Energetics of vacation & adventure
We navigate through our days almost completely based on subconscious autopilot.
We mostly respond to known situations / people / places subconsciously. Occasionally we bring new / confusing /exciting / scary moments up into our conscious decision making mind to process and respond to.
One of my first crystal lessons ever with Naisha Ahsian was about subconscious processing. Our brain processes millions of bits of information per second - incoming data, from all our senses. Thank goodness we can sort/ categorize/ process almost all of it subconsciously. We filter for immediate threats and then for new information - we process just a few pieces of incoming data consciously per second (40-50 out of millions!). If you need a concrete example, try driving while paying attention to what you are doing consciously and what you are doing subconsciously. We see a red light consciously, we process red and we stop the car - we see an unexpected object in the road, we swerve or stop. Other than that we are able to process a whirring number of signs / cars and movements and respond to them by signaling, slowing, speeding etc, almost entirely subconsciously.
Being in tune with our own intuition is all about processing subtle data. Layers of information that bubble to the surface so quietly they’d usually be handled by the subconscious (since they aren’t a threat) but if we are quiet and perceptive enough we can feel them as a ‘gut feeling’ or even hear words coming up from the subconscious.
But, by relying fully on our subconscious to navigate we sometimes mis-categorize a situation and our response to it based on old data or emotional experiences. In my crystal course these were called ‘filters’ in the subconscious. I have literally been meditating for the past three years with stones in great part to clear out these outdated filter systems.
We rely on patterns to process the world subconsciously. But not all of these pattern responses are our the most evolved responses. Many are informed by past trauma or ‘outdated data’. We let our subconscious respond differently than we would if we were to bring each experience up into the conscious mind and process it - because there is literally too much going on!
VACATION & TRAVEL are a break from the expected. Taking your body and self out of its everyday flow and placing it down somewhere new, where there is a lot to see / experience / process and respond to.
I read somewhere (years ago, maybe in college) that travel sparks creativity in the brain because you are literally putting new information in front of your eyes for your mind to process. <<Long tangent I won’t go into here, but I have, since college been an absolute travel and adventure nerd - traveling whenever possible to all sorts of interesting places to learn, explore and connect, I once lived in Bangladesh for four months for a photography project!>>
In thinking about what travel and vacation do for the energy body — it helps us to:
RELEASE
RELAX
REST
RESET
Which are all important, necessary and wonderful!
But, we also step out of our everyday environment - with its known comforts and stressors. And into the Unknown.
Unknown places, people, environments, energies. Unknown inputs for all of our senses and for our energy body.
Some subconscious response patterns can be fear based. I have a lot of anxiety, and in my daily life I can “accidentally” or subconsciously trigger a fear-anxiety-lack space and cary it with me all day without even noticing. At the beginning of this particular vacation I found myself saying “I am so glad this XXX part of the plan went well! I was so anxious about it while planning the trip!” I hadn’t even known I was anxious about it until after it happened - whew - and a weight lifted! Stepping out of everyday subconscious response patterns helps them become more visible, more of a choice. We can ask ourselves “do I want / need to respond that way?”
Exploring new places / environments / people invites us to make a lot more navigational choices consciously because we are receiving and navigating a lot of new information. New places are full of new sounds, smells, and energies! On this trip, I found that all the new information allowed me to be more aware of my surroundings and how I was responding each moment and each day.
A gecko sitting in a patch of sunlight on the porch reminded me to SLOW DOWN and WATCH. Because I had never seen geckos before (!!!) instead of rushing through my tea and breakfast.
I was able to be intentionally, mindfully present in beautiful places in nature - sitting with a sea turtle for hours - not distracted by my regular mentally anxious inner chatter because the beach in front of me and the sea turtle were such new visual information - and such beautiful energy. I had to put my usual pattern aside (of half paying attention and half letting my monkey mind run away with busy thoughts about other things) because the experience was too beautiful to and too special to miss! I needed to be fully present because I put myself in the way of such beauty and such new experiences of place. Responding to the newness and incredible beauty of the place brought me into the present and helped me better consciously process my responses in each moment as all this new data came in.
A lot of energy work is making conscious something from the subconscious. Reading / feeling subtle energy.
For me, being out of my everyday:
home environment / space
flow of work / tasks
interpersonal dynamics
Helped me to both:
be more mindfully present in each moment on my trip
be more consciously connected to choice - processing - engaging every moment
And less self reliant on my subconscious processing since everything was new! That beauty and newness has REFRESHED ME, from some deep energy / psychic space.
Feeling a subtle shift in perspective that I can bring home with me to make different or new choices and responses and updates in my daily life. I feel like being somewhere new, with lots of beautiful and interesting experiences and places to process consciously and respond to helped me cary home the ability to see my home environment - my house space as well as the city I live in a bit freshly, making room for new conscious processing and responses here, evolving out of some subconscious pattering that disallowed me to see things anew in my own familiar spaces!
I am calling them “fresh vacation eyes”.
This trip was a BIG step for me. A step out of my house, and out of the agoraphobic fear of quarantine and the past two years of sheltering in place and working from home during a worldwide public health crisis. I have always loved travel, enjoyed the bumpy bits the second class train rides and shared hostel dorms. But, as I grow into my 30s and out of the pandemic I wanted a gentle re-entry into global travel. I found that staying in a private cottage on a farm and driving around to places helped me navigate some of my own anxious feelings about reentry, having more private spaces than I have in the past while traveling. It also frankly helped that I am both fully vaxxed and had COVID a few months ago — so I wasn’t too nervous about getting sick or getting others sick. We are each going to have our own new comfort zones, but I hope me sharing some reflections and some beautiful photos can be an encouragement to you to stick one toe out into this beautiful world and say hi and see how it feels! You can literally drive to a cabin in the woods and sit alone for 3 days if that feels right, (we did that once a year the past two years with two close friends!) I bet it will still be super special and put some new beauty in front of your eyes!
<<I also want to absolutely acknowledge what a privilege travel and adventure are! They take both time and money, and sometimes it can feel impossible to line those two up simultaneously. This was my first proper vacation since before the pandemic (!!!) And I needed to drop into this post today to say, you can do it! If you value and crave travel and adventure make it a priority in your life. I spent whole summers working as a waitress in college just to afford plane tickets. Putting ourselves in the way of these life changing and life renewing experiences can be a priority.
We spent the better part of the last 8 years relatively broke, working full time and car camping / road tripping and backpacking around the Southwestern US! You can put yourself in the way of beautiful places and new experiences and new people right in your own backyard - maybe you drive instead of fly, maybe you camp instead of stay in a hotel! The more flexible you can be and the more you can be ok with the physical discomforts of nature (like sleeping on the ground and being around bugs) the more freedom you have to explore! Did you know dispersed camping is free on a lot of public land in the US?
If you have kids! Don’t be afraid to take them on new adventures, they are surprisingly durable little buggers :) We had the most amazing neighbors in NM who taught us to backpack and they taught their kids too, beginning in elementary school! You can also car camp and stay in campgrounds with more facilities!
Basically, what I am saying is, if you are called to adventure and to nature go for it! If it’s a financial or logistical challenge for you don’t be afraid just find ways to adapt. If you can’t fly to Hawaii next month, don’t be discouraged - it took ages to save up for this trip!
You can go to some incredibly beautiful and special places for the price of gas, groceries and buying a tent! And yes, I understand camping isn’t for everyone - either comfort wise or for folks with disabilities. But I share it here because it has been our answer to being on a budget and still finding a way to go on epic adventures!>>