Living Fully Alive
Do you know those moments you feel so alive? Where you feel your blood and your bones and you feel so deeply grounded and yet on top of the world? I think these moments are hard to describe because they feel like they are out-of-body experiences. Well, I just came off of a weekend of feeling fully alive and my heart has been overflowing with gratitude for it. Feeling these feelings has offered me perspective on how we can create space for moments of feeling fully alive in our daily rhythms of life. I got to spend the weekend with some of my very best friends in Rhode Island and it was amazing to reconnect with my people. It was more amazing to reconnect with people who know me so deeply. Have you experienced that feeling of being in the presence of someone who just understands your heart and soul so deeply you don’t need to explain it? I swear there is no better feeling than that. This group of people that I visited have known me at varying points in my life and for different periods of time, and yet, I feel so known by them. Being in the presence of people like that helps me feel fully alive. Of course, anytime you travel and get to spend time in beautiful places, it helps too. But the important part of the weekend was the people.
This past weekend, I felt like I lived 1,000 days in 5 days. We did it all. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we walked, we experienced new things, we played music, we saw a comedy show, we goofed around, and we made new friends and connections. We did a whole lot. We really made time for play and fun. It’s easy to skip over those things in the chaos of life and responsibilities. I realize our normal routines and daily habits don’t always allow for these types of things every day, and that’s okay. There is a time and a place for all of it. But these few days I had away served as a reminder of the things that bring me immense joy and make me feel fully alive. This life is too short. This weekend, I said out loud to a few people: “When we get to the end of our lives, we are not going to wish we worked more. We are going to wish we did more of this [meaning time with our friends and family and loved ones]” and I’ve been thinking of that statement since I said it. Am I a person who is living into that truth? I think we all have some work to do in this area.
On Saturday morning, I got to sit out on the beach sometime around 6:30 am and just sit in the sand by myself. If you know me, this is the definition of my happy place. It was so deeply grounding and special. I got some alone time to really be in my body and my brain and heart and check in with how I was doing. It’s so hard to find places and spaces to slow down like this and the time I spent really helped put some stuff into perspective for me. I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of play and fun and for people who know me deeply and for meaningful experiences together. It’s not lost on me that I am immensely blessed.
As I returned home, I started thinking about how I can continue to prioritize the things that matter: people that I love, meaningful experiences, living with purpose, fostering a deep connection with God, being a person who puts love into action in the world, and more. This is the important stuff. Let’s not get so caught up that we miss it ❤️ I returned home from this trip feeling fully myself, more alive, more awake to the reality of my life. That is a really sweet feeling. Sometimes we need some different scenery and some energy shifting to make that happen and I am SOOOO grateful for it.
I hope you will find ways to re-ignite yourself into living fully alive if you have felt a little dull lately. We’ve all been there. You deserve the very best that this life has to offer. If it’s hard to figure out how to do that now, a really great place to start is by surrounding yourself with people who really know you, encourage you, and want the very best for you. Sometimes the mirror they can hold up to us can help us see the beauty of our own selves in a way that we never could without them. These people are precious, don’t let them go.
