Before
An outsider in her own story
For three or four years before the Sahara, Kristiina had been on what she calls her spiritual journey, “towards myself, trying to figure out: who am I? Why am I here? What is this thing that we are living in?” She had studied Reiki and explored many practices. But something wasn’t landing. “I was doing that spiritual journey, but I really didn’t understand why. I was still like an outsider in my own story. Now I feel that I’m inside, and before the Sahara, I was somehow outside.”
When Heidi first told her about the Sahara journey, the idea sat quietly for months. Then, seeing the materials again, something clicked. “It started to feel like now is the right moment for me to go. And I don’t know why. It just came to me.”
What was she hoping for? “Maybe I had this expectation that I would find something deeper. Some answers. What should I do? Do I have the right profession? How to combine all these things that I’ve been studying?”
Her fears weren’t about the desert. “Nothing about the environment, or the people. More like: what if I find something that I don’t like? Or what if it doesn’t change anything?” She admits she can be anxious meeting new people. But the pre-journey gatherings dissolved that. “From the first call, there was this energy of trust and caring, that the right people will come together.” And when the group finally met in Marrakech: “We didn’t know each other, but it felt that we did, somehow.”
In the desert
Landing in another world
After the long drive through the mountains, the group arrived in darkness. “They have these lanterns there. It was really beautiful. It immediately felt like a safe place to be. And then the first morning, you really see the place.”
The Sahara, you have to experience it. It’s like a different world.
How would she describe it to someone who has never been? “The Sahara, you have to experience it. It’s hard to describe. It’s like a different world. The first couple of days, you try to somehow get rid of the sand, and then you surrender to the sand. Sand is everywhere. And it’s okay.”
“There is more life than you could imagine if you stop and just listen. There are birds, and trees, and scarabs. You are not alone there.” And the desert strips things back to essentials. “The air is so dry you can easily use the same clothes for a week. It was the second day of my solitude, and I had plenty of water left, so I thought: I’m going to wash my face. And it’s like washing your face for the first time ever. You can feel things like you would do them the first time.”
The container held all of it. “It was really well facilitated, the structure that Johan and Heidi had. Plenty of time to reflect by yourself, and lots of conversations. They were holding the space in a way that you didn’t actually notice, but they were doing it all the time. And they weren’t like facilitators who stay outside. They were inside also, in the same deep conversations.” When participants started referencing books and methods in the first days, Heidi gently redirected: “We are here finding the answers from ourselves.”
“There was trust in the group all the time. It was amazing how deep you start to go. But at the same time as it was really deep, it was so much fun, and kind of light.”
In the desert
The tree, the cape, the storm
The turning points came in layers. First, the sacred feminine and masculine day: “We went quite deep about passion, and I’m passionate about life. I started to think about that.” Then, alone in her solitude, she went deeper into her family lines “and started to understand why I am holding back so much.”
The morning after solitude brought the moment she carries with her still. “I went to meditate under the tree. I don’t usually travel when I meditate, but then I traveled, and I went down to the roots of the Tree of Life. And I found there some stuff that I had buried for myself. There I found a cape, and in that cape were all my tools. I took the cape. And even now, if I feel there is something heavy, I can take the cape and put it on me, and I feel my spine growing longer.”
On the last evening, a sandstorm swept the camp, tents and sleeping bags flying. “It felt like it was one thing that needed to happen. We needed to really feel it: what a desert is. You are so little, and the desert is so powerful.” As a Finn, she reaches for a comparison from home: “If you go to the middle of a forest in Finland, the forest is helping you to stay alive. You can fish, there are berries. But in the desert, there is nothing. It’s rough.” And at night, the other face of that vastness: “You can see the stars, you can see the Milky Way. But you can also hear the silence.”
After
The lightness
What did she notice first, coming out of the desert? “I think it’s just the lightness. Because I tend to carry lots of burdens. So there’s this lightness.” She didn’t want to open her phone. Back in Marrakech, her sports watch suddenly felt intolerable on her wrist. “You get so used to all the stuff that is around you. And when you take everything off, and then you’re putting it back, you realize: oh, I don’t need this. I don’t want to have this in my field.”
I started to really understand that I am creating my life. I am creating my future.
The deeper change has kept unfolding. “I started to really understand that I am creating my life. I am creating my future. If I see something as bad, I can decide how to see it.” That shifted her most difficult relationships. “I cannot change other people, I can only change me. I have boundaries, of course, but the energy is different, because I’m not expecting them to change. And the energy of our relationships has changed. Sometimes I’m like, what is happening here? I think it’s my energy that has changed so much.”
Then work. Kristiina had felt professionally lost for some time, teaching a subject she liked but had no passion for. Weeks after returning, a colleague’s departure opened a door she hadn’t even considered: coaching experienced professionals who are becoming teachers. “During one hour, poof! My whole work exploded. I start coaching those people, helping them find their way to be a teacher. I haven’t been so excited for many years. There are these synchronicities. You sense something, you get a glimpse, and somehow it returns to you.”
After
Go deep or go home
Her advice for anyone unsure? “Go for it, of course. But it’s really important to be open. If you are open, then you can go deep. It was another participant who said it: go deep or go home. Even the Sahara itself is amazing, but if you want to get more out of it for yourself, you have to be really open. Just jump, and see what happens.”
And what is this journey really for? “It’s a journey inside yourself, to yourself. Going deeper in yourself. If you want to find out some bits about who you are, this is for you.”
“First, it felt that nothing is happening after the Sahara. And then you start to realize that underneath the surface, there is so much happening. Things just pop up. And I think it will continue, I don’t know how long. Forever, hopefully.”
“Underneath the surface, there is so much happening. And I think it will continue. Forever, hopefully.”
Kristiina · Finland
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