I am right now taking a walk along the east river in New York City. Listening to music, taking in my environment and crying.
I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Crying. Not the sad kind but the overwhelmed with joy and love kind. The overwhelming you can’t control it and you don’t even know what is happening kind. It’s beautiful.
This is the first time I have been in New York for a vacation really. I’ve been here dozens of time on tour. I feel in love with the city and moved here a few years ago. Then got swept up on tour again and transplanted back to California. I’ve never just been here with an open bank of time for me to play, to be a tourist and a local for more then just a day off on tour.
I landed after a whirlwind week in South Africa, somewhere that cracked my heart open in so many ways. A true trip of a lifetime. I have been blessed to have made a career out of trips of a lifetime, but this one really took the cake.
It was also the first time in I have idea how long that I was truly tuned into where I was, the people I was there with and not attached to anything outside that world for the entire week. I didn’t have phone service. I barely had internet (like 2 minutes a day). I wasn’t thinking about emails or social media. I didn’t wonder what my friends back home were up to. I didn’t think about my client’s new tour starting ( I did make it to the preview show, yay).
I wasn’t thinking about any clients. I purposely have not taken on one on one clients for the past month so that I wouldn’t t have them enter my mind. I wasn’t thinking about the very real launch of my own merchandise line. I wasn’t concerned with how many people were signing up for my Be Your Own Joyologist Program that had just started enrollment for the fall. Money never crossed my mind. How much I had, how much I needed to bring in this month.
I was completely removed from my life, but also sharing the expereince with 25 other people all there to celebrate the union of two people. We were in our own world out in the wild and we were truly savoring and living in each moment. We had the oppurtunity to really get to know each other and not just consisist on small talk or catching up.
I met new people and truly created life altering connections with people that I have attended parties here and there with and loved, but never got that deep. I am tearing up again, right now as I write this thinking of the true friendships that bloomed.
I never want to forget how I felt on that trip. I have photographs filled with memories and moments that can take me back there, but I don’t want to forget that feeling. I felt like I could leave everything behind and stay there forever. Of course after being there for a few weeks or months I may have gotten sick of it and craved change, but I dont need to go there. I want to keep the feeling inside of me that wasn’t concered about income or career or the steps I need to take to be in the right place to start a family and how I will support that family.
When I was there I was so in awe of life, something that I see on levels everyday no matter where I am, but this was just so big. There was no hustle and bustle, just watching the cycles of life and how prey exists with their predators.
So, how do I keep that feeling alive. How do I make it so that I don’t forget how I felt? I will have to create conscious moments of keeping it alive. Taking time to meditate on it (full disclosure, I have not yet been a big meditater – read Ive only tried a handful of times, but to keep this feeling alive, it feels right).
I can also do something everyday that takes me back. Perhaps taking time to connect with nature and pay attention to the noises birds make, or even read a little each day about wildlife. The curosity I felt there about widllife and how the survive was something I haven’t felt in a while.
Really, even my stopping, pausing today on my walk to sit and be with my surroundings did it. I was on a brisk exercise walk and just stopped and sat and took in my surroundings. A pause to stare in awe and wonder at the immensity of the bridge and that someone had actually engineered it. To notice everyone else out on their walks and runs. To take in the blue sky, the green grass, to be aware of it all and in awe that it all exists, as do I.
Life moves fast. I invite you to make time every day to slow down and see the beauty that surrounds you. Whether it is outdoors or in your car, stuck in traffic. Take a few minutes to tune out of the chatter in your mind and tune into how amazing it is that we are all here and that trees grow and that someone built that building.
Be in awe of life, because it is pretty fucking awesome!
