Slowing down, taking time for yourself and establishing new habits that will last a lifetime.
Theme - Taking a Breather
The focus this week was to press pause, step back, and take a breather.
In what ways do you take some time to catch your breath every day?
One Minute Clearing Practice - Ask your higher self to guide you to an area of your home that could use some love and attention for just one minute.
I did this every day for five days and not only enjoyed the time spent quietly taking a minute to breath and contemplate what area to address but also getting things cleared that I probably wouldn’t have just thought about doing.
What did it feel like to do nothing at all for two minutes?
The sound of the waves is something that I am lucky enough to have right outside whenever it is nice enough for me to have the study window open, and it is nothing new to find me sitting at my desk and gazing out to sea listening to them and watching the waves.
In what ways do you feel that your personal challenges are born outside of your control?
I think this is a hard question to have a definite answer to. I am a great believer in fate and that if something is meant to be for you than it will happen, and vice-versa but there are just too many outside influences for your own personality to avoid being influenced.
An Unexpected Adventure.
The ‘Taking a Breather’ theme fitted in rather nicely as I was lucky enough to be invited this weekend to go on a road-trip up to Orkney. It is 340 miles and one ferry to get there and when we set off it we caught the tail end of Storm Callum, which meant the driver having to contend with torrential rain all the way. Taking no chances, we downed sea-sickness tablets and settle ourselves in the lounge on the ferry as it was dark, windy and still pelting it down on deck. It was a much smoother crossing than we thought it was going to be, but we were still relieved when we docked. The purpose of the trip was to take a very young, terrified, shut-down little rescue dog to her fabulous new home where, given time and patience she is going to be a beautiful girl and have a wonderful life.
Arriving in the dark and in the rain, we didn’t get a chance to see anything, but the following morning was bright sunshine. We spent the day sightseeing on the island and headed back to John O’Groats watching the sunset as we crossed the Pentland Firth, which is renown for the strength of the tides, under-current rip tides and whirlpools. It is an eerie feeling crossing a circle of mill-pond calm water which swirls dramatically all around the outer edge, and the currents had the ferry bucking fiercely several times.
Over night was spent in a hotel at John O’Groats so we could get up at 6am to watch the sunrise at Duncansby Head lighthouse and is the most north-easterly part of the British mainland. To say it was an amazing experience is an understatement. It was magical.
Heading home after breakfast started with a 140-mile journey to Loch Ness, making several stops en-route to take photos. No monsters came out to play though but the scenery is breath-taking. Then onto Loch Lomond via Glencoe, another 125-miles but as it was in the dark we didn’t get to experience the scenery, with the dramatic volcanic mountains including Ben Nevis. However, there is so often a bonus to everything and whilst during the day the prolific abundance of signs warning of wild deer seem to be a bit of an over-kill because it is very rare to see them in daylight, at night they are everywhere. They come down to the road edge to feed on the grass verges and so are often just a few feet from the side of the car and I know this sounds strange, but it isn’t until I was sitting in the passenger seat looking up at huge stags right next to the window that I appreciated just how large they really are. The Trossachs National Park saw the end of the rugged landscape, with the last 50-miles getting increasingly built-up until we reached home on the Firth of Clyde overlooking the coast towards to Irish Sea.
It was not only three days of amazing scenery, new ventures and exciting things to see and do but also a weekend of great company, surreal events and laughter … which is always guaranteed to regenerates the soul.