By Nina Carroll
I realize there are many facets to why I need time to get away. The most important is that my spirit calls me to a sacred safe space to breathe in the many possibilities life offers me. I become my true authentic self when I observe me in an environment living each present moment. The getting away helps me to balance the distractions of my daily hustles and bustles to work, obligations towards family, friends and my struggles with my monetary responsibilities to live a sustainable lifestyle within the everyday mundane stuff. I rather “let go” and surrender these attachments and/or entanglements. I realize they do not always serve me. Instead, I try to practice staying focus on my internal state I discover unravels and empowers an authenticity of my true self.
I recently had the privileged of a two weeks stay at a remote artist community. The best two weeks I had given myself for quite some time. A dream had come true for me. The setting was in a valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I felt more alive, free and open, being just where I was without any reservations or second thoughts. I was able to contemplate, reflect, meditate with being my true self with everything and everyone life introduced and offered me in this surroundings. I took nature walks, read and wrote poetry by a running creek, soothed my wounds in a natural hot springs that baptized my soul, which soared me further up into the majestic mountains. Until, alas I found myself one night sleeping under a bush thicket with bare necessities not making it back in time to my destination. I realize this became the catalyst catapulting the time needed to reveal what I was to experience during this getaway. My spirit had guided me to a place, where I had to recognize I must live life to its fullest no matter where I need to getaway.
However, I need time to getaway to a place that becomes a sacred space for me. Where my healing can begin to process in this space, so my spirit and I can connect. In this space my spirit helps me to facilitate and make an assessment of my spiritual, mental, emotional and physical state of well- being. I consciously make an effort not to resist my inner needs calling, but to go further, deeper within myself to alleviate whatever is pulling me away from hearing those needs. This getaway becomes the perfect time where I show-up, seek my truth; shine my light. I can relax, unwind, meditate as I take a deep inhale and breathe through my heart, mind and soul; exhale slowly to discern what entangled discords, distortions and defenses I have built around them. I practice releasing these blockages daily through meditation. A vital source that helps me to heal my heart, mind and soul, so I can easily, gently and openly flow with my spirit and life.