Hey there, my story is being here in Guatemala. I came here three weeks ago to San Marcos la laguna. What I have been learning here is working on loving myself, reading non-violent communication, also reading a book about unlocking the voice in the head, while living in an intentional community which revolves around mushrooms. There are challenges that happen when living in an intentional community as emotional triggers come up and I continually work on letting go, learning to deal with it while I have diarrhea and feel weak. Lately the experience here has been one of growth. I read a chapter from the book I’m reading called the untethered soul that talks about letting go. It says when an emotional trigger comes up one will defend themself to keep holding on to what is comfortable and will spend all the energy protecting that trigger. They will want to hold on. It says to let go, don’t hold on. Let go when it comes up. Life will be freer as you let go. At that moment I got up and decided despite my mentality of feeling sick and thoughts that are cycling in my head to get up and connect with the people in my community, brush my teeth, take care of my body. When I was in the room with a community member instead of thinking about past things and letting it carry the communication I decided to say hi, connect, share. I ended up sharing breakfast with my friend and having deep conversations and learning about my friends travels and shared about my work on reading about non violent communication, the voice in my head, my passions and even about the feelings that were coming up being in the community. I didn’t think I was going to tell him that and I was received with compassion. I feel an opening in connect with the community and a tool to remember to use with other people. As I walked away from the community to go into town I find challenges in my emotions feeling and my thinking of a worry of a divide between the tourists and the local Mayan people. A guy came up to me I felt a little uncomfortably with a letter explaining something in Spanish I couldn’t understand. I immediately felt he wanted money and wasn’t feeling ready to give it to him and he said something about 10-20 quetzals. I told him “lo siento, no” I felt bad wondering if I have a fear of money and had something to give. I felt confused because I didn’t know Spanish and was thinking that I processing if I did the right thing. I was feeling confused at the moment and feeling a little confused now about it. It is over now, I release and let go. There is much work to do.