The Journey is the Destination: My exploration of being present

“The journey is the destination.” I wrote this thought in the margins of my copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which I just finished reading last night. It’s something I’ve believed for a long time but when reading this book, it sank in just a bit deeper. While reading this book, I’ve had a profound shift in relating to myself and to my thoughts and emotions.

I have always been a worrier, a ruminator, someone who goes down the rabbit hole of every and any possible outcomes to try to make sure I’ve thought of every and any possible solution for each scenario before I take a step. I’m also the person who gets a gut feeling and jumps in head first without thought no matter how crazy the scenario seems. And you know when things work out and I find peace and happiness? When I stop “thinking” so much and listen to my body. When I become present in myself.

This is where the journey becomes the destination for me. I believe I will always be on this journey to becoming present in myself, listening to my body instead of the noisy world around me. I may or may not reach total peace or enlightenment some day. But that’s not the point. Or at least, not for me. How can I be at peace or enlightened if I’m always reaching for that destination and not accepting what is or staying present in the Now, as Echkart says?

I’m not saying this is how you should live your life or that you should even read this book, I just want to share a little bit of where it’s brought me and how it’s helped me. I also don’t want to say that this book alone brought me to where I am in this journey either. There has been a bouquet of people, conversations, books, therapy, meditations, tools etc. that have been gathered together to help me on this journey.

I love synchronicities that show up in my life and I try to pay attention to them. Coming to this shift has been a huge series of synchronicities.

I have mentioned before that I grew up in a conservative religious community called Seventh-Day Adventism. This is a pretty tight community in that you are expected to go to an SDA school from kindergarten through college or doctorate even. I remember being taught that any thought I have that goes against what we were taught by our teachers, parents or the pastor or elders was the work of the devil and we need to shut ourselves down from it. So, my experience was: don’t think for yourself, don’t question anything, follow along. There was a lot of emphasis on fear and the end times. But there was also a lot of emphasis on helping people which is why a lot of hospitals are SDA.

My childhood and teenage years were spent trying to believe in what I was being taught, but from a very young age, I was different than my friends. I was wishing on stars and manifesting on 11:11, I wasn’t praying to a “God” or angels. I kept it all to myself for most of my childhood, but started talking a bit more about it when I was in high school and college. My friends knew that things seemed to always happen for me when I wanted them to. It wasn’t until after college and I felt more free to explore spirituality outside of religion that I started to understand that I was never meant for religion.

I don’t have anything against religion when it allows people to think and question, and accepts it’s followers as they are. This was not my experience and so it was not for me. Most of my family and several childhood friends are still deeply involved in the SDA community and I am happy that they have found a belief system that brings them peace and joy. I don’t feel anyone needs to believe what I do or live as I do, and I just ask for the same respect in return. :)

Years of exploration, trying various beliefs or understandings on for size, lead me to where I am now…still exploring, lol! I love it! It’s fascinating and freeing to know that I’ll never truly know anything. I can only keep learning, experimenting, seeking, talking, sharing, and most of all staying true to myself and my experience.

Fast forward to wanting to find a somatic therapist a couple years ago during the pandemic to help me work through some fears I felt were manifesting in my body as physical pains. She was amazing and I am so grateful for all the help she gave me. One of the techniques she kept trying to get me to absorb was to find acceptance of what is, and to not identify with my thoughts but to watch them float by as if they were clouds in the sky. I still hear her voice saying those words to me whenever I realize I’m in my thoughts instead of in the present moment.

This was my first taste of non-dualism meditation without knowing any terminology.

Fast forward to 4-5 months ago and I’m mindlessly scrolling on Youtube and come across a chiropractor that uses a different technique called Gonstead Chiropractic. I can’t remember why I clicked on it, but I end up really liking how he views the body holistically and also his philosophy on how certain ailments in the body can be coming from holding emotions there. This is something I already believed for myself.

He has all of his patients read The Power of Now which goes into the pain-body which is described as almost another entity that resides in your body that needs pain in any form in order to survive. So, when it is wanting to feed, it brings up thoughts, emotions, fears, painful memories both sweet and horrifying in order to grow stronger. We are completely unaware it is happening, we just feel the residual of what those things do to us, we are so used to it happening. Cue me ruminating….what? hahah

Anyway, I had heard of the book years ago but never picked it up. I looked it up in my various public libraries (I belong to three here, lol) to see if any version of it was available but all copies had 70+ holds on them! Wow! Must be a good book! I ended up finding a gently used copy and purchased it. I had a feeling it might be one I’d want to keep around for reference.

There it sat, watching me every morning as I drank my coffee. I read the Introduction and set it back down. I wasn’t ready. Who knows why!

Fast forward to the end of July, I started dating someone who was deeply spiritual. One day I asked him to tell me what his spiritual beliefs were and he told me about non-dualism meditation. He tried to explain it to me but there is so much to grasp and it’s such a vastly different way of viewing yourself and the world that I knew I would have to do my own reading to fully understand what he was trying to explain. But my interest was piqued! It had a lot of similarities to my current spiritual beliefs about everything and everyone being connected through energy, etc. My beliefs leaned more mystical and woo woo, his were more pragmatic…can I call non-dualism pragmatic? lol? Probably not, but in comparison to my understandings and practices, I felt his beliefs were more grounded, so to speak.

We both knew when starting this new relationship, that it was going to be short but hopefully sweet and it fulfilled that hope in spades for us both. But a few days after it ended, I found myself coming back to his explaination of his beliefs and the term non-dualism. I started to do my usual dive into a new topic I’m interested in and recognized an author he had mentioned was his favorite, Rupert Spira. In looking up other teachers or authors that speak on non-dualism I came across Echkart Tolle!

I was about to head to the library, one 40 mins away (lol) to get a couple of Rupert’s books, when I realized I should just start with what I already have. The book that’s been staring at me every morning, patiently waiting for me to pick it up again and actually start reading it.

And so I did…and it honestly has started the biggest self reflective shift since me letting go of the need to identify with my family’s religion. I am still in the beginning, I am still learning, I am still working to not identify with my thoughts and emotions, I am trying to watch them like clouds in the sky. I am sinking into the notion I’ve always held, that we are all connected and that we all deserve love and acceptance, that anger and violence solves nothing. I am treasuring putting love and acceptance above all else as that is what I feel most natural doing.

I will not always be present, I will not always doing things well, I will not always be the best version of myself. This is my journey. But I’m in love with this journey. I have arrived, this is my destination. The destination of surrendering constantly to acceptance of what is and returning to the Now.

Honestly, I have no idea if any of this even makes sense to anyone besides me, lol! But, if it does, or if it sparks questions or if you want to talk about it with me, I would love to have that conversation. If you have read this book and have other suggestions, please let me know! I’m about to start reading two of Rupert Spira’s books lent to me by a dear friend. I have also ordered another one of Eckhart Tolle’s books.

I hope you are having a wonderful day! I’ll talk with you again soon! :)