When I last spoke to my awesome big sister Alana Helbig for the podcast series (episode #002), she was standing right at the foot of an epic adventure – preparing to drive all the way around Australia in Walter the Campervan, all on her own.
Nine months and 30,000km later, Alana’s returned home.
And god, what an adventure she’s had.
This is not a story about all the incredible places Alana visited, the people she met and the things she saw. Yes, these types of cool things happened along the way.
But Alana had always insisted that her road trip was more about a journey within, about stepping away from a lifestyle that no longer felt right and using this time alone in her campervan to delve deeply into her own self. A period of intense introspection. Choosing to go within.
Alana says if she had one word to describe her trip, it would be “struggle”. Which sounds pretty awful, right? And there definitely were some incredibly tough times.
You’ll hear Alana speak just so honestly about how she fell into a deep, dark depression, which for weeks she tried to ignore. After all, this was the trip of a lifetime, wasn’t it? Why the hell was she so sad?
Refusing to confront her feelings, Alana instead tried to numb out with emotional eating, which only led to weight gain, acne and a whole heap more negative self-talk.
It was only after something went really wrong that things began to shift.
Alana says after Walter broke down and had to be trucked almost 1000kms to Brisbane for repairs, a series of synchronistic events led her to a healthier way of living and a whole new understanding of herself.
You’ll hear her describe a moment of complete breakdown in a forest, and the realisation that followed the next morning. She also reveals how she finally let go of all the pushing, pain and struggle and shifted into a beautiful state of feminine surrender.
And that’s when the magic really began to happen.
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