My name is Raffaella, I am 42 years old and my life is full of “noise”: I deal with communication and the contact with people, with their problems and the management of conflicts are my daily bread. A job I love but which is draining. After 2 years of non-stop I needed silence, no voice of “others”, only mine, silenced for a long time. The silence wanted me to listen to it but I did not for longtime. I discovered My Ideal Traveling reading a ladies magazine dedicated to the Ayurveda: contacting Monica, the founder, was instantaneous. I still remember our phone call, essential to identify what I really needed to recover: disconnect from everything. Her suggestion arrived on the following day: she proposed to me to visit the Eremito in Umbria, Italy. Where telephone and television are banned, the wi-fi unknown and the music allowed is that of Gregorian chants. The initial enthusiasm of being “not available” had to deal with the terror of not being reachable. A challenge that immediately putted me against the wall. Was I really able to isolate myself? Could I support loneliness? I tried and I think it was the most powerful experience I have ever done. My laptop remained in the suitcase along with Ipod and Ipad replaced by hordes of books and thoughts that came back to take shape in the mind with joy and then draw on white pages full of hope. I spent time with myself, with dinners without words but watered by vegetarian cuisine, evenings lit by candles, long walks in the hills to discover plants and flowers of which I had no memory and breaks dedicated to steam bath or whirlpool (a luxury cuddle). At the Eremito I touched the energy – of nature, of silence and mine – and everything was clearer, brighter, centered. Would I do it again? Surely because this stay, a few steps from home, taught me that there was something I still had to manage: not to be afraid to stay alone, to stay with me, far from what I always felt was “safe”. The strength is really this and I discovered it by traveling.
“I have often found myself with a goodbye to make, a suitcase to prepare, a radical change to deal with and a new dimension to find. Managing changes in work, life and prospects have led me to my most authentic metamorphosis: to make a profession of the travel experience.