by Majka Baur
My Second Vision Quest: The Clash Between Ideals and Embodied Experience
My Second Vision Quest: The Clash Between Ideals and Embodied Experience, Leading Me Back to My Femininity
There are many reasons people go on Vision Quests — ancient rites of passage that consciously mark a life transition.
In this series, I share stories from my own journey — both as participant and guide — to make the experience tangible, so you can feel some of its textures.
And one thing I want to repeat: every Vision Quest is unique.
Beautifully surprising. The mind cannot predict what the body, the land, and the people will co-create when we open to new possibility.
I Thought This Quest Would Be About My Vocation
In 2020, I was living in a new city — Berlin — in a more stable phase than during my first Quest in 2017. My professional identity was still forming.
I no longer identified as a social entrepreneur. Making a direct impact in the world was no longer my main driver, but I was not sure who I was becoming.
I had trained as a systemic coach, feeling that supporting personal development was a lever for societal change. I loved holding space and helping stories unfold. The feedback I received was encouraging.
The challenge was financial: sustaining myself while doing work I loved felt almost impossible.
Meanwhile, I stayed engaged in the sustainability and impact field — joining mandates that allowed me to apply my strategic mind in complex, unconventional situations. These projects gave me freedom to explore my own path while keeping my work purposeful.
When I heard about a Vision Quest in Northern Germany, I knew I had to go back to the woods — to share stories in honest and open circles and to figure out the next steps in my life. I was so drawn to this format that my boyfriend joined as well.
I thought this Quest would be all about my professional path.
Theorizing vs Living: A Relationship Tsunami
Two weeks before the Quest, my relationship hit a wave I had not anticipated.
We had long discussed the idea of an open relationship — a space where freedom is honored and love is not constrained. But theory and lived reality collided.
A misunderstanding escalated into a one-night encounter. Suddenly, the boundaries I had trusted were overstepped.
The emotional impact was intense: anger, hurt, and incomprehension surged through me. I discovered a rage I did not know I could carry.
And yet, I went on the Vision Quest with my boyfriend — still carrying that tension, that unsettled storm of emotion.
Sitting with Anger, Shadows, and Femininity
My spot in the forest was by a large birch tree that had fallen near a small river. I sat with the rush of the water and the weight of my anger.
There was no space for my professional aspirations during those four days.
Instead, I sat with my embodied experience — my angry and hurt femininity:
- Why was this triggering me so deeply?
- Which parts of myself had I not accepted?
- How fully do I inhabit my body, my sexuality, my power?
- Where am I judging myself or others?
I journaled for hours, my hand sore from writing. I conversed with myself, with younger versions of me, and with the voices of the women in my life. I revisited societal stories about what it means to be a woman, a “normal” woman, a “real” woman.
I processed old hurts, boundary violations, loneliness, and the desperate wish to love and be loved.
Everything passed through me — words on the page, tears on my cheeks, the river carrying it away.
By the end, space opened for me to feel the beauty and power of being a woman who owns her body, her sexuality, and her voice.
I went into the Quest seeking wholeness and returned as a whole woman — not someone new, but someone reclaimed.
A Wider Lens: Integration and Shadow Work
Three years after my first Quest, this one was different. It was not about breaking open for the first time — it was about allowing shadows I had long repressed to speak, be seen, and take their place in a conscious, healthy way.
I did not cross a threshold into a new life stage. I did essential inner work within my current phase — work that would shape the next steps of my personal and professional development.
This Quest reminded me: ideals, no matter how carefully considered, are not enough. Life insists on embodied experience.
Through experience, real — and often painful — growth happens.
For those of us in leadership, sustainability, or complex societal roles, this is crucial. We can know the “right” principles intellectually — but if we have not integrated our own boundaries, emotions, and desires, we cannot embody them fully in the world.
When we do this work, we rise to authentic power — not over others, but from within ourselves.
A Call to Explore
If you feel called to explore your own life transitions, reclaim parts of yourself, or experience the power of wilderness-based rites of passage, I offer Vision Quests (Next one: June 2026) and coaching to guide you in this process.
In this blog series: