A few months ago I packed my bags, shipped my car across the country, and hopped on a plane to start a new journey in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ever since I went abroad in college, I have been addicted to the growth that’s rooted in traveling. It has served me in more ways than I can recount, and so, in my desperation to fulfill a part of myself that was empty, I decided to uproot my life and begin somewhere new.
I was drawn to Utah for its nature. I had never visited before moving out here, but I was captivated by every picture I saw of this place. For years, I wanted to hike in Utah’s mountains, roam its national parks, and get lost in its beauty. When I got here in late November of 2020, I knew I was where I needed to be. A deep sense of peace had overcome me, and I was at ease knowing I was fully immersed in Utah’s nature.
But, my journey has not been an entirely easy one. I left my job about a month ago at this point, and the first week or so I was elated that I was no longer bound to an occupation that I felt completely unaligned to. I was following my own intuition (as one should), but as the days continued to pass, that elation began to fade.
That’s when I really cracked down on doing the internal work.
I’ve been a spiritual person for a while, but in the last few months of my life, I’ve dedicated almost 100% of my daily efforts to this, what I’ll call, “metamorphosis”.
I’ve done everything from manifesting, saying affirmations, reading, writing, listening to podcasts, cultivating presence, creating gratitude routines, journaling, reaching out to anyone who I think can even slightly add value and give advice to me, and lastly, working with a spiritual mentor. In the most simple of terms, I have worked on it all. I came out here with the intention to live purposefully and more in alignment with who I am, and I’m treating that as a full-time job right now. It is a LOT of hard work. It’s basically doing everything you’ve ever pushed off or saved for a rainy day, sitting with it in solitude, and unpacking years and years of repression off your psyche. I am not working full-time, but I am putting in work full-time.
To be completely honest, I’ve never felt more cloudy, fuzzy, or unclear as I have this last month. I feel like I’m in a dust storm, and I’m trying my best to keep walking, to put one foot in front of the other and tell myself that no storm lasts forever. I am so appreciative of what I am going through because tough times make for a tougher person, but my God, is it grueling to wake up every day and feel like you’re in an obstacle course that has no end.
I mentioned earlier that I’m currently working with a spiritual mentor. You might be thinking, “what the heck is that?” Think of a spiritual mentor as a cross between a yogi, a monk, a life-coach, and a therapist. I have no idea if that’s how my spiritual mentor would categorize herself, but for simplistic terms, imagine she’s each one of those things rolled up into one person.
I had a session with her a few days ago. I told her how I feel like I’m on this never-ending obstacle course, and although I know being dedicated and committed to the journey is part of the process, I don’t know how much more I can take of this day-in and day-out mental work.
She told me something that never occurred to me. She said, “Stop. Stop doing what you’re doing. Stop trying so hard. It’s not helping you right now, so just stop.”
I thought, “Stop? You want me to stop doing the internal work? Just stop? Do you know I’m unemployed? Do you know I don’t have a child to care for, a boyfriend to spend time with, family members to tend to? If I stop, what will I do? I am out in Utah all by myself, if I don’t use this time to work on myself, what is the point of me being here?”
I realized, I had lost the point of coming out here. If you remember what I started this blog post with, it was “I was drawn to Utah for its nature… For years, I wanted to hike in Utah’s mountains, roam its national parks, and get lost in its beauty.” And then, when I got here, I started doing all this internal work and forgot the sole point of me coming here was to be surrounded by nature. I needed that. I needed that so badly. I uprooted my entire life, quit my job, and let everything fall to the wayside so that I could be immersed in nature.
My spiritual mentor also told me that I needed to be writing about being one with nature. She said I needed to, “write as if I were the water, the mountains, the sky, the wildlife.” I don’t like to write anything that doesn’t just naturally come to me, so I agreed with her suggestion and waited for when I would be inspired to write in the point of view of nature. Nothing came.
And yes, I am skiing, hiking, going for walks, exploring new areas, and straight-up just staring at the beauty of this place and appreciating that I’m here. I am “immersed” in nature. I am just not learning from it, which is why I wasn’t able to write about it.
During my last session, my spiritual mentor asked me to make an inspiration board, which is not to be confused with a vision board. She gave me instructions to cut out a bunch of pictures of whatever felt significant or inspirational to me and then glue them onto a board in no specific order. I’ve never made a vision board or an inspiration board, so I thought, “why not?”
I drove to Hobby Lobby to get a poster board and glue, and then I headed to Savers to pick up a bunch of magazines. On my way to Savers, I saw a woman who was well dressed, driving a nice car, and clearly put together, hand a woman on the side of the street a bag full of groceries. I watched the exchange before driving off and felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude. I thought of how kind and selfless the helping woman was, but at the same time, I was upset knowing the other woman was in a time of struggle. This immediately made me think, “I need to be serving more.”
Anyway, I drove to Savers, bought some magazines, and then realized there was a donation center right next door. I had a bag of clothes in my car that I was looking to donate, so I drove up to the donation bin and saw one guy working. One singular man. I’m not sure if he were volunteering or if that were his job, but it reinforced that I really need to be doing more service work. Two examples of selflessness in less than twenty minutes? You’d think that’d be a sign for me to sign up to volunteer right then and there… except we all know that’s something we’ll “look into later”.
All of this is leading up to something big (I promise!).
I woke up today and decided to read one of the last chapters of my book, Think Like a Monk, and the title of the chapter was “Service”. Immediately, I was like, “another sign I need to do more service work”. I’m reading, reading, reading, and then all of sudden I read a sentence, and I have a complete, full-blown epiphany. The sentence reads, “‘The journey is inward to seek God [feel free to replace “God” with “Universe”, “Source”, “Higher Power”, or “Mr. Potato Head” for all I care] in prayer and silence. Taken alone, we can romanticize this aspect of our life… But to be monastic there is a parallel journey— the journey outward… The key is always to maintain both journeys— inward and outward.’”
That, my friends, is what I was missing. I was being sent signals to serve more, and I was still avoiding that revelation. It wasn’t until it was laid out for me that I realized, all this internal work and self-improvement is amazing, uplifting, empowering, and essential… but it is NOT the full equation. It does not matter how much you build yourself up and do the hard work if it’s of no benefit to anyone else. The relationship we have with ourselves is the basis for how we interact with others and interpret the world around us. I have done so much work on myself, but that means nothing if I don’t take what I learn, do, and become and then give myself to others.
After reading that sentence and having this epiphany, I told myself that I needed to continue reading until I got to the next subtitle (I’m a little, okay a lot, neurotic and can’t just leave off in the middle of a page).
The last bit of that page read as follows, “We are nature, and if we look at and observe nature carefully, nature is always serving. The sun provides heat and light. Trees give oxygen and shade. Water quenches our thirst. We can… view everything in nature as serving… The only way to be one with nature is to serve.”
Everything we do has a purpose, even when we don’t know why. I came here for the nature, not knowing I needed to learn from it. So, if I may, let me just make one thing crystal clear: perhaps the fog, clouds, and dust are sent to us not to try to work through but to become.
Beautiful