I found a deep sense of simplicity last week, when I spent my time with 7 horses off the grid in Ranchita, CA, in a Horse Constellations mentorship with Sara Fancy.

In this experience, I also got to learn how to live an alternate lifestyle to one I have known. Living in a tiny room, having baths outside, using an outdoor kitchen and feeling into a very basic life in the mountains. Wow — It felt so good. Having very little and enjoying the things I love. Choosing to not add in the extras of life that actually tire me out or rush me.

It was deeply enough.

I reconnected with a deep part of myself that KNOWS how to communicate deeply animals, specifically with horses. This made way because of the simplicity that I was allowing in and found in the space.

Simplicity is a breath of fresh air.

When I simplify, I find an availability in me to enjoy more. I feel clearer and more open.

Simplicity can come in how we choose to spend our time. Less in our schedule. Less doing and more being. It can be in how we act. How we see what’s important in a situation. How we can take a moment to breathe and use our intelligence or wisdom to get clear before doing. It can show up in our spaces — being more minimal in your purchases or what you keep in your space, what you carry around with you. What thoughts you feed into or engage with. Simplicity can come when I use my creativity to find the path of least resistance — the ease — or act with what’s truly important in mind.

With simplicity, we prune off the unnecessary and allow ourselves to get out of the way of true enjoyment and ease. Simplicity brings us more empowerment within — that more of our life energy can be gathered and used well. We can find a more genuine and deep connection with ourselves and others. We can perhaps see better our interconnectedness with all beings and nature. We can offer more appreciation to the basic ingredients of life. We can create a global shift towards being enough, consuming less and being more in ourselves.

There’s a time to bring in complexity, and there’s certainly a time we may enjoy the busy-ness of life. It’s not that simplicity is right and complexity or busy-ness is wrong. It’s a matter of balance and what is needed in your life right now.

If you’d like to take inventory of this balance in your life, consider meditating on following questions and allowing any responses or experiences emerge.

• Feel into a time of simplicity — how does it feel for you in your body?
• Where in your life can less be more?
• What mental and spacial clutter can be released?
• What would bringing more simplicity into life do for you?
• Where can you be clear and direct?
• Where can you surrender into things being enough instead of being enticed by the frills or busyness?
• What parts of your life could use some simplification? Your space, your relationships, your work or life expression, daily tasks, social life or other?

When Fear Blocks Simplicity

Sometimes simplicity illuminates what we have been avoiding or feel is unpleasant to see. When there is a clearer space, our deeper inner experience can fill into that space, asking us to look at something that we have buried in the to-dos and busy-ness of life. This can be a way to protect ourselves from pain, but it also prolongs it.

Check in with yourself about the following:

• Do you avoid or fear simplicity?
• What are the benefits and purpose of staying busy or making life overwhelming or complicated?
• What would happen if you simplified even one part of your life?
• Where have you convinced yourself that being busy is how you like it? Is there something underneath this that is protective, defensive, or avoiding vulnerability or discomfort?

There’s no need to be hard on yourself or blame. Looking at yourself with gentleness and compassion can open up your availability to shift something if it is needed. I encourage you to take just one loving or healing step towards simplicity if that is what you need right now.

 

Featured Photo Candice Wu