When was the last time you felt like your complete self? Where were you? What were you doing? A story on choosing life and finding inner stillness.
Can you sit still, my love?
Can you sit still for a while and look around you?
What do you see? What do you like?
Can you count your blessings?
How does it feel?
Where sits the feeling?
How is your body? Your breath?
What are your thoughts?
If you sit with your feelings long enough, can you capture them like a picture?
Can you keep that feeling even if the shape of life around you changes?
Can you go back to that breath? Image? Feeling?
These were some of the questions I asked myself yesterday upon waking up from an afternoon nap.
Last week, I spent four days surrounded by nature in the middle of nowhere.
My friend David turned 30, and we surprised him in a house similar to Kate Winslet’s in ‘The Holiday’—just bigger and more spacious. Each morning, I woke up with the sun shining through the gridded windows, mist lingering above the grass as if the day was still waking up.
The mornings were still. Gentle. Soft.
The only sound was the singing of the birds.
I’d get a cup of tea and walk barefoot onto the damp grass. There, I’d sit and look into the field before me.
The mornings were different from the day.
Wild rabbits were jumping around, geese were squeaking, and I tried to be as still as possible.
Here, I felt at peace.
Here, I felt whole.
In a conversation with my friend Fabyann, I said, ‘I feel like I’m feeling my whole self. For the first time, I know all of who I am—all of my body, all of my senses, and I like it.’
I felt that in the stillness that this space created, I could reach into all corners of my body. It felt good. This is how one must feel during a silent retreat, where you can only communicate with yourself and your body.
What are we left with when all outside distractions and stimulation are gone? Our thoughts and feelings. I understand how scary this can be for some. For me, in that moment, it felt perfect.
It was, indeed, like a dream. In fact, on the last day, as I sat outside with my friends David and Fabyann, I said to them, ‘These last few days felt like I was living a different life. My life in London feels like from another lifetime.’
And it did. What others would describe as ‘It felt like a dream’ felt like a parallel life for me. It was as if someone had taken me out of this reality and placed me into a new one—one that, interestingly enough, I’m starting to become familiar with through my meditations.
I’ve been working through emotional patterns for the last few weeks. If you remember my previous blog, I learned about primary and secondary emotions. Hand in hand with that experience, I started a guided meditation with Joe Dispenza, where I’m becoming increasingly aware of my everyday emotions. During the meditation we dismantle the ones I no longer want to carry. In short, we look at emotional patterns and how to dissolve them to create new ones.
My new ones are a lot more peaceful, calm, and loving. Who wouldn’t want that?
Did you know that you could reprogram yourself to feel and act differently? I didn’t. These last few weeks have been a real transformative experience. One that I still feel protective about. I’m still moving through it, learning and experiencing new changes every day.
I once listened to an interview by Elizabeth Gilbert where she said, ‘ When I go through something, I like to take myself away to learn the lesson. And then, when I’m done, I will share it.’
This is how I feel about the lessons I’m learning right now, and it’s also why I’ve been quiet on the blog lately.
Last week was proof of that – I can and will live a calmer, more peaceful life. My friend Fabyann put it nicely when she said, ‘You know, we live the life we live because we chose it. We chose this reality for ourselves.’
We always have the choice. My friend came to see me on Saturday and shared a story Glenn Doyle wrote about in her book “Untamed”. Her friend went to a yoga class and didn’t leave because the teacher scared her. She suffered through the whole hour. When the class finished, she ran out and realised the door was never closed. The door was always open. My friend said, ‘How often do we stay in situations because we think we can’t leave, even though the door is always there? Open. Ready for us to take the handle, press it down and walk into something new.’
The other day, I was listening to a Podcast with Julie Piatt, and when asked if she could share her tricks on manifesting abundance, she said: ‘I don’t like to talk about manifesting abundance. Instead, I want to encourage you to remember the last time you felt like yourself. Where were you, and what were you doing? What were your surroundings? And then go do that.‘
Wherever you are right now, can you remember the last time you felt like your complete self? Where were you? And what were you doing?
For now, I’m sending you love from my London flat,
Anja
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