The beginning of “holario” was in the year 2014. It was not less than the name of my cycling tour from Germany to Brasil, from the front door of my home to “Rio de Janeiro”. That most of the people I met in all parts of the Earth cannot really connect to that strange combination of letters… h-o-l-a-r-i-o… well, that was actually not a huge surprise for me! So here´s finally the official explanation so that everybody can get the feeling for this word:
“holario” is actually a sound! Or a feeling. Both actually! A feeling that sometimes just overcomes us guys from Bavaria, when we´re experiencing an overwhelming moment… such as reaching the top of a difficult mountain… the feeling of “having made it”. And nobody can really explain how to set this feeling in sound… we all feel different… and that´s why each and every of our “holario”s will sound different as well. But somehow it became common to write it – let´s say – in a kind of a style like my “holario”.
Ok, somehow you got it now. But why would somebody name their adventure after it? Well, come on, that´s not too difficult to understand now, is it? All you maybe must know in addition is the reason for this adventure… which was not less than a complete burnout. Tired and exhausted from the frenetic life of a city, really frustrated with the job, even more with my personal life (men and stuff…) I just couldn´t see any other exit than to exit. I definitely needed air to be able to breathe again. I needed to break free from all these constricting “do this” and “do that” and of course, please “don´t do it your way” but the way it is to be done… I just needed to break free! And that didn´t mean any less than giving up a complete lifestyle. It was a ground zero in my life. I packed all my beloved things (shoes and shoes and some shoes mostly) in some cardboard boxes, locked them into a friend´s basement and started over with just a pink bicycle. Tough? Yes. But as expected my lungs immediately were filled with oxygen, my veins started to give me a pulse, my heart started to applaud for this bold decision and in one word: The feeling was overwhelmingly amazing – holario!
And although there were countless obstacles to overcome, fears to overcome and challenges to master this didn´t end until – after 21 months – I finally could turn it into a yelling “Hola, Rio!”.
I made it!
That´s the real meaning of “holario”.
holario now
After having reached my glorious goal and having gotten so much more than I ever would have dared to expect from this tour around the world, life decided to just give it to me once more…
and I fell. Deep and deeper and deepest ever! It hit me like a huge fist punching me down from the seemingly friendly Bavarian White and Blue sky and just knocked me over completely. A twin-flame-connection! Some of you might have heard about it, some of you might even have experienced it. But for those who haven´t: This time of my life just felt like being pushed into a deep and dark and uncomfortable hole in the ground and being forced to learn some lessons. Definitely not “holario”!
But I did my holewo… sorry, homework I wanted to say! For almost 6 long years I was breaking my own self down into half a million of tiny little mosaic stones. De-cluttered and de-clustered and finally cleansed all the pieces until each of them kept nothing but an essence of my soul. The rest of the time I spent with putting them back together again. Having to integrate of course all the pieces that I found there in the dark as well. And sorting out what got completely broken, appeared to be unsubstantial or just no longer a part that could serve me in any way any longer. It was just hard – so, so hard! But the outcome isn´t less than a magnificent whole new me: Still Angela, but in a bigger picture!
This is now also the new version of “holario”: It´s not only about a self imposed adventure on a bicycle. It´s about the real one this time! It is about the one and only adventure of life itself!
I learned that these dark times are inevitable to grow and expand ourselves. Which is actually very logic and simple to understand: growing, expanding – even when talking about physical growth – is nothing but a change, a transformation. But as we all know: change is uncomfortable! Why? Well, because suddenly things change! So we´re forced to move instead of keep sitting in our comfort zones. I believe that change and transformation can only happen in difficult times. With some very few exceptions maybe…. But if things around us wouldn´t get uncomfortable, difficult, even threatening and unbearable sometimes, if everything went just smooth: why the hell would we want to change anything about it? Now I see it. And what would I give to have known that a few years earlier…
Personal growth needs the Ups and (especially) the Downs of life. So let´s just try to welcome also the difficult times… PARTY THE PEAKS… as we all know what will be the case when our cardio line will not show any peak anymore…
“holario” is here to remind you of that whenever you´re walking through rough and tough times, digging into the depth of your mind and soul… trying to give you clarity and insight what is happening and why and what can be the benefit of it… offering you the perspective you enjoy at the peak of a high mountain… just seeing the bigger picture!
About me
I am Angela. I am the one behind the scenes. I am the incorporation of “holario” – with every single cell of my body, every heartbeat and every breathe I take!
I always thought that being an architect, wife and mother of a nice little family would be all that I ever need. But life had some other things on the plate: I was called to do this amazing cycling tour. Not only offering me to completely recover but leading me to crossing paths with that very special soul. At first seeming to be nothing but one of these typical meets and greets you find hundreds of times when travelling the world it soon revealed it´s real potential. Which was nothing less than pushing me into a time of my life where nothing was clear any more. Not even the things I was so sure about before were sure anymore! Just every tiny little bit of my life needed to be questioned and re-evaluated. It was a time of having no clue at all what was suddenly going on with me, a time of confusion, a time of total disorientation! Exactly as you feel when completely groping in the dark.
But it was right there in the dark where I found parts of me that were hidden for so long. Characters that I had suppressed and locked away for it was just not possible to show them to the world without having to fear trouble. It was right there when I had the chance to become whole again by finding my own “shadow self” and bringing it back to the surface and into the light.
It was the hardest time of my life. It was the literal process of the caterpillar that suddenly – without being able to control any of it – is being cocooned, then entirely dissolved and finally transformed into a beautiful butterfly. It takes courage and it takes trust into the universe when first you feel nothing but loosing – best friends, family members, the love of your life and finally your own self. But if you trust the process it all will be restored! The life after will be completely different from the life you had before. But in the best way you can imagine – believe me!