On most days, this only needs her ‘alone’ time, outside of the work commute and morning workout. When I was working for myself, I could take time when I absolutely needed to, so of course, I took it for granted. Now that I’m ‘working for the man’, and do not regret selling my business, I do look for those small pockets of time when I’m not taking care of anyone else. When there’s just me, my thoughts, and the bright blue autumn air. Today was one of those days. I spent lunchtime taking a two mile walk. Ears plugged with cello music. Hair blown to a frizzy mess. Still, my mind was as clear as the sky. I prayed, but what was even more satisfying than that – I listened.
The words came into my head like they always do, without a voice. They colored in my thoughts. Today, all I could hear was ‘allow fulfillment’. The wheels started turning, effortlessly, as if I had always known the answer.
More than once during our Ireland trip, my very wise boyfriend told me that our adventure would be a life changer. I whole-heartedly agreed! But what I never seem to understand in the moment is the intensity and profoundness of such a statement. When you step out of your comfort zone, you grow. We hear that everywhere. It’s in our newfeeds, in the news, part of every personal development book, not to mention countless issues of Cosmo. We can’t escape it! But when we step out of more than just our comfort zone, and step into a whole new world entirely, something within us switches. Our mind stretches, and if we happen to travel to a land where we are forced to unplug, where the land itself cradles and nourishes life, where the air is so pure that you can actually smell the rocky burren, and where the silence is so broad and thick that it’s deafening, then we are indeed, changed forever. Why?
Because it’s at that point, when we are emptied of all of the world’s thoughts, opinions, advertisements, and noisiness that we become bowls – in a sense. We are left with just ourselves and our thoughts. If we happen to be fortunate enough to go with someone that we are entirely at ease with, we find the greatest sense of security in such ‘solitude’. It’s not that we become emptied of our own identity, but that after so long, we are emptied of the world itself. The beauty of that is that we are adaptive. We have a need to fill things up, even ourselves. When we have nothing but ourselves to fill up our thoughts, we become very clear, and that spoils us….in a good way.
So on days like today, I close my eyes and go back to Ireland. I clear my mind and empty out the noise. I allow fulfillment. And when I do that, when I empty everything out, God can pour himself into all of those dark corners that leave me conflicted and confused. When we fill ourselves up with distractions, transgressions, and all of the other mucky dust that life constantly splashes on our fresh white thoughts, we have little room left for fulfillment, or love, or God, or peace.
These days I don’t clean houses for a living, but I do clean and cleanse and organize mentally. I need more God and less noise, and the older I get, the more I understand that a quiet mind is a happy mind. Allow fulfillment. Allow peace. Allow God to lead.
Only the Lonely 