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| Photo by Thomas Hawk |
We spend so much time with our attention "out there", thinking about people and things going on around us and our future plans and our past experiences. These retreats are a way of hanging out with yourself. Completely tuning into how you feel, in each moment. It's not completely easy at first, but if you stick with it a little it's incredibly liberating.
More and more, I find that I'm tuned into how things really feel to me, rather than looking at things and people through my self-image daydreams and preconceived ideas. It definitely makes for a richer experience.
Here's a quick example:
Let's say I go to Bi-Rite Creamery and order some lavender honey ice cream. I've had this ice cream before and it was delicious. In my mind, Bi-Rite lavender honey ice cream = DELICIOUSNESS. So I get some and start to eat it. But as I eat it, I'm more present to the idea of deliciousness (which is based on my past experience) than the actual taste of this ice cream in my hands right now. So I might not notice that today the sweetness feels heavy in my stomach, and that there's a sticky milky feeling in my throat. I might not notice this if I'm not present with the actual experience of the thing, if I'm just with my memory of it.
When we are tuned into ourselves, and are present, we know what feels good to us. We know what actually brings us joy rather than just the promise or the idea of joy.
This applies to relationships, yeah?
There are people who we *think* would be perfect for us. But for some reason we don't "feel it" (or they don't feel it, which in turn doesn't feel right to us). Many people I know - including both my husband and me - will say that the person they married is different than the picture they had in their mind of their life partner. But it just felt right.
Authenticity is when we can distinguish between what looks or sounds good and what actually feels good. And the more we do that, the more we open ourselves up to experiencing authentic joy.
