Rugile – Empathic step #1

‘Be open to new experiences’ I said to myself before applying for this project and didn’t stop repeating it during those days. And actually, there were many new experiences or ‘first times’ – first time seeing an ocean, first time hiking in the night, first time pillow – fighting. And to be honest, I didn’t expect this project to be as amazing as my first one, but it was even better. Our topic was based on empathy towards other people, but we also had an opportunity to improve our communication or public speaking skills as well as creativity. I saw empathy not only as an opportunity to be able to see things from other people’s perspective, but also an opportunity to see myself from distance, to be happy that I’m alive and can be part of this amazing community or even lose my issues because if someone considers me smart, beautiful and sexy – why shouldn’t I consider myself that too? And talking about other people – it was super easy to make new friends as we all felt somehow connected. There were no ‘taboo’ themes for us and even the shyest ones shared a few secrets of their personal life. From my personal experience I was a little bit afraid of meeting other people, but the night I met them I found myself very open and relaxed – like I was meant to meet them! During the first days we got closer and some of us made friends for a lifetime. There were also many awkward and funny situations with people. For example, I met two men, who were acting super crazy and fighting for my attention and I felt like a girl from those silly but romantic movies. It even got crazier as later I made a family with some friends – we took care for each other during the night hike and even later. Oh, and don’t forget the days when we were feeling ocean breeze while standing on huge cliffs or even dipping our toes in the ocean (or swimming – but that’s another story). So you see, I mentioned ‘movies’ not accidentally – this project was like a movie or a story, which is hard to believe it even happened. Now only shells from sand beaches or the dress bought at a charity shop reminds me Isle of Wight and its amazing people.