Shedding Excess

SHEDDING EXCESS

Heavy.

As though my capacity to experience joy has been sucked from my veins, leaving my heart dry and stale like an autumn leaf.

A swarm of dissatisfaction chases the cloud of expectation that presses me down.

Tirelessly treading water, gasping for a breath of simplicity and spaciousness.

Overwhelmed with disenchantment, this lifestyle screams incongruence with my soul.

Drowning in dreaded discontent.

Suffocated by spiritless culture.

A constant irritation crawls over my skin, knowing life is not meant to feel like this.

My panicked mind twists in every direction, scrambling for solutions.

The imprints of age remind me of my mortality.

Every flickering solution falls short.

No more than a superficial band-aid on a gaping wound of vacant soul stimulation.

The life force energy contained by nine to five and the pursuit of impossible perfection begs to erupt with expression.

Bashing down the gauntlet, every inch of my being screams,

N O  M O R E!

Proclaiming truth.

This sacred life deserves more from me and of me.

No longer willing to dedicate days to deceitful disconnection and losing herself, she reclaims her reality.

Forging beyond once insurmountable obstacles.

Shedding shame, stripping stuff, releasing resistance, dumping dogmas, pruning perfectionism, cutting cords of conditioning and freeing from fear.

Shedding weight from within and

Excavating external excess.

Validation invalidated.

Expectation exterminated.

Weathered veins re-expand, absorbing the plumpness of life.

Spaciousness beats around a full heart.

Life essence invigorates and inspires renewed visions and versions of reality.

Fragrant textures of an embodied soul paint exquisitely on life’s expansive canvas.

Soul reclaimed.

Spirit and soul reunited in a joy-filled embrace celebrating vivacious life.

For without soul, the body is simply matter.

And without Spirit, life is empty non-existence.

Recently, we set off to experience life on the road.  Before we left, we sifted through all of our belongings and had to make brutal decisions on what we would take with us, what we would store in one tiny car, and what we would say goodbye to. It felt so cathartic to shed the excess we don’t require when living life on the road. I wonder if we will ever want or need some of those ‘things’ again..?

Once packed and ready for van life, we did a final van weigh. If you are familiar with vanning, you will know that managing your van and car weights is really important for safety. So, when we found out our van was slightly overweight, we immediately got to work taking out items that weren’t absolutely necessary. It was such a wonderful exercise to go through and decide what items we really needed, what would add value to our experience and lifestyle over the coming year or so, and what was essentially a ‘luxury item’ that we couldn’t hold on to. Within an hour, we shed 110kg.

WOW!

If we could shed that much weight so quickly and easily, I wonder what else in our life we are holding on to, that is weighing us down?

People often ask how we managed to let go of so many material possessions. The truth is, it was easy. Because in my heart I know these are not the things that create the foundations of a great life. The luxury items are perhaps the ‘icing on the cake’ pieces – although I remain unconvinced. So far, nothing we have said goodbye to would have added more joy to our travels. The underlying, harder, more meaningful, that made shedding material possessions so easy, was shedding the internal and external expectations that make life heavy. Years of inner work excavating what we thought created a good life lifted the fog and made it easier for us to discover what really creates a life well lived. At the core of wholesome, vivacious, meaningful living, are LOVE, CONNECTION AND JOY.  Without these foundations, we are simply adding layers of stuff into a pit of empty disconnection that keeps us in the perpetual pursuit of meaningful living. The bottom line question that we keep coming back to is Is this how I would choose to live my life? If the answer is yes, we know this choice is congruent with the lifestyle we would like to create. If the answer is no, then we know we are compromising on our values. Of course, sometimes, the only way to honour our highest and most important value is to compromise on another. This is the delicate balancing act of life and requires us to be consistently conscious of our decisions.

A great little exercise we did, was to imagine what our best life would look and feel like. We asked ourselves questions like:

How would we love to spend our days?

How would we like to feel most of the time?

If I was allowed to live life on my terms in my way, what would that look like?

If I could imagine anything is possible, what would a good life look like?

What do I value most in life? How does my life reflect those values? What needs to shift in order for my life to feel more aligned with these core values?

We don’t know what life beyond travel will look like. We don’t yet have it all figured out, which is what embracing life in the moment is about. Living in the now means that the vision will unfold as we continue to walk our path. And so we take the next best step trusting that all will be revealed in time. For now, life certainly feel light and aligned.