When a change of scene offers up more than what you see … 

"... letting go is 
as inevitable 
as breathing
surrender 
the only way
to be free ..."

Do you ever feel like you’re going round in circles?  Revisiting the same lessons you’ve previously encountered, being challenged again and again to respond to circumstances, similar yet different than before?  See my earlier post: https://fiwynne.com/2025/10/15/how-the-lesson-you-most-need-to-learn-keeps-coming-back-to-you/.  We are creatures of habit, after all.  I recently had the pleasure of seeing James Taylor in concert. He started his set with three songs that he labelled recovery songs.  He reflected that all his songs were variations on certain themes, joking that he’d written about 10 songs, in roughly 200 different ways.  Everyone laughed, but it certainly struck a chord with me.  I often write poems on similar themes and this week’s poem is no exception. (If it’s good enough for James Taylor, it’s good enough for me!)

I’m thinking that many of you may be taking holidays around this time of year. A holiday can be a great opportunity to reflect on how life is working out and if you need to re-think your priorities.  Being away from your normal surroundings can offer up fresh perspectives, which is always helpful if you want to reconfigure.  Distance provides space, room to breathe and time to think.  The very fact that you’re faced with new surroundings can open your eyes to so much more than what you see around you.  A beautiful landscape is a treat in itself, of course, but it can also trigger new ways of looking at yourself and your lifestyle.  

A few years ago, I took a trip in the camper van to the Outer Hebrides, which was a part of Scotland I had not visited previously.  The beaches blew me away.  I spent hours walking by the sea, searching for interesting pebbles, and watching the waves.  It was spellbinding.  There’s something about the rhythm and sound of the sea that is intoxicating.  It draws you in, and before you know it, your breathing is matching the rise and fall of the waves.  What fascinates me most, is that moment, just before the wave breaks.  It seems like time stands still for a split second, and I hold my breath, never quite knowing when the moment of surrender will come.  

The teetering waves made me think about how perilously I’ve sometimes held on to my own sense of being.  This was certainly true the year I was at Dail Beag, a gorgeous beach on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis.  As per normal, it took me about a week to relax into our holiday, due to the stresses of work that I struggled to contain.  I tried so hard to control my work load, and my response to it, failing on both counts. I held all that stress in my neck and shoulders, and in the way I breathed.  But being on the beach that afternoon, my body instinctively tuned into the rhythm of the sea.  My breathing slowed right down; I felt my shoulders drop, and my body relax. 

I’m glad to say that I’m in a better place now than when I turned up, exhausted, before the waves on that beach.  But I hope I never grow complacent.  It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of  setting impossible targets and punishing myself when I don’t meet them. Whenever I start to feel I’m struggling, I close my eyes and take myself back to Dail Beag.  I concentrate on slowing down my breathing and dropping my shoulders.  It usually works.  

You don’t have to travel to amazing places to reconnect with yourself.  You can do it right now, where you are sitting.  Close your eyes, imagine the sounds and smells of the sea, and relax.