The learnings did not end when I decided to take my life into my own hands. If anything, they became more apparent.
I started challenging myself to be more–in the day-to-day and the adventures to come on the desert sands of the playa in Black Rock and the lush cliffsides of the upper Paro valley that leads to the sacred Vajrayana Himalayan Buddhist site known as Tiger’s Nest, in Bhutan.
In the summer of 2018, I spent two weeks in Paris, immersing myself in its culture. A picnic by the Seine, watching the late-night sunset over Ile de St Louis, the magic of the Musée des Arts Forains in the 12th arrondissement, and then a nature walk in the Swiss Alps near Lausanne. The natural vista was so stunning that it confirmed why the Japanese revel in the phenomenon of shinrin-yoku, or ‘forest bathing,’ as it’s called in the West.
There is an absolute joy in creating distance from the normality in your life. Start with a few hours in your neighborhood if it sounds too daunting. Once you get into the rhythm, expand beyond the familiar into a new borough or city. Make your weekends count and go somewhere you’ve never been before. Soon enough, you will realize how every experience can positively affect and influence your life. The more you engage in a practice of self-discovery, the more natural it will be to take those weeks of vacation you’ve been accumulating.
When I embarked on this quest, I had no idea the benefits it would reap nor how I would extend my limits as if a multiverse lived inside me.
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