Rejuvenated!

I feel so at peace right now. Firstly, I got tons of sleep last night - didn't make it out of bed until 10am (after initially waking up at 7:45). I felt well-rested but out of it at first, but then I went and had a massage! I was so excited; it's my very first professional one since I've been in school (I get regular massages from students in technique class and for free in the student clinic). The MT is a recent graduate (last year), and is also a certified reiki master. Very neat. I had a good connection with him, and he gave me a wonderful session - not only did it do wonders for my left SI joint/lower back tension as well as my shoulder knots, but it made me renew my interest in this field. It's so funny... I suppose this is true with everything, but I feel such an ebb and flow about whatever I happen to be doing career-wise. M and I had a tough time going to school yesterday - especially after a long break - but I had a good day. And now, after getting bodywork myself, I remember why I'm doing this. For many reasons, one of them being this wonderful sense of peace that just envelopes me so fully. And it's just not receiving massages - which is obviously important - but giving them also harnesses this sense of calm that I tend to lose so often.

On another, but slightly related subject, I was listening to NPR this morning on my way to my massage, and I caught a bit of an interesting story on life in America. How our sense of community is falling to the wayside and how our spiritual apathies are burgeoning at least partially in response to our societal wealth. I never really connected the two in my head, but it's a correlation to ponder. As we get wealthier, we tend to become less dependent on others for what we need. If we're sick, we buy the proper medications instead of relying on others tending to our needs. When we're feeling sad or need a reward for the long hours we force ourselves to work, we buy ourselves gifts to make ourselves feel better. We go to church because it is expected, or is status quo, or we can talk ourselves into making us feel better - we don't go to share our spirituality with our fellow community members.

Listening to this story made me reinforce that oh-so-crucial idea to really forge my own path and create the life I want to live. We have the opportunity to really live - and for so many of us, life just seems to happen to us. I can't think of anything more unsatisfying, just plodding through my life, doing what I think I should be doing. Part of the reason why I want to move out of the city is because life happens to me too much here. I know I can't blame it entirely on my location, but the fast pace, close proximity to neighbors I never see, heavy traffic and lack of nature do not do good things to my soul.

Hmmm. And now I should do some homework. One of the assignments I have to do is to write a 1-2 page paper on 'what is wellness?' Hah... that shouldn't be too difficult, seeing how that's pretty much what I want to concentrate on during this lifetime. :)