The other day, I went for a nice long walk by myself and enjoyed watching the cars go by, the beautiful green leaves and big trunks of the trees and feeling the gentle cool wind on my skin as I was breaking out in a sweat.
I was also listening to my playlist of carefully selected favorite songs.
Then I realized, as I watched people rushing past me dressed in their suits and work clothes, that I have become a slave to money. A slave to my lifestyle choices. The more money I made, the more I spent, bought, invested and of course, with all of that, my responsibilities and stress grew too.
Then the song, "Born To Be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez came on (yep that's one of my favorites on my playlist) and for the first time ever, I actually listened to the words apart from just belting out the chorus...
He sings...
"People ask me why I never find a place to stop and settle down, down, down,
But I never wanted all the things that people need to justify their lives, lives, lives..."
And at that point I just went YES! I had an epiphany.
My life is happening.
It is happening right now as I type these words onto this document. It's been happening and I've been chasing money, materialistic things and waiting for something else to happen.
Waiting for the right time. Waiting for permission. Waiting for validation. Waiting for justification!
Oh wow! I know this may seem obvious to some people, but for me this is huge! I really struggled with the whole, how to live in the present moment and the whole, how to have gratitude. Even though I like to think of myself as a spiritually aware person, I somehow only superficially understood living in the now and having gratitude.
I didn't actually deeply understand it because I hadn't experienced it.
I even had a gratitude journal and felt like a cold-hearted bitch when I was struggling to write down and have grateful feelings for all that I had. I had so much to be grateful for, but I felt empty and was desperately searching for that thing to be grateful for. I was waiting for that thing to happen!
I know I have deep underlying fears, maybe fear of change, fear of going against the norm or expectations of others. Fear of success? Most of us do, we give this fear character so much air time that it doesn't deserve, and a lot of the time, when we actually confront fear, we realize that things aren't as bad as how we imagined they could or would be.
You see, we spend a lot of our precious time searching and trying to fill a void. Suppressing what we are passionate about. Then we go in search to try and figure out what it is we want! And all along, what we want is to just live life the way we want to.
Doing what we want to be doing.
What is it that you want to be doing? Do you know what you really want in life?
I thought I did. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, own multiple properties, luxury cars, holidays and be able to buy whatever materialistic possessions that took my fancy. Getting these things has made me realize that they don't fill that void and this lifestyle isn't what I want.
I want a simple life full of experiences. I want to travel and live wherever it takes my fancy for as long as it takes my fancy.
I've finally found the balls to set the wheels in motion to live that dream, to do what I want since having that epiphany.
Fear has played a major part in me not being able to actually do what I want in my life. It's made me avoid digging deep and to only understand things on a superficial level.
I have been scared, I have been hiding, not listening to my intuition and avoiding doing. I have been procrastinating. I have been delaying taking action. I have been delaying living my life the way I want to by giving my power away to those feelings and the imaginary repercussions. Shit I don't even really know what those repercussions are, I don't think I ever really thought about them, instead I just gave the fear and the so called repercussions power!
We don't give ourselves enough credit, that we can get through anything. That pain is temporary, if there is going to be any pain attached to the change. That all emotions and feelings will come and go regardless of how much we try and avoid them or control them. That holding on and controlling situations and outcomes is crippling. It's unhealthy and it's not natural.
So if you are feeling lost, feeling down, searching for that "something," I dare you to make up an awesome playlist of inspirational, funky music, put your phone on flight mode and get out for some alone time and go for a walk.
Walk alone in the crowds, in the park, wherever.
Observe.Think. Contemplate. Smile. Appreciate. Love. Live. But most importantly, be receptive to the messages that have always been around you. The answers are always there!
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts. I'd love to hear what songs are on your playlist even! Here's to living life. Here's to loving life. And here's to getting the balls to do what you really want to do. xx