I wasn’t watching the movie. I was in it.

Happy Sacred Sunday!

Last week I promised I’d share the nuggets of wisdom I got from Warrior Week (pre-appendix 😅) and I am a woman of my word.

Warrior Week is a week-long retreat my sons’ school hosts for all of the high schoolers before the year starts. Parents can apply to volunteer and serve, and I was lucky enough to be chosen this year.

Today I want to share one lesson that showed up in different ways.

Nothing compares to being in the room where it happened.

My older son attended this retreat twice before without me. I loved hearing his stories and watching the videos. It made me feel like I was there.

But the difference of attending was that it shifted from me enjoying Orly’s experience to me having my own experience. As a parent. As a human. I wasn’t watching a movie. I was in the movie.

Which got me thinking about our social media habits. We are creating a culture where we spend more time spectating other people’s life experiences than having our own. And the danger is that spectating can be such a fun sport. With good video quality and a great audio track, you can feel like you’re anywhere you want to be in the world from the comfort of your couch.

But the true energy of an experience can only be lived, not watched.

So here’s my question for you this week: where are you spectating instead of living?

Sit with it. I’ll give you three places I found it in myself.

One. In the stories I was borrowing.

I chatted with a lot of the first-time parents that week and their comments were all the same:

I couldn’t truly grasp what this was about until I got here.
I had no idea this was as impactful as it is.
Now I understand what the hype is about.

Every one of us had heard about Warrior Week for years. We had the videos. We had our kids’ stories. But it hits different when you’re the one standing in it.

It reminded me to show up as much as I can for the life I want to live.

Two. In the connection I kept waiting to happen.

I’ve been part of this school community for a few years and I honestly did not feel a sense of community there. Some of that is on me. I’ve had to split my time across several schools, and work keeps me from most of the parent events.

But even in times when I have done all the things, connection still forms little by little, in drips.

Warrior Week showed me that when you take people out of their daily life and routine and put them together for a compressed period of time to share an experience, the connection that occurs cannot be replicated. 

Suddenly you’re a part of something. You share war stories, inside jokes, and deep conversations. The tribal instinct you carry gets activated. You bypass the drips and accelerate the connection. Once again it’s the difference between being submerged in something and being on the sidelines.

Three. In nature.

Sitting by the creek, hiking in the mountains, breathing in that air. It was life giving.

Part of what made this retreat so special was the location, and it reminded me of the power of your environment. If you live in a city, you’re not in nature nearly enough. Your life is filled with buildings, air conditioning, and traffic. Nature is a reset. It brings you back to life. And the only way to enjoy its benefits is to be in it. It inspired me to find ways to bring nature into my daily living and to look for opportunities to go back into the depths of nature as often as possible. I invite you to do the same.

An alive life isn’t something you watch. It’s something you show up for. Warrior Week gave me a chance to feel super alive, and a huge reason is that I was living it instead of spectating it.

As we enter this last week of August, I want to know: are you participating in being alive?

Hit reply and tell me how.

Sending you love today and always,

P.S. On today’s podcast I’m talking about the power of living an ALIVE life. [Listen here]