Death-defying Adventures

In my younger days I chased danger and adventure with abandon. Pulling into Boston traffic required a quick glance over the shoulder followed by a prayer and a heavy foot on the accelerator. One of my white-water canoeing adventures resulted in my aluminum canoe wrapped around a rock; it took two 300-lb men to pull the canoe off that rock. Then they both had to jump up and down in it a few times to bang the dent out enough for us to continue down river. On another white-water trip I maneuvered (not always successfully) a rubber ducky kayak through class 3 and 4 rapids on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. That led to a Wile E. Coyote moment where, immediately after seeing my life flash before my eyes, it seemed I might go splat! spread-eagle on a boulder the size of a house.

Then there was the day I jumped out of the airplane. That was so scary that I didn't have a suicidal thought for the next two years. Rock climbing and horse-back riding (best when followed by a session in a hot tub) rounded out those youthful adventures. Most recently, flying through the air on a zip-wire brought some of the old thrill back. I'm quite sure my rotator cuff injury is unrelated to this activity.

These are the adventures that help us to defy the odds, to press up against our limits and thumb our nose at danger. As I get a bit older I discover that I'm not quite so eager to take those physical risks. Life, it turns out, is important to me. And yet, there are risks that I take on with surprising willingness, even as I kick and scream in protest. As I approach a new career in life coaching, and confront the things I have to do to make this happen, the things that take me way out of my comfort zone, I feel like I'm throwing myself under the bus. In some sense this is the return of suicidal feelings, and it occurs to me that to move into a new life some parts of me have to die. The death of beliefs and habits, when they no longer serve us, can be transformative. To grow and change we must constantly shed our skin when it gets too tight. We must be ready to step into our potential, and embrace new possibilities that stretch us so much that our old skin bursts open and we step into the world, born anew.

Listen for a minute... what wants to emerge? What will you leave behind? What will you embrace?