Harmony in life

Traveling is often a gift of perspective. It is a not so subtle reminder that what I call normal is not and never will be everyone’s truth. It challenges me to see how different does not always mean wrong. For me, this always seems to give me permission to lean into the different within myself. To drop the self judgements of the parts of me that feel ‘wrong’.

Last night our group was discussing the idea of harmony in our lives and what it looks and feels like. It was mentioned how being in disharmony makes us stick out like a sore thumb in our own life story. Often when people are in new and uncomfortable environments, aka India, they feel in disharmony. As I sat there, I realized that when I travel, I feel the most harmony. At first, I didn’t believe myself when it popped in my head. How could I feel at ease in the discomfort of new when I am such a creature of habit?! But as I sat with it, I found truth in my knowing.

I know disharmony. I have felt it often in my life. This feeling of being the odd man out, not quite like everyone else. It can do a number on your self worth and ability to trust yourself. When you live in the resistance rather than the flow, life almost always feels hard. I honestly did not know how hard I was struggling until I began to find harmony and dip my toes into its sweetness for short moments. Sometimes we need to feel the other side of the coin to know things can change. Travel was often those sweet moments for me. I found harmony almost every time I was in an unfamiliar place.

There will always be times when life feels hard for each of us. The difficulty is when we get so used to the hard, it becomes our normal. When you’re constantly walking upstream and have never turned around and considered walking downstream there is nothing to compare your effort to. Without ever feeling the flow of the river working for you, the awareness of what harmony feels like may be a foreign concept. You don’t know the effort you are putting in could be different.

As I reflect back on all my past travels as well as my current trip, I see a pattern emerge. Humans are creatures of habit. If we see a well worn path, we are more likely to take it over the uncertainty of the small trail. Seeking safety is at our deepest core. For many, safety is found in the familiar. The same breakfast each morning, the same route to work every day, the consistent sensory experiences of our familiar world. These things lull us into a perceived sense of safety. For me, it often feels hard to step off the well worn path when I am in a familiar place. Even if there is resistance in the path, it feels more effortful to step off and find a better flow. The initial investment of energy is high in a way.

When I am traveling, the well worn path is no longer an option. Travel forces us to take the uncomfortable and uncertain path because even if it is paved and simple, it is not the same as our home. All of a sudden, the initial investment of energy required to step off the well worn path at home disappears. It is the only option. Trying to find a familiar path requires far more effort while traveling. For me, this lifting of the barrier of the first step, allows me to surrender to the unknown with so much more ease.

From my personal experience, travel allows me to play with the idea that stepping off my safe and paved path will not lead to imminent death. Again, it is a reminder for me that ‘normal’ is all relative. For whatever reason, my brain has always chosen to decrease the resistance in these moments. Whether it is the newness of it all that becomes a forced widening of perspective or simply my neurophysiology is just programmed to operate this way with travel, I do not know. The idea that it is all going to be hard in a new place allows me to let go and flow in harmony with what is. For someone who used to never be able to let go, the allure of being able to drop into the flow is perhaps what drew me to travel over and over.

Maybe it is not just me? Maybe this is the addiction to traveling. The forced removal of our paved paths requires us to step into the unknown and trust the universe. What feels so hard to do in our home environment is the only option while in a new place. Changing our patterns and habits is hard in the familiar. It’s so hard that perhaps I subconsciously choose to make my life a new kind of hard by disrupting everything, to allow myself space to see if my patterns are still serving me well.

As we were walking along the beach at sunset last night, nature represented this idea of resistance vs harmony beautifully. I watched this little crab scurry towards the ocean in hopes of filling its belly for the evening. It appeared hesitant of the water at first. Back and forth it would move, only staying in the most shallow bits of the waves, just letting its legs get wet for a brief moment. As it got a bit braver, it ventured closer to the ocean in moments the water had receded. When the waves would inevitably come back, I noticed at first it braced itself low to the ground, hoping to cling to the sand as the water moved over it. It looked effortful and challenging and even then, sometimes the crab still got picked up by the water and pushed and pulled with the wave.

But eventually it appeared that the crab let go. When it saw the water come, it allowed the wave to push it back towards the shore for a moment before pulling it back towards the ocean. And funny enough, usually it ended up right where it started. So was the effort of clinging to the sand worth it? When letting go and allowing the wave to take it, although a moment of uncertainty resulted, created the same results.

If the well worn path of home holds the resistance of walking upstream, travel is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Because there is a choice to be made while traveling. Everything is going to feel like resistance when traveling. It is always your choice if you want to continue to fight everything by clinging to the sand, or simply let the wave take you.

I’m going to chose the wave every time.