by Chloe Phillips

What an incredible experience travelling around India for the last 6 weeks. Nick told us before we came home that the reverse culture shock is oftentimes worse than the initial culture shock and he was so right! New Zealand is a lot quieter than I remember and it is a strange feeling not seeing mass amounts of people everywhere! Life moves at a much slower pace here and sometimes I love that but other times I am missing the energy of India.

My previous post covered my highlights from the trip but I did not mention any challenges. The biggest challenge for me what probably being sick for most of the trip! I got tonsillitis in the first week and for the rest of the trip, it kept flaring up every now and then. The IndoGenius team did a great job at looking after me (special shout-out to Susie!) I still managed to participate in the majority of the activities but having better health whilst away would have made things a lot easier.

This experience has made me feel more confident, hopeful, and culturally competent. It has solidified what I want to do with my career and what my life path is. I have always been interested in ecopsychology and incorporating more natural and holistic ways of healing into my future practice as a psychologist. It has taught me that there are so many different ways to live life and that we have a lot more freedom and free will than most of us think we do. It has also completely reframed my self-image. Madhav & Sadhviji taught me that the universe is perfect and divine, and I am not separate from that. God is in everything, myself included. I am not religious at all but these messages resonated with me and made me feel a sense of comfort and peace.