When you’re growing up, school ends and there is always a summer break.
A time to go on vacation. No school. Lots of time for reading, relaxing, resting.
As adults, we don’t often get that same break due to a thing called work, unless we create our own breaks.
Break from the routine.
Break from the usual stuff.
Break from the old ways.
Break from saying, doing, being.
Can you create a different kind of break in the midst of the year?
A self-imposed exile from the typical social scene or rigmarole of what you’re so used to doing on auto-pilot?
For the past few months, I decided to be in the moment and release my expectations for success with work or play, and just be.
I consciously pulled away from posting to social media and sharing my life so that I could once again be replenished from within the spaces of my own life.
With no more outputting, there was more interior life happening.
While visiting family up north, attending a friend’s wedding, going to fashion-business events, seeing Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, and hanging out with my nieces, I have to admit that it was tempting and difficult to not share with you all.
With phone clutched in one hand, though, I consciously decided to take photos just for me and us.
This conscious unplugging from social media made me appreciate my unique life that much more. With no backdrop of comments from the outside world or even acquaintances, friends & family that follow me, I was free to capture moments but more importantly, relish the moments and each event on a much deeper level.
Experiencing new places, meeting new people, and/or seeing the same scenery from a different perspective, while still taking photos for myself, but not to immediately share with everybody else, brought out a different person in me.
Exposing myself to nature, architecture, design, fashion, style, and people and seeing it all from this unique perspective was a different kind of adventure.
I recommend that everybody try this from time to time.
A digital detox but much more than that. A conscious letting go of the usual routines so you can see life from a different vantage point.
Go to the edge of the cliff of isolation.
Leap into crystal clear waters of coldness.
Look up into the clouds to be confused for a second.
Bask in the sunlight to get burned for a moment.
Breathe in toxic fumes of others’ energies.
Stroll down a busy city street to see the frenetic frenzy of consumerism.
Soak in a stuffy space to get unstuffed.
Scream in a dead forest and witness for the first time the trees that have fallen.
See life anew from this fresh perspective because there is nowhere you need to be nor anything you need to do.
No reporting to the outside world.
Just inhaling what’s truly going on and basking in the glory of all that is.
The seasonal break that I craved this time allowed me to be exactly where I needed to be in order to start this new chapter of my life.
No shoulds. Rather only coulds.
No more woulds.
Just staying in the moment of the infinite possibilities of my own life, breathing in my own air and filled up with my own ideas, images.
Choosing to see stuff in a different light and not trying to pigeonhole, define, delineate.
With blurred lines of reality and fantasy, I became acquainted once again with my imagination and perhaps … this is what a seasonal break was intended for all along.
A break from routines and learning.
A break from rituals and doing.
A break from the usual suspects sucking me into a should mentality.
A break from myself and the way I am.
With this digital fast now broken, right here and now, I’m refreshed in a different kind of way.
I’m actually excited to start sharing yet again with all of you, and I so deeply appreciate you allowing me into your world.
Wishing you all a break from your routines today and a revving of your engines from within fueled by inspiration from a different perspective.
