After a long hiatus, I have decided to come back to SN so that I can keep the energy flowing and give back in whatever way I can. The majority of my life the focus has been around me and my own personal growth and gain, mainly with my athletic ambitions and aspirations. But now being engaged to my beautiful fiance and having the opportunity to travel the world these past few months there has been a detachment from my personal wants and this need to give back to this Earth in some way.
What has been on my mind quite a lot recently is the natural flow of life and the circle of life. As I write this now in my hotel room in Phu Quoc, Vietnam, I hear the sounds of cicadas crying and from my window I see a vast array of trees and plants. Whenever I start having a babbling mind or questioning life's purpose or what I'm meant to do in this body of mine or need to feel grounded I look to nature, observe nature and often I feel instantly calmer and an answer will naturally flow to me. A tree lives such a beautiful life of receiving energy, transforming and using it to express itself as a tree, then giving back to the circle of life by providing oxygen that we breathe or food for other living beings. Simple, life is meant to be simple, of simply connecting oneself to this infinite loop of abundance, keeping the energy flowing, not trying to hoard it all for yourself or to use it only for your personal gain.
When reflecting on my life, of the 30 years I have lived, the focus has revolved around the self, the building of my self identity, of receiving and taking in energy for solely selfish reasons, of becoming the best athlete I can possibly become with little consideration of giving back in a meaningful way. And while the focus and drive remained there life felt good. But in the last month or so after making the decision to stop all and any forms of intense training (mainly olympic weightlifting training) I basically had a bit of an identity crisis moment where I literally lost all sense of self. A few days ago I was in the shower and I found myself asking, "Who am I?". Not to mention I've been crying a lot relative to what I'm used to which is not much at all.
I now realize the answer of life, of true abundance is to connect back to the circle of life. A tree grows so grandly as well as has the capacity to share it's abundance because it never detaches itself from the circle of life. It receives and absorbs the abundant supply of energy by rooting itself into the depths of the Earth, it then uses that energy to grow from being a seed to a fully grown tree which can take decades, and when it has matured it begins to focus on giving back by procreating, by sharing it's abundance through bearing fruit or providing oxygen or shade for other life. All life living in nature is connected in this way to the circle of life. Humans have been disconnected from this for generations now, this is why there is so much attachment to the self and the ego continues to grow and we hoard and desperately cling to things such as money, or material things, and the energy within us is chaotic and in disharmony, unbalanced, either low or in need of releasing it back to the energetic circle of life.
The major takeaway from focusing on personal growth and ambitions is that it has helped lead me back to connecting to the abundant source of energy, and that is done simply by connecting back to Earth. We word it as grounding or Earthing or touching grass. From my 20+ years of being an athlete, nothing has helped with recovery, and sustained improvement and discovery as grounding consistently has. I've spent this past year staying grounded as much as I can, whenever I can by being outside barefoot in grass or swimming in the ocean or using Earthing products when inside or purchasing grounded shoes. Peak performance requires constant energy both for performance and recovery, and grounding has been and will continue to be my main source of energy.
Going back to the cicadas, cicadas literally live most of their life in the Earth, grounded, absorbing energy in order to mature to a point where they can complete their destined cycle. Some spend up to 17 years in this growing and development stage, patiently expanding their capacity to then move on to maturity and expression and ultimately reproduction. A tree as well takes years, at times decades to reach maturity and full development, all the while staying grounded and connected to Earth the whole entire time. But what about us humans? What about me? Of my own 30 years in this body, how many of those years was I directly connected to Earth to receive the energy in order to fully grow, develop, and mature? Combined from all the times in my life I unknowingly was in contact with Earth directly when playing barefoot in the grass or swimming in the beach probably less than a year. Thus what stage of development and true natural growth am I actually in apart from my chronological age if 99.9% of my life has been spent disconnected from Earth's abundance, from the circle of life?
For mammals like ourselves, learning about and developing towards mastering our own body is one of the earlier stages of development because we need to know how to move efficiently in order to live, whether to escape predators or to hunt or to move to a different environment or to simply physically express ourselves. Yet most of us humans don't move well, never naturally learn to move efficiently, elegantly, with balance, smoothly, powerfully, gently, gracefully. With a baby sure they are still developing and in the process of learning how to use their body, but what about all the clumsy moving "mature and developed" adults? We even pay others to teach us how to supposedly move in a healthy fashion. We need a warm up routine, gym equipment, an obsessive recovery routine, a strict diet just to maintain physical performance and basic health. This ties into my life as well. I've been on this constant quest for near 3 decades now on figuring out how to optimally use my body to perform better athletically. I've gone on different diets, recovery protocols, training styles, this, that, and the other, only to be left even more confused. Something would click and a month later it wouldn't make sense.
However, by grounding, by connecting back into the circle of life, specifically the receiving of energy to transforming of it (self expression / usage of absorbed energy) this past year, it's as if I'm finally actually learning how to use my body. And I'm no longer left confused or trying to think and figure out on my own or by listening to "experts" how to move optimally, now it just gradually comes naturally. Just like any other animal in nature learns. It receives energy to be able to move. Observes it's natural environment to see how developed life uses it's body. Begins to copy and try moving itself at first clumsily but with patience and in time learns to move well naturally. And after the basics are learned it can move onto enhancing those movements, adding power, developing strength and speed, developing great balance or flexibility, whatever adaptations their immediate environment demands of them, even testing it's genetic limits to evolve or pass on improved physical genes to the next generation.
But I digress.
Coming back full circle as to why I'm back here writing on SN. The last year I've finally connected back to the receiving of abundant energy, of truth, of knowledge, and have used said energy to fuel my personal athletic endeavors but realized recently that I was not allowing the energy to flow as it is meant to flow. My circle of life was incomplete, the flow being blocked by the self. Thus, this is my small way of making sure I keep the flow of energy going, of giving back in some way, and by doing so I keep the circle of life going, infinitely, abundantly. And as my capacity grows as a cicadas' does after patiently absorbing energy in the ground of Earth for years or as a seed begins to sprout then develop into the form of an early tree, I too believe my potential to grow will continue which will then lead to me being able to give back in an even more meaningful manner.
Receive the abundance, transform, use and express that abundance in your own way, and make sure to give back and keep that abundance flowing.
TLRD:
- The Circle of Life: energy received > energy transformed > energy given back
- Stay grounded > use energy to fuel your unique way of expressing yourself > complete circle by giving back
Welcome back!
Thank you!! Great to be back!