How Bali's healing energy rewired my heart
Chapter 17: What the medicine town of Ubud taught me about love
This is Chapter 17 of Love at First Flight, my memoir about finding connection while travelling solo around the world.
In it, I arrive in Bali for my birthday, expecting beautiful temples and green rice paddies. What I got was an invitation to slow down, be gentle and start to heal old wounds.
My pen hovered uncertainly above the sheet of paper.
"What do you want most in your life?" the workshop leader had asked, inviting us to write down our innermost desires.
Sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor of the yoga centre, I watched as ten strangers scribbled away confidently. They must really know what they want from their lives.
Eventually, I created my wish-list, ending with the words that had lingered in my mind for so long:
'A new, loving relationship.'
There it was in black and white. The moment I wrote it, something inside me shifted. Was I truly ready for love again? Or was I just trying to convince myself?
Landing on the island of gods
I'd arrived in Ubud two days earlier for my birthday. Looking out of the taxi window on the drive from the airport, we passed ornately designed family temples with intricate stone-masonry and decorated statues of Hindu deities.
Small offerings wrapped in palm leaves dotted the pavements. Boys ran along the road holding kites with ribbons streaming behind them.
The driver told me they often had ceremonies in Bali. A special calendar system called the Pawukon rotates every 210 days, determining everything in the Balinese people's lives—from small daily rituals to rites of passage and large festivals.
When arriving alone in a new place, I’d often have my guard up and my senses on high alert, as I tried to get my bearings and stay safe. But as we neared Ubud, something unexpected happened.
I softened, like a weight was lifting off me. My chest expanded and I could breathe more easily. A sense of calm flowed through my body.
It was telling me I was in the right place.
A room of one's own
When we pulled into the guesthouse, it exceeded my expectations.
A tranquil, leafy garden surrounded a small pond. Statuettes wrapped in checked fabric were adorned with flowers. The hypnotic tinkling of the traditional Balinese gamelan instrument and delicate fragrance of frangipani flowers floated in the air. As a birthday treat to myself, I’d paid a little more than I’d usually spend on accommodation, but it was still only $25 a night.
My host opened the French windows to my room and invited me to step inside. Made with natural materials, the stylish bedroom was filled with feminine furnishings in a rich wine colour. Next to it was my private, open-air bathroom in soft shades of green, with an ornate framed mirror and a large, luxurious bath.
Blissfully, I unpacked all my belongings for the first time since I'd embarked on this trip. No more fishing things out of my backpack on the floor. I put my underwear in the drawers and hung up my clothes in the wardrobe. I had an actual wardrobe. With coathangers. How civilised.
Suddenly, I felt like I was at home. Any remaining anxiety melted away. Smiling, I stretched out on my bed, taking it all in.
That evening, I took myself on a birthday date. I put on my red dress and went for dinner at a nearby restaurant, feeling like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. Perhaps, like her, I would be swept off my feet here by a gorgeous Brazilian man.
The medicine town
The name Ubud comes from an old Balinese word for medicine. And even though I had only just arrived, the place seemed to be having a healing effect on me.
In my online chakra course, we'd started learning about the heart chakra, which represents our emotional balance and serenity. It encourages us to feel a sense of unity with the world and live with compassion and kindness.
Importantly, it bridges the lower chakras governing earthly, material concerns and the upper chakras connecting us to spiritual awareness.
Some believe the Earth itself has chakras. Sacred sites like Ayers Rock, Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids are the planet’s power points. When mapped, these locations form invisible pathways called ley lines. Bali sits at a crucial intersection. It’s said to purify the earth’s spiritual energy through its ancient volcanoes and temples.
No wonder people come here for recovery and restoration. Perhaps my heart was about to receive the spring clean it needed.
Healing touch
I woke on my first morning in this peaceful place with an idea.
Bali has developed its own massage tradition, so one of my first trips in Ubud was to one of its stylish and serene spas. Decorated with lilypad ponds, bright flowers and natural stone bathing areas, they are beautiful and so affordable you could have a spa treatment every day.
With the scents of oils and flowers and the masseuse's skilful hands on my skin, I drifted into a dreamlike state. This was my first step into the self-nurturing and slowed-down pace that Bali would inspire in me.
Listening to my hidden desires
That evening, after my massage, I went to a Law of Attraction workshop at the nearby Yoga Barn, a centre of the yoga community here in Ubud.
I wasn’t sure I believed in manifestation, but it was worth a shot if it could make my dreams come true.
We sat in a circle and the facilitator asked us to write down what we wanted from life. She encouraged us to note down everything. What our desires look like and how they would make us feel if they became real. She told us:
‘We are all divinely connected with the universe. If you send out your wish and believe in your heart that it’s already yours, the universe will deliver. As long as you don’t attach expectations - when it arrives, it may not look exactly how you think.’
We’d have to keep our control freak tendencies in check and trust the universe.
