From Restlessness to Stillness: Discovering Depth in Your Healing Journey





Introduction

I was sitting in a spiritual retreat once and I was asking the guru this question: ‘How can I tackle my restlessness?’ His answer was surprising but stayed with me all of my life. You have to find depth vertically rather than horizontally.

Let those words sink in for a moment. Most of us have been either not finding depth at all, or finding depth horizontally, by discovering new people and new places and being constantly on the move.

But when you are constantly on the move, there is always a moment when it hits. A part of you does not want to run anymore. Your soul is craving for stillness and peace. I think this is the first sign of your soul looking for depth in another way.


Travelling all around
I have been travelling around the world for the last twelve years. I would do whatever I felt like every single day unless life really invited me to do something else. Then, after some resistance, I would give in. Whenever I got bored of a place, I just moved on. Looking for the next thrill or the next adventure.

Something new. And when I found it, I would find new peace and excitement again. People often asked me whether I was running from something, but I really do not think I was. That was what I was meant to experience at that time and also what I wanted to experience. I loved every part of it.

Until about three years ago. When my excitement made space for restlessness, or maybe better said a longing for peace. I started searching for my home. In the last three places I went I wanted to settle down. I looked for houses to buy, made an investment in getting to know the local community and really checked in with myself whether I wanted to live there. But somehow things were not flowing. Not aligning. And after these periods in all these places I did not find home. Instead I found disappointment because I had hoped to find a home.

Sometimes in life, the wind is not behind you. Or you are not facing the right direction. It all depends on perspective. In this case I was not facing the right direction. I was not meant to settle down yet. I guess. Sometimes all we can do is guess. Guess for the reasons, the answers. All I know is that this tactic of finding home was not working for me. It led to no home, disappointment and a feeling of failure.

Slowing down
I came back home to Holland and took a little period of quieting down. I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the ground as I was slowing down. I felt my nervous system releasing and my fascia releasing tension from my body. It was as if my energy was dropping down. And although I was not settling down in Holland, it was enough to settle down in my body.

It made me realize that energy comes first. Often we are looking for something outside of us but the answers are found inside of us. I wanted a home because I wanted to feel more peaceful, more grounded. But instead of allowing this energy to fall through me, I kept on searching, moving. Until the energy caught up on me and allowed peace and grounding to arise. And as it did, I started seeing my environment change too. More grounded people came in my life, more opportunities to slow down and longer-term plans.

And with that I changed. My relationship to life changed. I found it easier to find peace and excitement in the vertical rather than the horizontal. Hurry and stress disappeared from my life and love and peace made place for them. I started trusting deep in all that life was giving me and found gratitude in all that was there. Life and me were now operating as a team, never to split sides again.


The future ahead
And where the future will bring me I do not know. I have set my goals, my hopes and my desires but I trust that life will give me the perfect thing at the perfect time. I trust that life will take into account my unconscious wishes as well as my conscious ones and create the best future imaginable.

It does not matter whether my eyes are blindfolded or not. I cannot see ahead and I do not need to. I am happy with where I am right now. I feel at peace. And confident that I can carry myself in whatever life will bring to me, and confident that I will know which steps to take myself. 

I hope that reading this blog helps you to look at your life from another perspective too. To find peace in the vertical rather than the horizontal and to know that you can always transform life when you are ready to do so.

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