Dear Corinne,
I am delighted to hear that you found the exercise with the stones and the Pillar meditation so helpful! Taking time to reflect and be still and to listen to the meditations can be significant, bringing peace and healing and promoting wellbeing, both physical and spiritual!
Travel and time away gives you the opportunity to review your pattern of life and current commitments, as well as your hopes and dreams. The question on return is: Will you revert to life as it was, before you went away, or do you resume life back home by developing new patterns/rhythms of living and by embracing new possibilities?
As you settle back into your home and life in the city in which you live, you are wise to stop and review what is important to you at this stage of your journey through life and to take steps to ensure that it is those areas that you are focusing on. As well as ensuring that you maintain a healthy balance between ‘ work, rest and play.’!
In this age of instant communication and connection through the technology, which is now such a large part of our everyday lives, we can find ourselves expecting changes in our circumstances to be equally swift. However, in reality this is not necessarily the case and often returning to the mundane and well-know routines can provide a structure and a measure of security from which we can sift our ideas and weigh up new possibilities.
When I have found myself in this situation, I have often taken time to ponder on where I would like to be and what I would like to be doing in five years time, writing down all the ideas that come on paper. Then I take time to ponder on where I would like to be and what I would like to be doing in a year’s time, and commit these to paper too! Then I prayerfully consider what I need to do to achieve these ideas. Remembering as I do so, what it says in Proverbs 16:1 We can make our plans, but the final outcome is in God’s hands.(The Living Bible)
Of course we are not machines, and circumstances and emotions can take their toll on us and implementing changes may take a while. Ensuring you have a few key friends with whom you can share how you are doing and how you are feeling is an important part of the process. When I was in this position, I discovered that some of the people I had been close to before going away were unable to grasp how I was feeling, and the process I was going through on returning. While this was disappointing in some respects, maintaining contact with those that I had been with overseas, investing in family and other close friends, served to counter this sense of disappointment.
For some people this is also true for their faith community. Having experienced different forms of worship, fellowships, while away, they find on return that they feel less at home in their previous church setting. Some time for adjustment and settling in is necessary, but if this continues maybe it is time to ask God to show you if there is another church to be part of. This was my experience and after some months, God clearly showed me which church he wanted me to join!
You may find the meditation ‘A Walk in the Forest’ helpful, as it provides as opportunity to lay down the things on your mind, to reflect on changes in your life and to listen to God in the stillness! Even if you have done this meditation in the past……now would be a good time to revisit it!!
Let me know how you are getting on.
with love
