We moved to the ranch two and a half months ago, and as the days keep getting shorter and the nights darker and longer, I've been thinking more and more about what being well and living well mean to me. I wrote about it about a month before we moved, and now that we've settled in I'm ready to align how I want to show up in the world with how I actually show up.
For me, being well has a lot to do with being mindful. Being aware. Showing up with focus and without distraction. If you follow me on Instagram and have seen some of my stories there, you know I spend quite a bit of time taking pictures and videos of sunsets and sunrises. And while I'm completely aware that having my phone with me while I do that is already a distraction, I can assure you that more often than not I leave my phone in our room and just stand there and enjoy the moment. {Until I hear some wild animal make noises in the forest and go back inside. Grizzly Adams would not be proud of me.}
Getting out from behind the screen in my office and standing outside and letting the magnificence around me soak in leaves my mind blank and open for new things. Yes, the internet is painfully slow, every trip to the grocery store {or anywhere, really} is a day-long journey, and if there were a medical emergency we would probably be hooped ~ but the clarity I've gained on some of the things about myself and my life has been worth it to me.
Not many things have gone as planned with our move and adventure at the ranch and it's been a constant re-calculation and adjusting along the way. We've gotten good at that over the course of the last two years, but I definitely would appreciate a bit of a break right about now. Despite those challenges I feel very privileged to be here. I realize that not many people have the opportunity to experience what we're doing now while still making a living. I'm sure there is a way to strip away all distractions and dig into the work that needs to be done to align yourself with your values without selling all belongings and moving into the wilderness; in our case it's just a fortunate by-product of the adventure we decided to embark on, so I feel extra lucky I get to do this.
But back to mindfulness and how being here has helped me be more in the moment: there is simply no other choice. Living here is like stepping back in time. We have a landline again, there is no cell service, and when my husband goes out on his quad he tells me where he goes and when to expect him back and how long to wait before I send out the search team for him. It's thrilling and terrifying at the same time. All distractions are stripped away and you have no choice but to embrace things as they are and not worry about what you might be missing out on. FOMO ~ the fear of missing out ~ is always the biggest enemy of being in the moment, because we constantly think about what we could be doing and what we might be missing out on. Not here. Here it's all about the FunOMO ~ the fun of missing out ~ because only what's happening right now counts.
I know that for some people this is a lifestyle and I'm not sure if it will be for us in the long run, but for now it's a supercharged catalyst to figure out what comes next and how we want that to look like and for that I'm very grateful.