Beautiful Thing

There is beauty in seeking the friction of difference. Exposing our sensitive, defensive surface layer to what can be a thrilling new experience or adventure. Something that brings us new life. But it can also bring discomfort, pain, fear, or aggravation. A new and strange sensation that rubs us raw in places and reveals glimpses of the deeper, tender flesh beneath. Traveling allows us to seek out this delicate balance of joy and pain. Although it can be difficult, the abrasion is an opportunity to see ourselves more honestly. To heal ourselves in a way that is truer to who we want to be - for ourselves and for others. It's a gift if we can see it. But the healing takes time, time that we must consciously take to learn and to regrow with more understanding, insight, and compassion. Retreat to advance, coming back to ourselves in order to challenge ourselves again.

Healing requires introspection. To look inward, downward, to inspect your own footing in and on this world and understand what it means to be who you are. What parts of yourself have you chosen? What is not up to you? What has been shaped by forces outside of you or even your awareness? What does it mean to have been shaped in this way? How might others have been shaped similarly? Differently? How can your understanding of yourself help you understand others? There are also things you will never understand, what can your self-wisdom lend there? Empathy? Love? Patience? Expectation?

A temporary retreat to quiet isolation gives the mind room to pulse. Our subconscious whispers quietly, usually drowned out by the jumble of the day. We have to look, to listen to it. With that comes an opportunity. To grow. To encourage the web of thoughts in our heads to mature and develop within us - not overtake us. Becoming an intricate, tangled knot of roots expanding and strengthening into a wiser, more beautiful thing.

Travel need not be only luxury and ease. In fact, we are letting ourselves down if that's all we ever allow travel to be. We can grow fuller, broader, deeper, stronger from our travel experiences. Continue to expose and abrade our skin against the grit of struggle and change. Think - why has this impacted me so? Should it? Must it? Learn from ourselves and grow beyond where we were before. Repeat.

We can all maintain a growing edge. A cycle of exposure, introspection, learning, and growth. Seek the friction of difference, be open to change, and discover yourself anew with each lesson.