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I have been visiting Indonesia regularly since 2017. I know the roads here, the smells, the rhythm of the day. I often feel more at home here than anywhere else. Not because everything is easy but precisely because I can be here even when things do not unfold the way one might wish.
This time it was not only about the local people, the ocean, the jungle, the magic of temples, the sarongs, and everything this place carries within it. This time it was the greatest pain I have ever experienced in my life.
In one moment, red streaks appeared on my leg across my calf and knee and later, blisters. With them came an unbearable pain I had never known before. Not sharp, not brief. More like standing in fire while someone kept feeding the flames. Every movement reignited it. My skin was tight, hot, utterly foreign on my own body. For several hours I could not walk at all. I could only drag my leg behind me, because I could not bend my knee.
At first I did not understand what was happening. Then I remembered that a few years earlier I had had something similar on my hand a tiny mark. The locals had explained that it might be from a small beetle they call a tomcat. It is found elsewhere in the world too, even in France. This unassuming little beetle does not inject venom into the body like a snake. But when it touches the skin, it releases a toxic substance called pederin. On contact, it can cause a severe reaction resembling a burn, with blisters. In hospital I was told it is comparable to second-degree chemical burns. In the literature, pederin is described as an exceptionally potent toxin. In laboratory terms it is even cited as more potent than cobra venom. On the skin, however, it is above all an intensely painful, local reaction, not a systemic poisoning.
I am writing this because I know that pain, whether physical or inner can arrive when you least expect it. Even when you are in a place you love. Even when you feel “at home”.
Not every day brings what we might wish for. Often we find ourselves in difficulty, in problems, in tension that the body responds to before the mind has time to grasp what is actually happening. And in those moments, a solution is not always immediately available. Sometimes all that is available is a moment and a decision whether to fight against it even harder, or to return to yourself, even briefly.
It was precisely in the worst of it and for a few days afterwards that breathwork helped me, breath that is genuinely supportive even in hard situations. Not as a miracle. More as an anchor. An inhale through the mouth directed into the chest, into the space of the heart. And then a vocalised exhale, a quiet sound, something between blowing off a heavy day and a deep sense of relief. Not loud. Just enough for body and mind to receive the signal: still breathing, still here, still managing and to redirect the flow of thoughts from pain back to breath. It is a very powerful breathing technique ( best practised under supervision).
Alongside that came tears. Many tears. Not from despair, but rather from release. Everything that had quietly built up over time. Pain, tension, things I may not even have known how to name. My body suddenly allowed itself to let go. Not all at once, not forever but enough for me to stop feeling utterly alone in my own skin.
Breath gave it rhythm. Voice gave it shape. And things naturally began to settle into place. Precisely because, for a moment, I truly met myself. Right here, right now. I am grateful to everyone who was in contact with me and, from a distance, helped me breathe through that unbearable pain and sent me so many kind thoughts and reassurances that it would be all right and that everything would heal quickly. Thank you. It was sheer hell.
Indonesia has brought me moments like this too. Yet the realisation that anything can happen, anywhere, has paradoxically brought me more peace than fear and gratitude for all the beauty this journey has brought nevertheless: new, deep friendship, a deeper connection with myself, and everything else that found its way into my heart.
Because home is not a place where nothing ever happens. Home is a place deep within yourself, where you know how to stay with yourself, even when the body screams and the mind runs wild.