The Medicine is Stillness
When I observe the natural world especially during times when I retreat to a place where I can pull myself back from the hum drum of the world I am amazed at what I encounter. The pure simplicity of life.
This morning I am sitting on a beach in Tulum watching waves, waiting for the sun to rise, and watching birds pull food from the shoreline. There is an instinctive knowing for all creatures where to go to get food, seek shelter, to stay away from prey, to fly south when seasons change and so much more. Seeing all this life before me, I can’t help but reflect about us humans. We overwork, we think too much, we minimize our connection with nature, and we don’t utilize our intuitive instincts enough.
This last week I’ve been co-leading a retreat in Tulum with nineteen beautiful souls, I am humbled by the hunger these amazing souls exhibited for connection. Connection with themselves, connection with an awakened community, and connection with nature. There is power in stepping back from our ordinary lives for a few days to recalibrate our own inner technology. We have to take time to re-engineer ourselves, to see who we have become and to make choices that will shift us into a new reality that fits our ever-evolving humanity. Retreating can help us become more aware of our inner medicine. We receive it in stillness.
Retreats brings new awareness of where we are now. We settle into the soft, vulnerable interior of our inner world to claim the parts of ourselves we might have neglected. Each day here has been a gift, each yoga class and breathwork taught was an experience in human fragility and resilience. There is no greater healer than nature and our very own breath. Both are free and require no payment, only our stillness and attentiveness are required.
To heal is to become aware. To become aware is to make choices that are in alignment with our highest selves. Stepping back from our busy schedules to honor the unfolding of our lives is sacred medicine that is needed to allow us to shed, see, and rest. I am constantly reminded when I lead retreats about the core longing for us humans: connection, love, peace, and a place to feel safe where we can unpack our personal stories without judgment.
It’s been more than a decade now since I begun retreating for my own personal well-being. It has been a necessary ingredient for my overall mental, emotional, and spiritual health as a human being. My joy now is to share the sweetness of life with others and to encourage and invite what is stuck within us to come undone safely so the sweetness that is life can radiate in all we do.
Life is full of pleasures waiting to be sampled in small or large bites. In the midst of challenges, grief, loss we may experience, remembering to sample the pleasures is paramount to our lives. It brings an aliveness back to our hearts, it enriches us in a colorful way once again. Life becomes delicious again. The impermanence of life can scare us into not living and we try to control the outcome creating a rigidity around life. The plain truth is that we simply have to reach out and say yes to life. When we practice letting go, the world opens up and offers us a brand new view. Here’s to explorer in each of us. 🔭🧭