Centered

I’ve traveled a lot in 2024, a lot a lot! It has been over a year since I’ve had a place to call my own. As someone who has always loved to travel, I thought a year of travel would be a dream. And in so many ways it has been. But as you know, if you’ve read any of my writings or have followed along in any way, it has also been really challenging.

I have been reflecting a lot on how I have changed over this year, where my growth has come from and why the world feels so intensely different to me these days. I keep coming back to one word.

Centered.

I have had moments this past year where I felt very off center. I felt incredibly out of balance in ways I’ve never experienced in the past. I’ve also had experiences that brought me towards a center that I did not know existed. A center that has created more balance within myself that I ever imagined I would have.

The center of something is directly in the middle. Equidistant from every edge of the object. Finding the center always helps you find a balance point. Aren’t we all just seeking balance in our lives?! Finding center may be the prerequisite to balance, at least that is what it has felt like to me.

It reminds me of some kinetic sculptures that I saw while in Poland earlier this year. Across a bridge there were many sculptures of people doing different acrobatic feats. Each sculpture, which was made of heavy metal, was balanced high up in the air by one contact point on a wire. That one point was perfectly chosen to allow each sculpture to always maintain perfect balance, no matter the weather. This artist knew a thing or two about finding center.

This year has felt like an experiment in finding my own center. It is something that I didn’t know I was missing until it clicked into place. Understanding that it is possible to feel balanced no matter what the external world is doing, is not something I imagined could be possible. But here I am, feeling so centered and incredibly balanced, so often.

I discovered that in the past, I relied heavily on my external world to feel centered. Most often by attempting to control my external world. You know, that thing we all crave to do that is really an utter impossibility. When we find stability through control of our external world, it can lead us down a precarious path. As soon as control is lost, and lets be real, it always will be lost, our center will disappear with it.

As I have been traveling around Guatemala, I have realized that I am calmer than ever. It is this odd sense of feeling centered even while the world around me is anything but controlled. I have had moments of this sensation while traveling this year but prior travel has always felt viscerally challenging to my body. This new calm and centered way of being is quite a treat!

There have been a few places that I have stayed over the past month that would have spiraled me into panic in the past. (Don’t worry mom, I’ve always been safe!) I have just found myself in a few not so clean rooms with some incredibly uncomfortable beds. Situations that would have made me feel too out of control to function in the past are just a blip on my radar now. What would have caused so much stress before, has turned into a manageable dilemma.

Because my center is a bit more centered within my being, my external world has less impact on me. I can be knocked around a lot more before I lose my balance. Like the sculptures hanging on the wire, no matter the intensity of the wind, they stay balanced.

As I’m writing this, I have the slightest hint of a cold, that is most likely covid. Being sick in a foreign country is never ideal. But somehow past Jenna knew what I would need because I booked myself a few days in a sleepy beach town and had plans to do nothing but rest. I haven’t skipped a beat or had the slightest concern about getting more sick. My usually anxious self felt overly confident that I would recover quickly.

It is an odd sensation to feel so balanced within myself that I simply know that no matter what the world throws at me, I will be able to stand firmly on my own two feet. That the external shakiness of the world doesn’t matter quite as much because I know how to find my own center.

One small word; centered. It describes so much of what I have found for myself over this past year. It is easy to forget that sometimes to find the center of something, we must explore every edge with precision. I’ve met many new edges of my being this year. And only through this work, have I been about to settle myself back into my center.

Finding our center will always require us to be knocked off balance. But when we stumble our way back into ourselves, there is nothing we cannot do.

It is comical that I started this year off by participating in a retreat called “Coming home to the self”. Finding my center feels like home. A home within my truest self. No matter where I am or what is happening around me, I am home, centered and balanced. What a gift.