My knee rests between my hands and under his, skin warm and pink from the sun finding it in the hours we’ve been driving. My gaze moves from the stretch of road ahead, to him at the wheel, to my right at the layers of rose bushes and rock down to a calm blue sea. Our bodies move subtly to the same rhythm of ambient music. Soft smiles left over from an inside joke. Eyes low from a day in sand and sun, fighting to stay open to feel this feeling, to see the environment that brings it.
We’re in Italy. Driving along the quiet, salty seaside of Puglia. Another trip in a string of many I’ve taken in the past 8 months since embarking on the sabbatical that’s become a pivotal life chapter. An amalgam of travels, experiences, relationships, medicine journeys, and teachings that each on their own could encompass a lengthy blog post. Some of which have. All of these layered on top of one another have brought a certain flavor of transformation that has been both beautiful and unexpected. I scan the blurred pinks, greens, and blues to my right, let the breeze move my eyelashes closed, and reflect on what this might be.
I didn’t plan to take this much time. I thought I’d go to India for a couple months, return renewed and ready to dive into my next all-encompassing venture that’d take the next few years of my life. But that’s what true surrender will do. Listening as life paves your path for you day by day, listening and trusting then walking, without always knowing exactly where it’s leading. A liberating and terrifying thing to do. Surrender is a word I’ve used often on here, though I realize I was naive to the meaning. It came from my mind, I knew it intellectually and applied it in that way. The felt sense, the actual experience of letting go to the great vast undulating chaotic ocean of life is another thing. And it’s been a journey…one I’m still understanding and navigating today.
I chose surrender and continue to because I knew I wanted something different. I knew I wanted a life that felt good. A life that felt vibrant, alive, and flowing with ease because it’s in alignment with my truth and what the universe wants. And I knew my life up until that point hadn’t been that way, not to the degree it could be. I’d tasted notes of it in traveling, creating, journeying, connecting, but these were isolated to the rare pockets of life we reserve for joy. I know and trust we can live in that place always. We can design our lives, we can choose. Choose work, homes, partners, lifestyles, that feel good in our hearts not just our minds, aligns with our own souls not others’ scripts.
I’ve discovered this takes realizing our own unique path, then the courage to walk it. And that finding that path first takes surrendering, letting loose our grip on life as we know it so we can be guided towards what it should be.
External pressures make it hard to do that. Jobs, relationships, kids, possessions, expectations and other strings in life can pull us from the voice within trying to tell us what we really want. I was fortunate that nearly all of these strings in my life were cut last November. I left the job that’d been my world for 2 years, moved out of LA, ended a relationship, and set off to wander for a while. I had a seed in mind of what I’d build next, and intended to make the next few months about clearing my head enough to receive what that was meant to be, then go do it.
Clearing my head soon expanded into what’s felt like a death and rebirth. Breaking free from the strings opened a clear channel to all the walls that’d been keeping me from my own bliss. And to the guiding lights that’d steer me back on track. So I started following these.
At first it was a strange journey. It’s amazing how difficult it was, still can be, to allow myself to feel good. To follow the joy, and trusting this was my compass to the unique path I sought to uncover. It felt naughty. Like I was cheating the system or breaking the rules. Like there needs to be a certain level of suffering in life in order to be worthy of it—a grossly false inner belief inherent to the human condition that we must awaken to overcome. A belief that is the root of much of the anxiety, depression, and fear-driven, combative behavior among us today.
Much of that belief for me comes from the fire that’s burned in me for as long as I can remember. The fire that’s always said I’m supposed to do something big for the world. Something great and impactful that makes a positive difference. The fire that blazes whenever I take space for my own rest and relaxation, forcing me back to some semblance of productivity or perceived alignment to my mission in order to justify the time and appease the flame.
I know there’s a reason for this fire. And most of me is grateful for it. And I also know that if I only listened to it, I’d sacrifice myself to the extent that I wouldn’t do any good for anyone. So this has become my mantra of justification, until hopefully one day it’s just natural, that in order to do good I must feel good. That our world is a mirror, reflecting our inner state back to us, impacting our work and relationships. That tuning inward must be our first priority, cleansing, clearing, and allowing the inner voice to be heard, guiding us to our own paths of bliss.
I open my eyes, melt more into the subtle beauty of this moment, let the soft ease of it hold me like a blanket. The best reflections arise from this state. One where the mind and body are merged with what is, in a state of surrendered presence, letting the truth arise naturally from that place.
Bliss. Ease. Joy. Love. What else? The familiar fire arises in response…but we have to…and on it goes. I let the voices pass through like the silly trolls they are, turn and watch a bird glide past my window then towards the Adriatic. Free and at one with the wind and her heart.
From the poet, Rumi,
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King. When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.
Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.
Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself. . . .
What is your life about, anyway?—
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.