Finding the Treasures in Everyday Life: The beach

Maybe when you read this it will transport you to your favorite lounge chair on your favorite beach. Maybe it will encourage you to take 10 minutes right now to be fully present. Or maybe it will be forgotten, but here is a moment in the life of a mindful spirit.

My soul is content as I sit in the shade on the beach while my sweetie is surfing. To my right, deep under the sand rests probably 25 baby loggerhead turtles with their mother's trail still freshly indented in the hot sand. My music is filling the quiet space between each crashing wave. Salt fills my nose along with the occasional scent of my lotion. My iced water flows into my mouth quenching my dry tongue and throat. I look up from my cup and catch William surfing a wave and finishes with a nice front side carve off the top. His dark hair wet and heavy as he slings it out of his focused eyes. I grin knowing how happy he must be with that wave and how peaceful he feels out in the water. I close my eyes to capture this feeling and as I do a cool breeze whispers over my face and I smile at how refreshing it feels. I then realized that this kind of experience is one of my favorites on earth. A feeling of nostalgia overcomes me as I know I have experienced a beach day a hundred times before but have failed to fully appreciated it as I do now. It burdens me that I can never go back in time to enjoy my beach days the way I was meant to, so a small promise is made with my pen and paper to solidify my vow to me.

Challenge: Take a minute to reflect on you leaving and heading back home from a week long vacation. I bet most of you think the same, "oh my goodness that flew by", and "oh man I wish I could stay there longer", or " as soon as I started to relax it was time to leave". If any of that reminded you of yourself or of someone most likely you/they failed to be fully present even during their sacred vacation. You see, the inability to unplug and unwind is so chronic it leaks into your vacation, into your bedroom, and even into your mind while soaking up the sun and probably even more so during those times of designated peacefulness.

I challenge you to turn off your phone, put that book down, and even turn down the music to fully appreciate your beloved beach day. Nature, the beach, doesn't need any further help with relaxing you, it only needs you to appreciate it and succumb to it.