Personal Journeys to Reset Mind, Body, and Soul: Embracing a Healing Path

The journey towards true well-being is about rediscovering what makes your heart swell with joy, finding moments where you breathe deeply and feel truly alive. This journey isn’t just about tweaking a diet or adding workouts to your week. It's a journey back to yourself (a potential article to be written)—a delicate dance of listening, feeling, and responding to the whispers of your body and soul.

I remember standing on a windswept beach in Long Island on a cold winter morning, the Atlantic’s waves crashing fiercely, the air biting my skin. Everything in me resisted the idea of entering that frigid water. But I waded in, my breath catching as the cold gripped me. For a moment, it was pure discomfort.  I would have run for the hills if I hadn’t seen my niece's friendly face next to me and realized we were in this together. Then, suddenly, something shifted—the icy water became exhilarating, an unexpected elixir that woke up parts of me I hadn’t felt in years. The cold water was a reminder: sometimes, discomfort is the doorway to a more profound vitality. I use the word “sometimes” because anyone who knows me knows that I am not into the discomfort that challenges some people to push through; no, I would say I “sometimes” run from what is too painful. But for some reason, this time, I was going to get through it and see what the other side had to offer.

Our guided group became bonded in the cold water of Long Island, and we all started the reset process. It was the starting point of a 6-month conscious effort to push myself and retrain myself to be the person I wanted to be when I set off for college all those years ago. The person I longed to be back then was someone who craved adventure, travel, and the quest for knowledge. I didn’t have the big career dreams of most; I thought the corporate world was a prison filled with politics and clicks. No, I wanted to be my own man, learning other cultures and languages and gaining a deeper understanding of the physical world. For the most part, I did curate my life with adventure and learning, but as I got older and the stress of society, pressure screamed for me to own, procreate, and follow the leader. I fell prey to these pressures and, for a long time, within those confines, made me slowly lose myself and my love for life.

The three-day cold-water plunge retreat I took in the winter of 2024 marked the starting point for a six-month Mind, Body, and Soul journey through Europe, where I learned how to be my authentic self once again. I wanted to find my biorhythm, which I embraced as a young man.

Living in Tune with Seasonal Rhythms: Letting Nature Lead

There’s something poetic about adjusting your life to the rhythms of the seasons. It’s like tuning into the earth’s heartbeat. After years of pushing myself to go hard all year round, I learned this the hard way, no matter the weather or my body’s whispers for rest. But one crisp November, after battling another bout of burnout, I decided to change. I swapped my intense morning runs for evening walks under the stars that winter, letting the cold air refresh my spirit. I learned to embrace winter’s slower energy, finding warmth in slow-cooked meals and early nights by the fire. By spring, I felt a burst of energy I hadn’t known in years, a testament to what can happen when we honor the natural cycles.

The Shock of Cold Therapy: A Metabolic Awakening

I would've laughed if you’d told me a few years ago that plunging into icy waters would become a beloved ritual. But after moving to Lisbon near the coast, I kept seeing locals swim even in the coldest of waters, even in the heart of winter. I joined them one morning, driven by curiosity (and perhaps a bit of madness). The shock of the cold sent my body into an immediate state of alert, but it also sparked something primal. As my muscles contracted, my mind cleared. It was like someone had pressed a reset button. Now, I head for the water whenever I feel stuck in a rut—physically or mentally. The cold never gets easier, but the feeling afterward is pure magic: a sense of being truly alive, deeply connected to the elements.

Nourish to Flourish: Shifting the Focus to Abundance

In my twenties, I tried every diet under the sun, convinced that deprivation was the key to health. But all it left me with was an unhealthy obsession with food and a body that felt constantly deprived. It wasn’t until I began exploring whole, seasonal foods that everything changed. This past summer, while living in Lisbon, I ate peaches straight from the tree, and their sweetness filled me with a kind of joy I hadn’t felt in ages. That’s when I realized that food is meant to be nourishing, not punishing. My meals are colorful celebrations of what’s in season—roasted root vegetables in winter, fresh herbs in spring, and berries picked on a sunny day. It's not about restricting; it’s about feeding your body with love. And as the song goes, “all you need is love” (link to a playlist that has this song in it)

Finding My Flow in Nature: A Soul-Deep Reset

One of the most transformative experiences I’ve ever had was during a solo hike along the cliffs of the Portuguese coast. The trail was steep, and there were moments I thought of turning back, but something kept pulling me forward. As I reached the summit, the world stretched out in all directions, an endless sea of green and blue. I stood there, heart pounding, lungs burning, and I felt free for the first time in a long while. Nature has a way of stripping away the noise, returning us to the essentials. Forest bathing, I later learned, isn’t just a trendy term but an ancient practice of immersing oneself in the forest’s embrace, letting its scents and sounds calm your mind. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I head for the trees, the ocean, or the local park. Nature is my therapist, my sanctuary, my place of reset.

Healing, at its core, isn’t about perfection. It’s about finding what brings you peace, awakens your spirit, and makes you feel at home in your skin. Whether it's the shock of cold water on a winter morning, the meditative flow of a walk, or the simple joy of biting into a sun-ripened peach, there are countless ways to reconnect with yourself. So, if you’re reading this and wondering where to start—take one step. Find a practice that speaks to you, and let it lead you back to yourself. Sometimes, the most profound healing begins with the most straightforward steps: listening, moving, and simply being. Find your Journey here.