Life is a daring adventure, or nothing!
“Life is a bold adventure or nothing. Safety does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men generally experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposing yourself.” Helen Keller.
I’ve always loved this quote, well to be honest I’ve always loved the first part. I have never seen it complete and when you do it makes it even more powerful. He came to me at the end of my meditation and somehow resonated deeply. What he also resonated was that it is my choice. Am I going to continue choosing the daring adventure? Are you?
The past year has been a roller coaster year for many people and many have found it fraught with challenges. Maybe it’s the same for you. At such times it’s tempting to crawl under the covers and feel a bit ‘poor me’. However, it is not only the time to move on, but it is also the time to step back in the middle of the river instead of clinging to the sides. To choose the daring adventure.
I was recently talking to someone who told me that he was moving from where he had lived for a long time. I asked “where are you going?” and she replied “no idea, but something will come up and I’m open to what comes.” Now that is life as a daring adventure. Are you living your life as a daring adventure? It can be so easy to fall into the “I’ve tried everything and nothing can change” trap, when you start to believe that, you stop being open to adventure.
As you move toward identifying what you want in your life, it’s good to have plans, goals, and milestones along the way. We need them to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. However, if we focus too much on a plan, we stop being aware of what is happening around us. And we start to believe that there is only one way to climb a mountain.
The problem is that when we can only see one way to get to the top of the mountain, we focus on the tunnel, believing that there is only one way to get there. Instead of the daring adventure, the world gets smaller and smaller. Nice and safe, no surprises, but no change in sight. And, as you know if you know anything about NLP and how the mind works, once we focus on just one thing, our unconscious mind can act like a search engine to find us the exact match. Fantastic if you’re focused on the right thing – fatal if you’ve forgotten to be open to this or something better.
It’s great to write your passions on a card, but the most important thing is to write ‘this or something better’. That is the daring adventure. That’s being open to what’s coming. Yes, focus on what you want, yes, focus on your passions, yes, set goals. and markers and things to accomplish and yes, take action to make it happen. They are all important. And leave the door open so that what you want comes in a different way.
Time and time again I have seen this happen with clients when they are identifying what will fill them up. Once they’ve seen the essence of what would make them happy, it has appeared, but not in the way they would have thought when we started working together.
So my challenge to you is to look and see where you are limiting your life. Where are you limiting yourself in relation to seeing the life you really want? Where are you not living life as a daring adventure? Where you don’t see the opportunity because it doesn’t look exactly the way you think it should? What can you let go of to create the space where you really want to flow? If you really want a life that feels like that daring adventure, get rid of the limitations, look at the big picture. Your heart will lead you on this adventure; it will ‘feel good’. Once you have that feeling, even if you have no idea how you’re going to make it happen, commit to doing everything you can so that you, too, can live the bold adventure, your bold adventure.