My body is here, but is my mind, heart and soul too?

I can tell you that my body is here, but half of my mind, heart, and soul are somewhere out there, dreaming! Coming home from India, I remembered saying to my mom, “My body feels like home in Denmark, but my soul feels like home in India”. Feeling divided like that is really grueling. I think most of us know this on a smaller scale; for example, you would rather do your hobby or be at home than be at work. That feeling of “let’s get this over with” because your heart is somewhere else.

We are raised to go to school, get an education, and then get a job. But now we have entered a new era of people creating completely different lifestyles. Earning money by traveling, by posting things on Instagram or investing.. Living passionatly and earning from that. Then I started questioning the model I was raised to follow. Why should I be at this job if I can earn money in other ways that brings me more freedom? Then I started questioning a lot of things. All these scenarios and questions are making my mind tie knots somewhere outside of my body. Most definitely not being here!

We are blessed to have all these opportunities! We can choose whatever education we want; we can achieve a lot of things if we just work hard enough. But we are also the only ones to blame when we don’t!

So many big themes in young people’s lives.

Sometimes I wish the internet and social media were never invented! I imagine how happily ignorant I would be. The 10 days at the meditation course in India, without any phones, were such a relief. I didn’t miss it once! I once volunteered to serve at the same meditation course, where you hand in your phone and follow a pretty strict schedule from morning till evening. I remember thinking: Wow, life can be so pleasant and simple! No shaming myself for not doing enough, not being happy enough, etc. It's like my social media equates to me being a zero because I haven’t figured anything out! But that’s not true!

Just because I don’t have a job, it doesn’t make me a zero! Just because I don’t know what I would love to spend my time on doesn’t make me a zero! But some days I really feel like these things make me a zero. Sometimes I think “I’ll just take that bloody job to get rid of these feelings”.

Today I sat with my entire family and looked at our lives from above. Okay, my uncle and aunt are working from 9-5 and then traveling every summer. My cousin is living with her boyfriend and just bought their own apartment. My brother is studying. My boyfriend is working 9-5. My granddad is on pension. Pretty normal Danish family. Then there is me: no job, no plans on taking a job anytime soon (unless I’m passionate about it), soon opening this webpage. I felt like the weird joker of the family. Their lives really don't make sense to me. The things I’ve experienced in India really made me question the western lifestyle! What will that job, that money, that home, maybe kids, that pension bring me? A hamster wheel for almost 50 years! That’s a: No thanks for me (for now)! I don’t think that the house, the kids, the x, y, z is the answer! I want to live a life every day that makes deep sense to me. A life I never want to pension from. Cause I believe that when you create the life you deeply enjoy, you will maybe inspire others to do the same. So this proces is not selfish in my opinion!

My Indian dad and I talk on FaceTime now and then. Then he asks me, “Sofie, what do you want? I would love to help you, but I can’t if you don’t know what you want!?” I always get sort of paralyzed when I get that question! That’s a really hard question!

What do you want?

Usually I answer “To be happy”, but then he says “that’s not an answer!”. Once I asked him if he has an example of what an answer could be, and he said “happy, wealthy, and healthy”. But when I answered that, he said that I wasn’t precise enough and laughed. He reminds me so much of Rafiki from The Lion King.

I am privileged to be able to ask myself that question! But it doesn’t make it less difficult! Dreaming and questioning things in your life make my mind, heart, and soul fly somewhere away from here. Feeling like what there is, isn’t enough.

I promised to call him back when I’ve figured it out… I can reveal that I haven’t called him since! Haha! Not because I don’t want to, because I love talking with him, but I don’t want to disappoint him. He keeps saying that “You need to live my karma! Don’t hide, don’t run away! You are hiding something”. This makes me go crazy! What is he talking about? One day, I’ll know exactly what he meant. But right now I’m practicing to enjoy the journey! The journey of not knowing! The journey of exploring! Enjoy all the challenges! And keep observing where my body, mind, heart, and soul are. I’m sure it’s giving me hints to answers for all my questions!