What did capybara's teach me about empowerment?

A personal exploration of agency, co-creation, and lessons found in a 24-hour capybara encounter

Last weekend, my husband and I woke up at 4am, diligently went through the usual travel procedures, flew across the Bass Strait, and landed in Tasmania just after sunrise.

Our 24-hour trip on this island had one purpose: to feed the capybaras.

It sounds silly, but capybaras have become a meme in our relationship. First, a friend went to see some and thus they entered our awareness; later, a market stall selling ceramic, cartoon-like capybaras brought us joy—until eventually, capybaras found their way onto our “list of cute things that we love finding cute” (alongside ducks and geese).

After spending a year failing to secure a capybara encounter within a four-month window (is there like a global demand for capybara encounters??), we jumped at the chance to see them at Tasmania Zoo ~this weekend!?!?~

So there we were, sleep-deprived and cold in the morning chill of Tasmania.

The fun part is that I didn’t feel bad about it.

A new kind of agency

While our Uber driver took us from the airport into town for breakfast, I felt a distinct sense of agency rising in me. A feeling that everything was ok because I had chosen this.

Before we took off, I’d pinned some breakfast options on Google maps, messaged the host to confirm our check-in time, and triple-checked our zoo ticket details. We had an itinerary. We were set.

Usually, you’d find me scrambling at the last minute to pick a suitable eatery while navigating the Uber pickup zone. I’d leave planning and logistics to my husband, barely knowing where we were staying until we arrived.

These details might sound unremarkable, but for me, they were significant.

They represented a subtle shift in narrative.

Re-writing the narrative

If you know me personally—or have followed my writing for a while—you’ll know we travel a lot.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s not unusual for me to make the decisions, be the loudest voice in the room on preferences for where we stay or go, or be the one taking action.

And yet, I haven’t shaken this underlying narrative that “someone else is making all the decisions for me”.

I’ve been curious about this and made sense of it in a million different ways.

“Maybe it’s because I don’t know what I really want with my life”

“It’s easier to blame others than take responsibility myself”

“I don’t understand why we’re even travelling”

“Maybe there’s an unreconcilable mismatch in my relationship”

“I feel guilty for being able to travel when really it’s my mum’s dream”

etc. etc.

Regardless of the story, the internal tension remained.

Whenever a conversation comes up on “where next” or “what about this place”, I shut down and become defensive. My default is to grab on to whatever currently feels familiar and known and protect that at all costs.

Often, this stance results in frustration and tension. I state my needs, decisions get made, I sulk and grunt, and then… there we are, somewhere new.

We’d land in distant places, but rarely would I land in a fully embodied stance of agency.

So what was different this time?

This time, I had been empowered to make all the decisions.

We knew our needs, desires, and financial parameters, and I was empowered to make it happen.

The position of ownership wasn’t new, but how I approached it was. Instead of slightly dissociating—letting this trip be “just something we were doing”—I held our purpose sacred. We weren’t just going to see capybaras; we were tending to an aspect of our relationship we’d deemed meaningful.

Enjoying capybaras wasn’t something “given” to me. Nobody forced me to like them. It wasn’t my husband’s default position that I simply adopted. We had co-created this interest.

And here’s where it clicked: this mundane encounter illuminated what I’ve been missing in the bigger travel decisions—and ultimately, in decisions about my life.

Instead of seeing life as something that happens to me, I’m now holding the awareness that I’m co-creating it. In every moment.

Psychologically, this awareness has felt destabilizing. Somatically, it’s been liberating—like a soft, expansive cavern opening both above and below me. My mind occasionally blips as it recalibrates around this spaciousness. Yet this new lens is helping me see how, in some situations, I’ve shied away from fully stepping into my commitments and taking radical ownership.

This awareness is helping me see how in some situations I’ve shied away from fully showing up for my commitments and taking radical ownership over decision-making.

While my psyche catches up to the somatic shift, having a tangible, lived experience of the “seed we co-nurtured” has provided an anchor for a new narrative: I am empowered and in creation with life.

It makes me wonder what other low-stakes and tangible experiments we can run for ourselves—small decisions or shifts that challenge the narratives running in the background and open space for new stories to emerge.

What I learned from the giant guinea pigs

• Relationships aren’t static or fixed—they’re continuously being shaped by both parties (including me!!!).

• We’re always in communion with life, whether we notice or not. Once we get conscious of that, we kinda have a golden ticket.

• We carry an entire world model into our decisions, interactions, and conversations. It’s possible to re-wire that model if we choose.

• There’s something uniquely satisfying about naming what you want, then making it happen.

• And finally, how goddamn chill life can feel when you know who you are (just a celery-eating, scratch-loving, giant guinea pig).

---

If you want some more chill in your life, I’m running my final “relaxing while moving” themed wiggling session next Tuesday, before shifting gears into a next month’s theme “moving as love”.

That’s all from me today 👋

I’d love to hear from you — what’s an experiment you’ve run lately, and what did you learn?

Sending love and hugs from Melbourne,

— Ocean