I looked again at the words I’d scrawled:
A new, loving relationship.
A few weeks ago in Goa, I'd been so resistant when a guy I met there even expressed an interest in me. Why didn’t I believe it? What was I afraid of?
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi
Love wounds
That night, I dreamed about my ex. This was a rare occurrence and I woke confused. Then, things started clicking into place.
Memories of a workshop I'd attended in Thailand called 'Healing the Love Wounds' came flooding back. The presenter, a Jungian psychotherapist named Jeremiah Abrams—who'd made his home here in Ubud—had outlined the stages of romantic relationships. From the 'false intimacy' of the honeymoon period, to power struggles and then either a 'promised land' of genuine trust, or ‘differentiation’ and eventual 'termination' of the romance.
His most powerful insight was simple:
'Everyone we give our heart to brings us a gift. What we learned and how we grew from the time we spent with them.'
This struck me as beautiful: we each carry a positive legacy from our past lovers. When we’re heartbroken, we can try to protect ourselves by building walls or becoming clingy. Instead, reframing 'failed' romances as life teachers can help us to heal.
To understand our barriers to love, Jeremiah had suggested paying attention to our dreams and daydreams. In these moments when our conscious mind is quiet, our heart is free to express itself.
Tonight, it seemed, mine had spoken. It turned out, I was still one of the walking wounded. Perhaps, my dream was telling me I needed to gracefully accept the gift my ex had brought me and finally, fully move on.
Green fields and furry friends
Being in the natural, leafy surroundings of Bali filled me with joy. My body felt like it was being restored, one cell at a time.
I joined a bike tour to explore the extensive rice paddies around Ubud, which stretched gloriously green as far as the eye could see. As we cycled past the palm trees and terraced fields, the wind skimming my skin, I breathed in the moment deeply. I was so lucky to be here.
We stopped at a small family compound to taste an array of Balinese coffees and teas, and admire the sacred banyan trees with their weeping branches and mossy roots.
On my return, I opened the French windows to my room. Two kittens scrambled inside. Where had they come from? I hadn't even spotted them before.
They scratched at the curtains and pounced across my bed. I couldn't help but laugh at their antics - they had such boundless energy and were utterly adorable. Eventually, they settled, snuggling together and falling asleep on my diary, as if they were protecting my travel memories.
Smiling, I curled up and napped too, my heart lighter than it had been in months.
Resting my body, resting my mind
After a busy two months travelling around India, Thailand and Malaysia, it was here in Ubud that I perfected the art of relaxing.
My days were spent lying in a hammock in the garden, reading books, drinking Bintang beers and listening to music. Yoga classes at YogaBarn energised my body and calmed my mind. Each evening, I took myself on dates to restaurants. I appreciated every moment, every detail.
This place showed me how to let every day simply flow. Each morning, I would ignore what I ‘should’ do and choose what my heart really wanted to do. Even if that was nothing: I refused to feel guilty.
Our bodies are never lazy. Sometimes they just need to be still.
A new perspective
One day, after yet another trip to the local spa for a massage, I curled up in my deep red room, like I was in a womb.
All this rest had opened me up somehow and my mind started to go deep. I thought about how unkind I'd been to myself over the years. About all the amazing people I'd met during my travels so far and how open some had been about their grief and pain. And I cried. A lot. I cried all day, in fact. It was therapeutic.
Something was clearing for me. After what felt like a long time in hibernation, I was waking up. Slowly reconnecting.
Ubud’s spiritually curative air and calming surroundings were having a positive effect on me, in a beautiful and vulnerable way. I started looking at myself with fresh eyes. The parts of me that I’d berated for years as my flaws were actually my uniqueness, my qualities in a way. I was figuring out who I was - and who I was going to be.
Perhaps the new, loving relationship I had asked for in that workshop needed to be with myself first.
Going with the flow
The medicine town had worked its healing magic after all. And indeed it wasn’t how I expected. My Eat, Pray, Love experience of falling madly in love in Ubud didn’t seem to be on the cards.
Yet, I had all the symptoms. When I walked down the street, I couldn’t stop smiling. My cheeks flushed and my heart expanded out of my chest with joy. Bali was love and here I was.
One day, I knew the universe would smoothly and elegantly line up someone special for me. But I was in no rush.
For now, here in Bali’s vivid green landscape, my heart was full and open. It wasn’t about letting someone else in, but letting my true self out.
And that’s the most profound love affair of all.
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In the next chapter, my peaceful bubble of solitude in Bali takes an unexpected turn - read it here.
Have you ever experienced a place that felt instantly healing to you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Beautiful! I'm in Ubud now, what you say is true for most who come here...love yourself first. Today I'm attending a women's circle in the pool at Yoga Barn, later spa time and dinner date w myself. Yes it's crowded w tourists, but so what. I'm worth it.☮️
So beautiful that you had this experience there 🥰 So excited to read the next chapter.