You refresh your computer. More emails show up. You get new information. How many times each day do you refresh your computer? What about yourself?
I got on an airplane for the first time in 18 months and went to the Pacific Northwest for a few days. Ahhhh! Big exhale. I hung with a dear friend I haven’t seen since Christmas 2019. I caught some of those beautiful summer days in the high 70’s and visited Ruby beach before the fog rolled back in. Walking through the old growth forests in the Hoh Rain Forest, I saw sun through the 300 foot spruce, maples, and western hemlocks. I felt connected with the generations, the continuum of time: the centuries these trees have been alive – the centuries they will still be here when I am long gone. I find great peace in that.
What do you need to do to refresh, get new information, think differently, breathe?
How can you consciously challenge your mindset? Due to the pandemic, most of us haven’t been in a new setting. For many, work forced us to travel which necessitated exploring new places. It was not a conscious choice. Now, to make it conscious requires taking an action outside the day to day routine.
If you haven’t planned a vacation, or even a stay-cation, now is the time before school starts, offices open up and routines become even more scripted. May I suggest you get outside somewhere you have never been or haven’t visited in a long time? If you can’t leave town take some day trips to parts of your community you never visited before. Go to a farmers market in another part of town. Try a sport you have never experienced before. Fall off a paddle board, or roll out of a kayak or jump in the water. If you haven’t done it in years, now’s the time.