Crédit Photo @Swannie Robert
It's been almost two years since I left my country of origin, the city where I grew up, the people I knew, the streets I crossed, the places I frequented.
Two years and years of personal work behind me that enabled me to take the step.
To take the risk.
To overcome the fear and to trust that inner voice that told me:
"Go ahead! It's time, it's now.
Many others have taken this risk before me.
For many, it still seems like madness.
For others, it is the gateway to greater self-knowledge.
An inner journey to find one's unity.
Here or there.
Step by step.
To leave everything behind in order to better meet oneself?
To consciously want to lose these landmarks in a world that preaches above all material and emotional security may seem totally incomprehensible or even absurd.
All the more so since, after a certain age, it would seem more responsible and reasonable to respond to the diktats imposed by society and to apprehend a certain number of behaviours and so-called adequate personal achievements.
In other words, to follow to the letter what society considers "good for us" to live, without even taking into consideration the being that we are.
In its defence, it is true that it takes a certain amount of courage and iron determination to overcome our unconscious conditioning in order to face our true nature, with all that it entails, from the sublime and marvellous to the vile and sometimes detestable.
Learning to know ourselves, to detach ourselves from a borrowed personality, and to become our own guide, requires us to venture into our darkness in order to discover our light. It is a long, lonely warrior's journey, sometimes peaceful, sometimes fearful in its violence, during which we encounter many obstacles, both internal and external, until we fully and kindly welcome ourselves.
Discovering our deepest aspirations, reconnecting with ourselves and our dreams, welcoming our emotions, listening to our feelings, acting according to our own needs and desires, creating a reality that reflects us... whether we are accompanied or guided by a third person, all of this is the result of in-depth work in consciousness, which cannot take place if we run after the chimeras imposed by the majority, in the purest blindness that is the fear of discovering ourselves and taking full responsibility for our lives.
But then, is it really necessary to leave everything behind in order to better meet oneself?
"Everything begins with an interruption"
This inner journey is a personal adventure to which each person is free to respond as they want. There is no miracle recipe or particular strategy except the will and the need to discover what self-love means.
Leaving everything to better meet oneself sometimes comes from an absolute necessity, a survival instinct, a time of withdrawal to draw unsuspected strength from within oneself and awaken to another dimension of one's being.
However, it is important to keep in mind that leaving what we already know should not be an escape, but rather the continuation of a personal process to raise us to a greater awareness of ourselves and the world around us.
Nothing can be revealed to us, here or elsewhere, if we are not aware of our own defence mechanisms, our conditioning, our fears, our limitations, our deep wounds and our shadow.
Whether we decide to leave one country for another, to travel around the world, to immerse ourselves in another culture, another language, to live several months in autarky isolated from the crowd, to climb the greatest mountain ranges in Europe, to meet indigenous communities... it all comes down to our ability to make choices that are true to us at a time when we need them most.
As scary as it may seem to some, these leaps into the unknown are valuable allies and faithful teachers because they challenge us to become masters of our destiny, free from injunctions and "what ifs", and to take some time for ourselves.
To press the stop button.
To take a break.
Too many people are still chasing time, forgetting that it only exists in the present. Who desperately seek to fill an inner "void" in a frantic race to consume all kinds of goods, people, or relationships.
But emptiness is the silence that allows us to connect to ourselves and to the universe.
And we cannot access our being in its uniqueness if we do not deliberately stop for a moment to listen to what it has to say.
This time for oneself is therefore crucial if not vital.
It is the keystone of all self-knowledge, awareness and awakening.
It is the guardian of our deepest aspirations, the mirror of our dreams, the echo of our soul.
It is the friend who wishes us well and the voice that whispers to us the wildest possibilities.
It is the answer to the needs of our being, its transformation, its renewal.
We have all experienced this stop over the last two years.
Like an obligatory passage, the Universe and Nature have given us perhaps the greatest challenge of our lives. That of stopping to dive into the heart of ourselves, to clean up the dross, to plough the earth, to plant new seeds and to allow a greater individual and collective consciousness to flourish within our beings.
Thus, to change the road, the direction, to take new paths, to navigate, to take flight, to face the unknown, to welcome uncertainty.
Taking the risk of taking the first step. Trusting our intuition.
Meeting each other. Meeting the other. The others.
And discovering self-love.
Alone.
But together.
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