Hello Beautiful Souls,
I hope this summer has been a vessel of blessings and light for you all. For me, summer is a seasonal vortex, a hyper-focused rollercoaster that oscillates between heightened awareness, profound exhaustion, immense gratitude, and the familiar pull of overindulgence. It is a potent teacher, constantly challenging me to return to my center amidst the beautiful chaos of its extreme polarities. The real practice is navigating this without getting caught in the story of judgment, whether good or bad, for that is the very essence of non-attachment.
My travels have been extensive these past months, with long periods away from the physical structure I call home. This separation became a powerful opportunity for practice: holding the feeling of home within my own body, an internal anchor point when the distractions of the outer world threatened to pull me from my center. Before departing on the longest of these journeys, I sat in my garden, observing the quiet sanctity of my physical home, and repeated the mantra, “I am home, I am home, I am home.” It’s a profound realization that we can always find that quiet space within ourselves—that we are always home, even when we forget.
The siren’s call to distraction heightens as the stimulus of the external environment intensifies. The danger with these digital portals is the addictive, shaming spiral that results from their overuse. The little tiles seem to jump out from behind the smooth glass of the phone screen. I find myself seeking a moment of relief, getting ensnared in a dopamine hunt that consumes time better invested in my own spiritual practice. To counter this, I’ve begun setting sacred boundaries, programming time limits on my phone that interrupt the algorithmic hijack and offer a precious pause—an opportunity to make a healthier choice. It doesn’t always work, but in that pause lies our power. Five minutes of conscious breath will always nourish the soul more than five minutes lost in the infinite scroll.
This past weekend, I had the honor of attending my eldest niece’s wedding. In a beautiful stroke of universal poetry, she, the oldest of 12 grandchildren, married the youngest of 12 grandchildren. It struck me how one family’s journey can illuminate the path for another. We, who have lived through the birth of this technological revolution, have a responsibility to distill our experiences and pass that wisdom to those navigating a similar, yet wholly different, landscape. We are tasked with learning and growing together as one human family, just as these newlyweds can draw strength from the family who has already walked the path before them. I am so incredibly proud of my niece and wish her and her partner infinite blessings on their path.
What wisdom are we passing on?
Technology is not going away; neither are community and family. We must fight for the most enlightened versions of all three, accepting only that which fosters our collective growth. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the abundance of these forces in my own life and hope to help you cultivate that same abundance in yours.
Feel free to reach out if you wish to explore these currents of thought together.
I wish you love and light in every breath.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,
Jeffrey Stewart