The greatest vulnerability to me is to just be.
To just be myself
Wholeheartedly
To be everything that I am.
To tune out all of the noise and to just be.
This is why nature to me is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. Oceans can cause tsunamis and hurricanes, Mountains can cause avalanches. The ground beneath our feet can shake and drift apart. But, nature is always just being. The mountain just is. The ocean just is. Nature just is. Regardless of it’s calm or in the middle of a storm. It’s always just being itself. I think we as humans have lost sight of the wonders of the “beingness” of just being a human being.
From a young age, we are all trained and indoctrinated into society that values certain things. In America and for myself, it teaches us to always be busy and producing. To chase after the American dream and not to question it. We chase after good grades, social status, money and all of these external things that are outside of ourselves that only satisfy us temporarily until we need to move onto the next thing. I don’t believe that goals and striving towards things are bad but, the constant loop of needing more and constantly being on the go is where we can get lost in the rat race as humans.
I definitely use to live my life like this. I was always moving and going from thing to thing and not taking a minute to pause. I was striving towards something else whether it was more money, good grades, or just buying a lot of shit I don’t need on Amazon. I convinced myself that I needed those things and those things would bring me so much joy. I was not wanting to sit still and just be and realize I can give myself that joy and peace.
That’s why 2020 has been such a powerful and life changing year for me. It forced me to stop and just be with myself in this present moment. When I finally just stopped and sat with myself, I could see the bigger picture of everything and the world seemed to stop moving so fast. Everything has become peaceful and life has a sense of clarity that it didn’t before I started meditating daily. It can be so exhausting to live this life in this society and feeling like you have to keep up with everyone else and constantly be producing.
I have had this thought before that every human is in a sense inside their own personal snow globe and that most of us are living lives where the snow globe is constantly shaken up with obligations and external things. This causes us to feel cloudy and we can’t see clearly. If our own personal snow globe, is constantly shaken up then we will always feel anxious and not present with ourselves. It’s only when we take a second and pause to just be and breathe that we can let the snow settle and we can clearly see and feel inner peace.
But, this is not an easy task. Especially, in today’s day and age. It’s so hard to just be. There are so many distractions and obligations that we subjugate ourselves to that ends up pulling us in so many different directions and drains our energy. It can be so exhausting. I honestly wonder how I made it through most days without meditation. Now, I meditate everyday even if it’s just for 5 minutes to center myself. Without it, I feel stressed, anxious and just feel all over the place emotionally. I strongly encourage everyone to try out meditation and see if it makes a difference in their lives. There is a whole slew of research about meditation that shows all of the benefits of it. There are a ton of meditation apps and meditation videos on YouTube. I personally use Insight Timer and use the guided meditations on there.
I like to think back to how I was when I was a child. Before all of the rules and programming I was indoctrinated with and I was just simply being. I was my most authentic self. I was present in every moment, no matter what I was doing, I was just simply being and didn’t feel obligated to do anything else. Just being is enough. Just being is more than enough.
Vulnerability moment.
This is a poem that I wrote
Trees
See the trees
See how they like to be free
They blow and sway however they like
No matter who tries to dim their light
They stretch with all of their might towards the sky
Not worrying about the passerby’s
Trees grow up towards the light
They grow and shine bright
You and me we are the trees
We have forgotten that we can do what we please
We don’t need to dim our light
In order for others to shine bright
We crave freedom and to bask in our own light
We crave to be ourselves unapologetically
We are the trees
