The importance of self remembrance

Yesterday I spent my first night on Bali. Since it was Christmas night we met with a small group of people we know from Amsterdam and we had dinner in a trendy and quite expensive restaurant. My head was buzzing from jetlag which gave a surreal spin to the night. Looking back at the night there should be enough reason to be overwhelmed but I wasn’t. Actually everything was ‘normal’: the company was from the kind that I’m used to. Also the jokes, the conversation, the wine and the cuisine were very familiar, representing a certain life style that I have been living for quite a while.

The only reason for writing the paragraph above is because it is true and is was the first thing that came up. I haven’t much time left before the day is over and I’m jetlagged but I feel I should write on my blog anyway. Why? Well, because I promised. By sharing my intention about writing daily while on Bali I created a commitment towards you, who has heard me saying it on Facebook yesterday or is reading these words right now. It is interesting what this self inflicted commitment does. On the one hand I feel pressure, I don’t want to fail, don’t want to disappoint and certainly don’t want to create an untruth. Especially the last one is important for me. I feel that the way to stay connected with life is to stay connected with our personal truth. We can reconnect with ourselves at any given moment by checking in and acknowledge what is true for us in that moment. By doing so we will become aware of the amount of harmony we are experiencing with the outside world. Plain honesty will reveal if we feel in place or out of place, if we are being or acting. When we forget to reconnect or never really learned to do so we never really experience our own truth. And when when we don’t live our truth we are not living our real life but a quite superficial illusion. By not living up to my promises I create a discrepancy between my words and my actions. So the other side of the coin is that although I feel self created pressure I really want to live a life of truth.

Yesterday I forgot to check in with myself. I was very tired from the long plane ride and sleep deprivation, I did not want to miss Christmas dinner and I could not sleep anyway because of a messed up biological clock. I just went along with the ride and surely had a nice time. But I missed out on the little extra’s that a practice of awareness can give us. I forgot to really breathe, taste, experience that I was actually on the other side of the world. Of course I knew that I was on Bali but I wasn’t really feeling it.

An hour ago I started this blog without a clue about what to write about. I felt that nothing worthwhile had happened and I felt the pressure of the commitment to write anyway. So I just started by writing down what came up when I checked in. Now I feel grateful. By creating a moment of self reflection I remembered the importance of self remembrance. That’s why discipline is healing. We create a moment where we come back to ourselves. I just added value to my life and my trip. Nice.

If you feel like it you can try this: take the time to really taste your Christmas dinner, to look your friends and family in the eye and listen and speak from the heart. I’m curious what your experience will be.