Have you remembered yourself?

Forgotten yourself?

You know, your child self.

Yourself who lives in pure joy and wonder.

Yourself who knows magic.

Yourself who trusts what you feel, what you desire, what you believe, what you dream.

Your true self.

Your natural self.

So many of us have forgotten. Through the patterns we inherit from our parents and their parents, the trauma and limitations passed on by our peers, our education system, and the media, we squash the innate, authentic voice within who knows what we want and why we’re here.

As we “grow up” we lose the magic that we felt as kids until eventually we find ourselves numbed out leading a pretty mediocre life, feeling quite stuck and de-motivated to do anything about it.

Which is why we get so itchy.

We notice ourselves craving something without really understanding why.

And it’s this seeking, this desire for something more, that sends so much of us traveling.

Out on the open road

suddenly

we find ourselves

remembering.

When we travel, we forget who we were taught to be and we come back to who we truly are. We enter new landscapes, we engage with different cultures, and by separating ourselves from the voices that have dictated our lives, we have space to nurture and discover our uniqueness.

We play. We explore. We get uncomfortable. Stuff goes wrong. Stuff goes right. We figure it out. We learn. We grow.

We forget who we were taught to be, and we see ourselves reflected in our unfamiliar surroundings. We recognize ourselves in pieces of other cultures. We recollect forgotten pieces of our ancestry, our soul’s history, our collective human journey, as we cleanse ourselves in water temples in Bali or drink cacao with Mayan shamans or get lost in ancient forests and jungles.

In natural paradise receiving the wisdom of the hawk, the sloth bear, the wild cat, the hummingbird, the snake, the butterfly, we remember how it felt to live in harmony with the Earth. We remember our natural habitat.

And then… something within us awakens. We remember a way that we once lived and connected. As one tribe. As one piece of this diverse planet. One particle in this vast universe.

Once we’ve woken up this light within us, there is no going back to sleep.

So, travel changes us.

Completely.

It shatters what we thought was reality and we began to question everything.

Then we go home.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Maybe we even wish we could go back to sleep.

Some of us feel stuck in this moment.

Struggling against our surroundings wanting so badly to get out.

Fighting and fighting to break free.

Some of us run away.

We let everything go.

We roam and we roam and we roam.

But eventually, no matter if we go back to our old lives or we keep seeking around the globe, we all find ourselves in the same place. Wanting to feel that same high, that same expansion, awakening, aliveness that we used to feel when we traveled. And finding ourselves… lost… unable to get back there again.

This is when our journey actually begins.

This is when we stop seeking. We stop looking. We stop searching.

Outside.

We start turning. We start tuning. We start feeling.

Inside.  

We feel the rolling hills, the sand dunes, the mountains, in every peak and valley in our form.

The power of waterfalls and volcanoes in our perseverance and strength.  

The waves of the ocean in our ever changing emotions.

The stillness of the Earth and every rock when we just slow down and breathe and be.

The beauty of flowers and butterflies and all of life’s sweetness when we soften open to love.

Our

bodies

hearts

and minds

become

our vast terrain.

We begin to know the world through ourselves.

Because we began to know ourselves by first knowing the world.

Travel wakes us up.

But that’s not where the road ends.

The path to truth and inner fulfillment reveals itself

when we remember

that the whole point of life

isn’t traveling forever

it’s actually love.

So travel isn’t IT

Travel isn’t the KEY

Travel is just the CATALYST

In every journey towards AWAKENING.

As we tune in and heal, use everything that happens in this life, every easy moment, every hard moment, every piece of pain, every burst of pleasure, we return home to our true nature. Beyond place. Beyond experience. Beyond circumstances.

We make feeling good, authentic, and loving our key priorities. We take care of our bodies, minds, hearts, spirits. We nourish and nurture ourselves. We let go of everything that stands in the way of loving ourselves, however uncomfortable or difficult or scary.

We free ourselves to move and travel as we please. To live in a high vibrational beautiful natural place that feeds our souls. To manifest the financial resources to care for ourselves and live our potential. We work as little as possible and create as much we feel inspired. We have fulfilling friendships and relationships and become part of loving community.

Then life asks us to share.

Life asks us to give our medicine to others.

Life asks us to stand up in our light.

We become beacons leading others home.

We share the message that there is so much more to life

than “ok” or “good enough”.

We share the message

that we all deserve to open wide to life

and create a world

of magic and bliss.

Which begins

Continues

And ends

With traveling the world.

So whether you’re

an enlightened guru

a powerful leader

a perpetual nomad

a brand new backpacker

an armchair traveler

a romantic dreaming up your escape

a perfect soul who feels lost, confused, and afraid

You must travel the world.

You must travel

To remember

To forget

Yourself

One another

This World.

To begin again.