Finding Completeness Unplugged on the River

I’d found my groove because I’d surrendered everything as I stopped the pace and regimen of everyday life. I felt balanced, joyous, free, flowing with the current. And I’d had genuine friends with whom to share the journey.

Posted on Tue 21 Feb 2023 · by Jennifer Dale

A river coaxes us to surrender to our completeness. While the sea ebbs and flows, the river flows onward. It’s as if she says, “You have all you need. Stay centered with the current, in integrity with yourself, and I will carry you on.”

I spent a week on the Green River on an HHJ scouting trip with sister friends in 2021. When we finished our 84 mile journey, I felt balanced, renewed, myself. I was one with Spirit, so present and uninterrupted.

Before that, my husband and I had just loaded everything we owned into storage and moved our lives into a 30 foot Airstream. With our dog in tow, we drove nine hours from Las Vegas, where we’d hunkered down during the COVID lockdown, to Green River, Utah.

After a night in an RV park, I joined three girlfriends on a small plane for a 30-minute flight over the Tavaputs Plateau to the Green River put in at Sand Wash for a 5 day raft trip.

It was surreal. Less than 24 hours after taking a 90 degree turn in my life, I found myself seated on an oar boat, face turned to the sun, with nothing that I needed to do. All the checklists, last minute moving decisions, prayers that everything would fit into storage… they all fell away.

I hadn’t realized that our guides would row for us, giving us time to catch up, take a refreshing dip, or just relax and drink in the beauty of the shifting sandstone scenery.

The friends I was with talked at rapid speed, their words wrapped in radiant smiles.

I found myself at odds with their joyous energy. Here on the river, they were so different from the responsible, focused colleagues I knew. I’d gathered them for this trip, and there was something unique and precious that I loved about each one of them. Now, they were carefree, uninhibited, and childlike. I couldn’t keep up! Exhausted after weeks of hectic push, I had nothing left.

“Jen, give yourself permission to do what’s right for YOU. Don’t worry about anyone else. You’re each coming to this trip from your own set of circumstances. Right now is no time for FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). You’ll have time to catch up later,” I encouraged myself.

With my straw hat propped to protect my face from the sun, I reluctantly tucked myself into the bottom of the boat and felt the gentle current beneath me. I was out like a light before I finished my next thought!

How often do we allow ourselves to not feel guilty about what we need if it’s different from what others need? How often do we stop comparing our energy, our words, our engagement, to others’?

How often are we present, fulfilled, grateful in our own skin?

When I awakened, the sun directly overhead, our guides were jockeying to tie up the boats for lunch. I watched in awe as they loaded an array of colorful fresh veggies and fruit into a net beneath their prep table. Within minutes, they’d whipped up delicious curried chicken salad sandwiches, served with juicy slices of ice-cold watermelon. All I had to do was reach out and grab what I wanted as the plates of food made the rounds.

I was back in action! And content in my own time.

That night, with the stars in their splendor above us, our small group of friends gathered on the beach. Though we’d each joined the trip from different places, we’d all read the same book beforehand and each prepared an activity around its themes to lead at some point.

One of us led the group through a series of progressive questions that allowed us to reflect individually in our journals before we had the invitation to share the ideas that had unfolded for us. With such natural ease, we laughed and talked late into the night.

The openness, respect, and trust were pretty immediate as we stepped beyond our previous friendships with each other into the depths of where a rare, unplugged week together would take us.

Away from daily responsibilities, we could reconnect with who we were as individuals aside from the expectations of our roles and relationships.

It was to be a beautiful balance of time for individual reflection and opportunity for collective connection.

That first night, tucked into my tent, I listened to the steady rush of the river below and was filled with gratitude for what was to come.

Awakening our first morning on the river, I was surprised by how well I’d slept. My mind felt freer, lighter; I felt the profoundness of the simple, stripped down environment with no distractions from electronic devices. While a friend dipped in the water downstream, I watched as the early morning sun bathed the canyon walls across from us in a golden glow. The water, still and glassy below them, doubled their size in reflection.

As we packed up our gear for the day, the four of us recounted our parting exchanges from the night before. We’d giggled like school girls, and the freeness of our laughter had felt like magic.

A twelve year old girl on the trip pleaded with her parents to let her go with us on what affectionately became called 'The Lady Boat’!

There was such a lovely, natural balance and completeness here. We embraced both the gentle peace and time to reflect during quiet stretches on the river while the guides rowed for us. Then, just moments later, we’d be scaling boulders to scout the exhilarating rapids below. Our crew of women was usually the first to request using the individual inflatable kayaks called ‘duckies’; we wanted to embrace every new adventure and cheer each other on.

During free time in the late afternoons, we had space to fall into effortless conversation – about marriage, friendship, finding healing from childhood sadness. We celebrated each other’s kids whom we all knew.

Circled up after dinner, we couldn’t wait to dive into the journal prompts and activities that seeded independent restoration and peace. It was such a gift, too, to have each other to invite and honor our humble, healing honesty.

Our last morning on the river, I found myself thinking, “I don’t want to go home.” It was such a sincere realization.

I’d found my groove because I’d surrendered everything as I stopped the pace and regimen of everyday life. I felt balanced, joyous, free, flowing with the current. And I’d had genuine friends with whom to share the journey.

Scientist and inspiring author Joe Dispenza calls it, “an awareness of the generous present moment.” I’d embraced the completeness of exquisite moments of connection and growth that I’d taken time to notice that week.

We still have our Lady Boat text thread. Though we don’t use it as often as the first weeks following our trip, the feelings of completeness and unresisted one-ness that I felt during our time together return effortlessly. Those feelings and memories are permanent and healing, and I am new whenever I think of them. They carry me onward.

When you do things
from your soul,
you feel like a river
moving in you,
a joy.

- Rumi

Join Jennifer and Honest Heart Journeys on the river in June, 2023. Find out more here!