I recently took a group of mostly retired clients on the Fynbos Trail in the Walker Bay Fynbos Conservancy. The idea was to have people in later life talk about the run-up to retirement and life after it. Contrary to my expectations, these conversations flowed between people who were strangers before the trip.
Although I intended to hike with the group, my doctor advised me not to because of an increasingly troublesome back injury. I still joined the group each evening for meals and conversation. These trips matter to me because they show me what our clients value about our work. Even more, I learned how they think about transitions and how they’ve navigated life.
My inability to hike meant that I spent days entirely by myself in remote locations without even mobile reception. I felt like it was a divine appointment with myself. I had a book, the weekend FT and my trusted journals as companions. I thought I would strategise, plan and write.
Something else happened, though. Sitting still, with bees buzzing and a gentle breeze as background music, I realised how tired I was. I could hardly keep my eyes open to do my daily journalling. I took a nap at ten and again after lunch.
I also realised how embarrassing it would sound to report on my day. It shone a light on my attitude to rest, something I have been writing about for years. Stillness connects us with our bodies, and what we need. When we’re always rushing, even feeling pressure to train or hike to relax, we stay disconnected from our bodies.
When I finally got to my journal, my thoughts surprised me. I started to reconnect with dreams I had neglected. Dreams for Foundation, for my work and my life.
In the pursuit of growth, I had pushed those dreams aside. External silence helps us hear our internal dialogue. First, we hear what is top of mind: work, children, home maintenance or financial planning. But if we stay in silence long enough, we can hear our deepest thoughts. What we really need, what’s really going on for us, our deepest yearnings.
I was alone for most of this time. I like being by myself. It never bothers me. But I know many people have found those days of solitude challenging, if not frightening. In The Sacred Enneagram, Christopher Heuertz writes that solitude teaches us to be present. Being alone, without someone to please, affirm, or applaud, helps us meet ourselves. It helps us return to our true selves, able to show up without needing affirmation or approval.
You may well ask what this has to do with wealth. If we don’t know who we are, what we want, and how we relate to others, we struggle to know what to do with our wealth, and sometimes even to build it or use it well. Money is only the conduit. And managing money well requires us to do all these things.
My divine appointment with silence, solitude and stillness, my appointment with myself, realigned my priorities. It has left me more excited about the future than I have been in a long time.
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Kind regards,
Sunél
