Do you ever take the time to be with yourself, with no distractions from anything electronic and no one else around you?
I have. It’s not easy at first, but it changed everything about me the more I did it.
It was necessary for me to travel to do this. That is why I spent so much time walking on beaches in various countries, thinking and not thinking at the same time.
I learned a lot about myself and about the world during those hours. It was a necessary part of my evolution and leaving the old me behind.
Not everyone has the luxury of losing the world to find themselves though. There are obligations, family responsibilities, and just the day-to-day negotiations that are a necessary part of living in society.
We have things to do, stuff to buy, money to make and kids to raise. We need to do more, get more, and be more than what we are right now.
Because apparently who we are just isn’t good enough. The funny thing is, it never will be.
You can arrive at the end of your life having spent your years striving and never arriving. The moments of satisfaction and peace are few and far between. We put off allowing ourselves to feel joy or contentment for some imaginary future when we will finally have checked off all of the things on the to-do list.
You can spend your entire life waiting to live, and then come to the end wondering if that was all there was.
There is a rhythm to nature and to life. Tuning into this allows you to become a part of it instead of fighting things every step of the way.
Swimming against the current all of the time can become very tiring. In fact, it can be the death of you.
Illnesses and dis-ease associated with stress have grown rampant. Heart attacks, cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, and just about every other ailment are either caused or exacerbated by our high-stress lifestyles.
In our need to always get more, we end up with far less.
Getting away from it all is what allowed me to realize that I was in a hurry to get somewhere but there was never going to be a destination that would make me happy. I was forgetting to enjoy the journey along the way.
So I left. I went by myself because that is what I needed to do.
Every day, for hours and miles, I walked the beach. I wasn’t going anywhere – there was nowhere to go. I wasn’t doing anything – there was nothing to do.
By watching the waves come and go, the birds fly here and there, and the sun rise and set, I tuned in to the rhythm and the flow.
It penetrated my soul like nothing else ever had. It changed every belief I had about life and how I wanted to live.
Find the rhythm that is available to you where you are. Make it a priority to find some quiet time when you aren’t doing something or going somewhere or being someone.
Allow the peace of pure existence to take you to a place you have never been, and one you will never want to leave behind.