I’ve officially spent a week living inside the Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud. Yes, living with them, not visiting. And honestly? This experience is teaching me far more about myself than it is about the monkeys. First and foremost, there are only a couple of homes in the monkey forest to love in, so the experience is a rare one, to begin with.

When I first got here, I thought the lesson would be about “being brave” or “stepping outside my comfort zone.” Cute. The real lesson is deeper. These monkeys have become mirrors reflecting instinct, alignment, boundaries, and truth back at me in ways humans rarely do. They’ve shown me exactly who I am in this season of my life. Here are seven lessons for seven days in this wonderful sancturary.

1. The first thing I learned: My nervous system is actually calm for real.

You cannot fake energy with monkeys. They don’t care about your clothes, your smile, or your résumé. They react to your nervous system and who you truly are, not who you present yourself to be or how others want to perceive you.

If you’re scared, they know.
If you’re pretending, they know.
If you’re grounded and peaceful?
They treat you like you belong.

For seven days straight, I stepped outside and the monkeys didn’t scatter, scream, or test me.
Well, the first couple of days, there was a lot of poop and pee on my porch as they attempted to assert their dominance. But now, they just accept me.

That told me something: My calm is real, not performative.

2. They stopped pooping on my porch.

In primate language, poop is territorial. It’s how they say, “this spot is ours.” By day three, they stopped.

No mess.
No dominance displays.
Just respect.

Energetically, this matched my life as I’m stepping into spaces where old chaos no longer sticks to me. I take up space differently now: emotionally, spiritually, energetically. The monkeys recognize it, even if humans haven’t always respected, acknowledged or supported the shift in me.

3. The babies approach me and that means I’m safe.

Baby monkeys don’t go near just anyone. Their mothers will snatch them back instantly if the energy feels off, or at the very least hiss if they feel the human is unsafe.

But the babies come right up to the bars while I paint, reaching toward me with calm curiosity.

Their mothers don’t react.
No one screams.
No one protects them from me.

That means I’m not seen as a threat or instability. That’s when it hit me: My presence feels safe even in the wild.

4. I am not prey. I am not competition. I am just… me.

The alpha males don’t posture at me. The juveniles don’t try to test my boundaries. The mothers don’t hiss. No one is trying to intimidate or challenge me.

They see me.
Acknowledge me.
And choose neutrality and peace.

There’s something healing about being treated fairly by nature, especially when certain humans in my past have projected onto me, lied about me, or created narratives that never matched my truth.

5. Monkeys don’t lie; humans do.

This is the part that surprised me the most. Humans will twist your kindness, misread your intentions, project their wounds onto you, or lie about who you are because of jealousy, misunderstanding, insecurity, or their own unhealed mess. But monkeys?

They don’t lie.
They don’t perform.
They don’t pretend.
They don’t gossip.
They don’t smile to your face and attack you spiritually behind your back.

Their reactions are instant truth. If your energy is off, they show you. If your confidence is fake, they expose it. If your intentions are pure, they relax. Their instincts speak louder than any person’s words ever could about my character.

The monkeys’ behavior toward me this week said more about who I am, as well as who I’ve become, than anything a human could claim. There is something about honesty and authenticity that human primates can learn from monkey primates. To discern people, energy and situations for yourself and respond accordingly and honestly should be mandatory in our world as it is in the monkey forest.

Monkeys respond to the truth of my energy, not the myth someone tried to create about me because in the wild, you cannot hide your spirit. And I’ve learned that mine is peaceful, grounded, trustworthy, and aligned.

6. My creativity is a frequency and the monkeys confirmed it.

Every morning when I sit upstairs and paint, they gather around the cage to watch.

Not aggressively.
Not fearfully.
Just with curiosity.

Wild animals don’t observe creativity unless they feel the vibration behind it. Painting has become a spiritual practice for me, a way of channeling peace, and the monkeys come to sit inside that frequency. It reminded me that my creativity isn’t just something I do. It’s something I emit.

7. This week taught me who I am now.

In these seven days, I realized:

I’m steady, not reactive.
I’m grounded, not fearful.
I’m powerful, not forceful.
I’m creative, not chaotic.
I’m peaceful, not passive.
I’m honest in my energy, not performative in my personality.

Nature sees me clearly.

The monkeys respond to who I truly am, not who someone else decided I was. And that’s the lesson: I no longer need to convince humans of my character. I’m living proof in environments where instinct, not ego, determines the truth.

Living in the Monkey Forest hasn’t just shown me the wild.

It’s shown me myself.

And I finally love the reflection because it is the truth of me and not who others need me to be.

Seven Days in the Monkey Forest: What I’m Learning About Myself