sign they should stop drinking. For someone else that just means the other person probably deserved to have a bring thrown at them. One person’s wake up call is another person’s Monday afternoon.
I could have come back from that experience and thought “that was crazy” and gone back to doing exactly what I’d been doing. Or I could have made that experience mean that I should go try and make it work with my current partner. I could have made it mean anything.
I wanted a sign. I was ready for a wake up call. I knew what I needed to do already. It was within me. THATS why it made sense to me in the way that it did. Because I wanted it to. That is the only reason that this story matters to the growth of my life, because I made it matter. I could have come home from that trip and not changed anything. Just because that happened, that didn’t make me change. The event itself didn’t change my life. What I made it mean did.
So if you’re waiting for a sign and you feel like one isn’t coming, it tells me that you’re just missing them. Or you’re just not willing yet to see them. If you want a sign there is ALWAYS a sign. There is always a delivery on what you ask for and it might just be that you didn’t see it because you were distracted or not really ready to take any action on it or you weren’t believing. Do you know how many “signs” or “wake up calls” I had in my life BEFORE that moment on the mountain? Thousands. Thousands.
I wasn’t ready to see them. I didn’t want them.
You’re looking for a sign or a call from somewhere to ignite something in you but the fact that you want one IS your wake up call. It’s your sign.
You don’t need a wake-up call. You just need one new thought.
Mine was “I have more to do here.” and you’re welcome to borrow that one if you want to. But I am curious what you would think right now if it was true that you didn’t need anything except your own thoughts to change your whole life.
Your desire for a sign IS a sign. Wanting a sign or thinking you need to have a wake up call, that’s it. That’s what you’re waiting for! It’s presenting itself now and I hope you don’t miss it.
I love you. I’m proud of you and I’ll talk to you next time.