Ngiyahamba. It means "I am walking," and I'm still walking, so that's where I'll start.
In 2015 I became ill, and what hurt most was alienation. I ended up alone on a rock on a small holding at Amathlungwa Mission, a rural corner of South Africa, cut off from family, relationships and direction. A photograph, an empty chair, a house I could see but not reach. It felt like my own Finding Nemo, lost in the big blue with a road sign pointing five ways at once. I had no plan, and I'll be honest about that.
The first step back was a friendship with my dog, Jack. Watching how he lived, how honest and simple an animal's nature is, started something in me. I began clawing my way back, one day and then the next, with Jack beside me.
I had met Maslow's hierarchy of needs very young, but now I met it again in practice. Around 2017 I found a modality by Dr Tasha Eurich on fulfilment versus happiness and used it to gauge my own strategy. I picture the pyramid as a mountain now, red ground at the bottom, deep blue-violet at the summit. When I placed myself on it, I was standing in two places at once. On the physical side, food, shelter, rest and safety, I was at my absolute bottom. On the metaphysical side, purpose, meaning and spiritual growth, I was higher than I had ever been. Same man, same years, same mountain.
Outside voices mattered. Two elders, Des and Cendrick, taught me not to rush a flame. Later an Afrikaans friend said the same in his own way: a rushed fruit does not ripen. Two voices from outside my own head, one answer. That is when I stopped believing life is a ladder. Illness and loss had stripped away much of the physical side, but the inner side kept growing. The ground side was slow: food, water and rest first, then safety, then belonging, which did not come back the way it was. Some relationships were rebuilt, some changed, and I had to learn to belong to myself again. On the green ground of self-esteem I met the other versions of me, the younger man, the lost man, the one rebuilding, the one I am now, and they walked side by side.
Then came the aha moment. We are born alone, so it was time to do the shadow work. Not talk about it, do it. Walking, exploring, sitting with myself, and slowly connecting with lovely souls, my children among them. The sky on the inner side opened, quietly, with nothing glowing or floating. It was only the feeling of being part of something bigger than my troubles.
Years later I was featured on Kyknet, a South African television channel, in [show name, year]. I sat in front of that camera as the man who once sat alone on a rock at Amathlungwa. It reminded me how far a single step can carry you. It was about saying, in front of anyone who cared to listen, that a person can be lost and still find a way home.
Today life is better, and I'm still a work in progress. I'm not at the top and I'm not at the bottom, and that's okay.
Wherever you are on your own mountain, it is a position, not a verdict, and positions change. You don't need everything figured out to begin. Ngihamba nawe: I walk with you. I won't stand above you. I'll sit beside you. Reach out for a session.
From survival to purpose, we rise. Camagu, a word in my culture meaning "I honour you."
