Me Time ✨ from Sedona

Good morning, everybody. My name is Jean Mitchells. I'm calling in today from Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona. I think I said calling in today sounds kind of funny. Good morning. How are you today? Afshi I see is what the name is, but that might be something short for who you are. Good morning, doctor Laurie, how you doing today? My name is Jean Nichols and as I mentioned, as I kicked in a little bit early, and here live from Sedona, Arizona, you'll see some of the sights that I see behind me for a little me time.

I'm actually here in Sedona on a retreat. It's a breath work and meditation retreat. I'm a certified breath worker and I'm here for a weekend with the facilitators I was trained with over a period of time. And we are going through a retreat together. Kind of a refresh, but also a reset. And I always, when I take the plunge to go on a trip by myself, it's a little nerve wracking and it's also so expansive. And I don't know if any of you who've jumped on already or if you listen on replay, how many of you have taken a trip all by yourself.

You booked it. You booked the flight, you booked the. Maybe it was a retreat that you went to, maybe you just took a day trip to someplace in Wisconsin or a different state or a different part of the state you live in to go on a little retreat. And this morning, I really wanted to focus on the journey and not the destination. So every morning that I've been here, I've left my housemates super early in the morning so that I could go for a hike. Because our time that we're in, our sessions are from ten to six every day with a lunch break in there.

So there's not time for me to go out to explore. But I find when I go out on a hike, it's always, you know, we always get into that, that mindset that it's about the end result, getting to the top, getting to the end of the trail, getting to the destination on the trail. And I've been finding more comfort and discomfort lately. And what I mean by that is I am definitely the person that's sees a hill to climb, a mountain to climb. And I want to get there, I want to do it. I want to look from the top and look out across the world and see what I see.

But today I'm going to change my landscape a little so that you can see the top. So I've been sitting here for about a half an hour, and you see all these people sitting behind me. Every single one of us got to this point at some time in our hike today because we wanted to get to that point up there, and this is where we're all stuck. But here's what's been beautiful about it. Had I made it all the way to the top, I would have just gone up there, taken some glances, done the iconic photos for Instagram or whatever the social media is, and I would have tooled my way back down.

Instead, I got to this point here, and I realized how beautiful it was to be right here. And so I opened up my pack, I had some water, I grabbed my breakfast bar so I could get some energy and nutrition for the hike back down and the hike that's yet to come. And in my head, I'm still contemplating, how do I get up there? And did I fail because I didn't get up there, or did I, did I win? Did I succeed because I made it to wherever I could today? How many days, how many times do we set the expectation that the end is exactly where we have to get to?

I know I do, but how many times. Hi, Rosie. How many times do we actually take the pause in the journey to celebrate how far we have come and to take that pause to look around and see what we see? Now we're in an era where everything needs to get posted on social media. And so I've been very intentional about taking some photos, but really trying more so to just see one step in front of the other. And when I feel like I have the energetic pull to take a pause, I take a pause and I look around. I have seen some really beautiful things.

I've seen some animals. I might not have seen a bird. I didn't when I've been hearing, but haven't seen yet. And I got to find some flowers, like, a whole patch of flowers that I was so on my path that when I stopped, looked, saw the flowers, I turned around and realized I had just gone through a whole patch of them, and I missed it because I was so focused on a time or getting the hike done instead of just doing whatever I can do in the time that I had. So I don't know about you, but how many of you, if you're listening in right now, get so focused on the destination that we forget about what happens between the time we started and the time we ended?

Have you had an experience like that? Is it something familiar to you? Would love to hear what your experience is in the chat. I'd also love to hear what you do to intentionally take that pause. So on me time today and taking this hike and just pausing to reflect a little bit more, I'll tell you some fun things. So I'm in Sedona, Arizona, and it's known to have many, many, multiple, four main ones. But there's multiple energy vortexes and vortexes I could do a whole little episode on, but really it's about a different energy shift when you're here.

When I'm here, I see different trees that maybe grow in a spiral. But if you come to some of these places and you hike on these vortex hikes, you definitely can feel a different type of energy in your body. Now, if I'm in my head, I can't feel anything. What does the note say? Right. I am overthinking everything. But when I listen to the vortex itself and the energy that it feels in my body, I find that I feel calmer. I find myself. Perspectives are a little more open. I find that I am allowing myself a chance or an opportunity to breathe.

The particular balrock that I'm sitting on today to do this live stream with you is all around self discovery. That's the energy that they have identified for this particular vortex. So this hill here is called Bell rock. And it's about patience. It's about self discovery. There's a masculine and a feminine energy that go along with these as well. And so I'm sitting in the space of just allowing myself to breathe and pause and discover, and I'm allowing myself to be really happy with where I'm at today.

I've met some people from Canada, some people from China, a person from Australia just right here, sitting here, all of us looking at the view, asking each other how we get up there, but also just taking a time to look out over the beautiful landscape that we're sitting in. So if you've never been to Sedona and you have the ability to, I invite you to do so. If you have been, I'd love to hear what you love, which hikes you've done, how you felt. But at the end of the day, I would just love to invite you to take some time today for you to take a pause, find something that you want to do.

And instead of focusing on the end result, focus it on how far you've come and take a few moments to look up and see the landscape that surrounds you. And allow yourself to use your imagination, allow yourself to breathe slow, deep. Allow yourself to feel the energy of whatever space you're in, whether it's a museum that you go to or a hike or a lake or sanctuary or zoo, find something, some way that you can do a little retreat for you and not focus on all the little points that you can probably get to.

But focus on celebrating the moments and the journey that it took for you to have the courage to take those steps forward. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. I'll be calling in for professional development tomorrow. I'll be in Scottsdale, so I hope to see you then. Have a great rest of your day and take a little time for you. You're going to try it.