Hi Friend
This has been a BIG BIG week! Fortunately, I’m siting under a Big Big sky just outside of Glacier National Park as I write this. It’s so incredibly beautiful here. After closing out the Montana SHRM Conference on Friday, I left Kalispell to land at an Airbnb log cabin in Coram. It’s a few miles from the West Entrance of GNP. The place is filled with natural beauty!
This past Sunday I also completed my 10th OKC Half Marathon. As you know, I didn’t do much training for it, but was still very thrilled with my time. I ran a 9:41 pace finishing just under two hours and seven minutes. It was grueling and delightful. I love it and suffer simultaneously. Running is so good for my soul.
I had one other REALLY BIG thing happen this week, but I’m going to wait one more week before I tell you about it here. I need to put some things together before making a public announcement. Granted as a WI reader, you normally get all my personal stuff and behind-the-scenes info in real time. I’m sure I’ll share details with you next week, that don’t make it out into the public.
I’ve been camping and hiking since I was a kid. I love it. Yesterday however, I realized I don’t recall the last time I hiked alone. It was a little creepy because I kept thinking at any moment a bear could jump out and actually eat me. I don’t have bear spray (getting that today). I found myself sitting at a lake and gazing up at mountains for the longest time.
BEAUTY
As much as I like hiking, I like the beauty of nature even more. It generates a peace in our soul. Resting in it has a spa day effect that is other-worldly-rejuvenating. There really is nothing else that compares! For all the anxiety and stress in the world today you’d think there would be an overwhelming rush to nature.
I guess it’s why the beauty industry is always thriving. It’s a civilized substitute for going into nature. It’s why art – whether music, drawings, paintings, sculptures or other expressions also can elicit a deep emotional release. Our spirit is moved when we access true beauty. I’m not much for societal commentary, but when placed deep in nature, it does seem the artificial attempts to replicate beauty are insufficient.
STIMULATION
That can be a provocative word, yet most Americans are over-stimulated by media and visual excess, along with caffeine. The rate of input we subject ourselves too is grossly unimaginable. What’s fascinating though is when sitting in silence admiring a river, generates a wholly different sort of stimulant. It’s pure and energizing without a negative after-effect.
It only took one day and I’m obviously feeling quite granola. I wish I could transform into a rafting/camping sherpa, showering no more than once a week. But alas, real life beckons. Do you have healthy invigorators in your life? What have you found in city-dwelling that offers a similar organic stimulation like nature provides? Is there a non-synthetic alternative that bequeaths healthy doses of joy?
Instigating Ideas…
1. Find a non-man-made space to sit in for a bit.
2. Gaze upon beauty – a person, place or thing – until emotionally evoked.
3. Remove a draining stimulant for one week.
4. Consider creating something beautiful.
This week has been so huge for me because my three favorite soul-refreshers, joy-givers and life-renewal experiences occurred. Running is my core strategy for a healthy mind. Nature elevates my entire existence. And the third one that will be revealed this week is a commitment that daily brings out the best in me.
ALIVE
You and I are designed to feel alive. Not just living but people whose hearts and minds are both provoked and at peace. That combination or duality of settled-stimulated, is the juxtaposition that creates the best tensions in life. Unfortunately we manufacture beauty, stimulation and aliveness with surface counterfeits that don’t completely satisfy.
It doesn’t seem like that strong of a word, but this week I am completely satisfied. That’s my word of the month. Say it out loud and see how it feels to you: “I am entirely satisfied with my life.” It’s not a complacent term, but a fundamental position of contentment that lets us truly enjoy being alive.
I hope this week you see genuine beauty around you and allow only the best stimulators in your life. I hope you are satisfied with who you are, what you do, who is close to you and how you spend your life, living!
