Bali. I’m flying there this Sunday.
I’ve been waiting for this flight for months. I was due to go 6 weeks ago, flights booked and bags packed. Then a volcano ash cloud hit, and my well-planned escape was thwarted.
Thank God.
My first flight was an unashamed act of escaping. Running away….
Escape lures you into another reality – almost like a mirage.
The shimmer of freedom is there, but you can never get close enough to actually taste it.
And for all the promises escape makes. Always (always) upon your inevitable return, you find that the issues you flee are still there.
Still waiting to be resolved.
It’s a temporary solution at best.
Even trickier still… Escape doesn’t always mean getting on a plane.
It might look like ‘tuning-out’ to your regular TV show (been there).
It might look like picking up that novel and loosing yourself for a few hours (done that).
It might look like showing up without any enthusiasm or true presence.
Escape is not true freedom.
Freedom happens when you are all-in with your heart and soul.
Freedom happens when you look at all the annoying demands on your energy. And instead of ignoring them – you make change that liberates you.
Freedom happens when you find yourself in a situation that doesn’t fit you anymore, and instead of quietly existing stage left – you find conviction within yourself, and create lasting change.
And sometimes making that change, the change within yourself or within your world can seem impossible. Where would I start?
Yet time and time again I learn…
It takes a lot more energy to keep your problems at arms length than it does to face them, and resolve them.
Wherever the problem is – in work, or relationship, in family or career – escaping out problems just keeps us in an energetic cycle of stuck and exhausted. There is no true freedom here.
This time, this flight, I am flying to the same destination, with the same plan in mind but it’s a totally new adventure.
This time it’s freedom.
(Thank you Universe for forcing that lesson on me!)
Freedom. Or Escape?
Am I running away from my problems?
Or am I running to the solution?
The questions I’ll be asking myself every time I pick up a novel – or jump on a plane from now on.
Can you relate? Does escape lure you into it’s trickery, when your heart just desires freedom to? I would love to know – leave me a comment below beauty.
