Travel Reveals Who You Truly Are

Akilah Ivy
5 min readJul 9, 2024

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After putting on a play based on my life and experiences in sex work, I felt very exposed and vulnerable within my community back home. I presented a stage play exposing the shadows of a hidden world and telling the story of some of the darkest nights I’ve lived thus far.

It was intense. I know that now, even more so than before, no one will ever look at me the same way again because of the story I so boldly told on stage in front of a large audience and claimed as my own.

So, I had to leave.

I could not just sit in familiarity and be fine. Nothing was familiar anymore. Not me, and not people’s perception of me. People who’ve known me for many years were able to meet me for the first time, in a new way.

Traveling to a new place and having new experiences, for me, is a cure-all.

If you do it right, and for long enough, traveling will help you realize the truth of everything.

How you truly feel, your true values and what is truly going on beneath the surface.

I came to Mexico, two days after the show, since it was the easiest and most convenient for me to visit a place where the American dollar goes a long way and I could bring my dog along without many restrictions.

My travel astrology revealed that I have a Sun line over Oaxaca, Mexico, so that’s where I spent the most time; and it was super sunny indeed. There were many blooming yellow flowers and hand-painted Sun portraits in the art there.

I allowed the sun’s rays to warm my heart, my sight and skin. I enjoyed many delicious meals and sipped the finest, most magical brews of Oaxacan Mezcal; All while receiving many cosmic downloads and having illuminating, vivid dreams.

I did not leave to escape my reality. Quite the opposite. My true reality is being revealed to me with each day that I am exposed to the world in new, adventurous ways that require my flexibility, openness and improvisation.

As I travel, I see the world in its raw form. I see my reflections in the way people spend their days, the way they move, live and love.

I see the struggles being overcome, the routines people adopt to make a living and the way people make the most of life regardless of the hardship it takes just to survive in a chaotic society.

More than I would ever see while sitting at home in my own little corner with my own little thoughts. I am faced with a mirror that shows me everything I try to avoid because I am in a constant flow, in the center of the current that carries all life.

While traveling, I’m always moving, walking on the streets, out and exposed, talking to new people more often. There’s no room for avoidance, for disconnection; and I find myself constantly navigating discomfort, doubt, new inspiration, survival tactics, spurts of depression, immense gratitude, up and down the spectrum over and over.

Many people spend their lives doing everything they can to avoid feeling anything but pleasure.

To me, a person who doesn’t know their own demons can never fully know themselves. Putting ourselves in situations where we are forced to adapt I’m high amounts, like traveling to an unfamiliar place, is a sure way to get to know everything there is to know about who we really are; those admirable, reliable parts and the ugly parts too.

The path to paradise begins in hell. And there are many of us who don’t know what hell is, who wouldn’t dare to even look in its direction.

Hell is the discomfort we avoid, hell is those dark spaces we turn away from. But in the darkest hours, we can find the brightest stars. The real truth. The revelations born of sincerity, not coercion.

I believe I’ve seen both heaven and hell during my travels thus far; all beautiful gifts that have given me great awareness, new creative inspiration and a new sense of motivation for how I can use my life and alchemy to alleviate the suffering we experience on this earth.

You can travel to have a good time and continue the delusions of your own personal experience or you could go out and have conversations with the townspeople and get to know the world in a more intimate way. It’s up to you, since all of life is but a reflection of your innermost self.

I am now living as a full time digital nomad and I absolutely love it. There are so many more gems yet to be revealed as I submerge myself in the world this way, and although it is challenging, I’m really excited about it.

I feel myself lifting, growing and breathing in new life with each new place and each new discovery.

May the whispers of the Soul of the World reach every ear who has the courage to listen.

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Akilah Ivy
Akilah Ivy

Written by Akilah Ivy

Traveling nomad & cosmic oracle. Art curator & alchemist. Sharing my experiences in enlightenment and liberation through storytelling & personal accounts.

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