So many of us think that finding ourselves, finding fulfillment, and discovering lasting peace can only come from being in a particular situation or in the right circumstance.
“I just need to get away from it all, go on retreat, move across the country or to the other side of the world, so I can find myself and my happiness.”
I’ve been down that path.
I’ve been around the world and back a few times, in extended periods of silent retreat, deep in the wilderness for weeks in solitude, and in the mountains and monasteries of the far east.
At the time, all those experiences were exactly what I needed.
They took me way out to my edges and beyond as well as far deeper into my innermost center.
I also realized that the real work didn’t begin or end there.
The solution will never come through running away from yourself or your life. That will only ever create more division.
The real finding of yourself and the lasting peace you desire will only ever be found in embracing the full spectrum of life itself without discrimination.
The real freedom and expansion doesn’t happen when all circumstances are perfect and ideal.
It happens when you allow yourself to be enraptured and moved by life anyways,
To feel more in a world that threatens to numb your inner aliveness,
And show up AS love right in the middle of the very life that you are already living.
It happens when conditions are less than ideal, and you’re left to choose your inner state and find your own unwavering ground in the face of the perpetual groundlessness.
No matter where you’re at, no matter how discouraged, disheartened, or disillusioned you may feel…
In the face of all that you desire but can’t seem to reach and all that you’ve tried that hasn’t worked…
The opportunity you always have is to relax even more deeply into your exact circumstances and use them as a catalyst to transform the world inside of you first.
This is what I teach my clients…
How to stop running away from their lives and themselves in order to find the fullness of expansion, joy, and satisfaction they are chasing…
And, instead, turn everything into a spiritual practice.
In the process of learning how to love themselves back to life exactly where they are…
They realize that nothing had to change in order for them to have the experience of life they’ve been searching for all along.
That’s the kind of freedom that effortlessly lands you into the best version of yourself you could ever aspire to be.