Getting Back into Rhythm with Nature

I’ve been in New Zealand for almost a month now, and once again, I’m starting to move in rhythm with nature.
What do I mean by that?

Well, I sleep like a baby — almost 10 hours a night. That can’t be healthy, right?
I think it is.

Most of my groceries now come from the Saturday farmers’ market.
I shape my days around the temperature, the weather, and the light.
I move when it’s warm and rest when it’s cool. I listen, more than I plan.

I’m not exactly sure how all of this affects the body.
But yesterday, for the first time in years, I felt truly like myself.
Happy. Healthy. In the moment. Inspired.
Alive, in a way I thought I had left behind with my younger years.

I tried so many things to get back to this feeling:
Taking time off. Spending more time outside. Leaving my job. Moving away from Stockholm.
But if I’m honest, I think it’s the connection to nature that finally brought me home.
The other choices were part of the journey — but this was the missing piece.

So, am I moving to New Zealand?
Maybe someday.
But for now, I’m just focusing on staying close to this part of me that I almost lost.
Getting to know her so well that I never let her slip away again.

Because losing her didn’t happen overnight either.
It took years of small, easy choices, made in the name of convenience.
Moving to the city.
Spending less time barefoot in the grass each summer.
Choosing warmth and dryness indoors over fresh air outside.
Sitting still for hours behind a computer, seeing only the four walls of an office.
Working at all hours.
Letting more and more noise into my mind — social media, events, endless to-do lists — without ever having time to process it all.
Flooding my body with dopamine and distraction.

And then, on top of all that, there are the unspoken rules:
What we should eat. How we should work out.
How many steps we should walk.
How we should live.

And I don’t even have children.
I can only imagine how much heavier it must feel when you add that into the equation.

To some of you still in it, I probably sound like a crazy hippie.
And maybe I am.

But a few weeks ago, before I disconnected from social media, my friend Jenny posted something beautiful on LinkedIn.
She said she wanted to hold both sides of herself:
The part deeply in tune with yoga, nature, and stillness —
And the part driven by business, progress, and momentum.

I think I’ll get there, too.
Eventually.

But after spending the last 20 years — my whole adult life — or at least the last 13 or 14 years deeply immersed in the connected, convenient, modern world...
I want to spend some time fully remembering the other side first.
Before I try to merge them.

Because yes, I miss it too —
The passion, the rush, the feeling of community, the aliveness of building something bigger than myself.

But it can wait. I’m sure it will still be there.