Swimming upstream

I've experienced profound culture shock several times in my life. It happens whenever I re-enter western civilisation.

This time feels incredibly painful.

I have just returned from a week alone in a campervan exploring the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. It was one of the most vitalising times I've experienced in a long while. Days pulsing with the rhythm of possibility, following the flow of the breeze and surrounded by the raw, exquisite beauty of wilderness.

It is hard to describe the sense of belonging we feel when connecting with nature. Many of you will know this feeling and perhaps also struggle to articulate it. What brings me such joy is how innate it is - how there is a deep knowingness inside of us of just what life is all about, how simple and profound its teachings can be and how being present and connected is all that is asked of us.

And so it is with such grief that I return time and again to 'the world' - a world so far removed from what is there for us to be a part of. A society so deeply disconnected from self, other and the rest of nature; a civilisation so utterly lost.

I spent an afternoon last week watching salmon jump upstream, up near the north of Scotland. They were literally hurling themselves up a waterfall. Whilst I’ve always known they were capable of such magnificence, to see small fish leaping so powerfully into the might of a raging waterfall was extraordinary. And inspiring. Within them is something so innate and deeply known which drives their seemingly contradictory movement of going against the tide.

Salmon are born with this knowing embedded in their DNA – an unfolding into what they are destined to become. They simply do what is innate and feels right, even if it seems to go against the status quo.

This invitation to journey upstream, to 'unlearn' what is getting in the way of our flourishing and to follow what is innate within us all is why I created ThoughtBox many years ago. Recognising how lost Western societies have become, I built the foundations of the organisation with the intention to help young people to think, feel and connect with the world around them by tapping into their innate ways of thriving. The need for this sort of learning is growing stronger by the day.

I no longer swim with the tide. I have been swimming upstream for a long time now, but suddenly feel like that salmon with such a will to hurl myself against these raging waterfall and push through to the more beautiful world waiting the other side.

#GoingUpstream #BeMoreSalmon #NatureConnection #Regeneration