What a glorious morning. It’s 6:30 in the morning, stars are still out, a good night sleep, the dog is eating, cats are fed, and I am having my coffee, what a glorious morning. This blog has created a lot of energy for me, especially Sunday mornings. Not sure why, but the past two Sundays I have woken up with a writing idea, that is glorious.
As I was falling asleep last night I had the TV on watching Man vs Wild. This is one of my favorite shows where this guy named “Baer” gets dropped in the middle of unforgiving areas and tried to survive and get out alive. He does have help if needed, but it really is quite interesting watching these types of shows as it excites me to think that in survival situations ordinary people can and do extraordinary things. Now yes I understand this guy is a professional and not real ordinary for the situation, but he does it. Over and over again he challenges his body, mind, faith and soul to do unbelievable things.
After I turned the TV off I started wondering what if I was ‘dropped’ into a survival situation. Not so much death defying, but something way outside each of my comfort zones. Do I have the mental, physical, emotional fitness to survive? How about you? Do you have the fitness to survive? It got me thinking that survival of the fittest isn’t about physical as even Baer will say “it is your mind that will make you crazy not your body”.
It is now January 10th and my New Year’s Resolution of losing weight is going okay. I have been to the gym 6 times, worked out with a trainer 3 times and have been watching what I eat. Physically I am doing okay and think I can survive, but what about mentally and emotionally? What challenges have I given myself to become more mentally and emotionally stable? What challenges have I given myself that would allow me to survive any situation?
Maybe this blog is one way to challenge my mental capacity, but it really isn’t outside of my comfort zone. My thoughts on paper are not outside of anything. Maybe the spelling is a challenge as that has always been an issue for me, but Word takes care of most of that, so what am I doing to challenge my mind or my emotions?
These were my thoughts last night and after finally falling asleep I woke up with my challenge. As I sit here writing I see 50 or so self help and coaching books that I used for writing my dissertation. None of which I have opened in the two years since I completed that. None which I have even referenced in my daily life or in planning my life, but all that have important and meaningful messages.
My purposeful challenge is to get back into an uncomfortable state of learning by revisiting the books on the bookshelf. They should not be there to collect dust, rather clear a mind. A challenge to go outside of my box and read, study, learn more about mind and emotional survival. Let’s see where this takes me.
Do you have a mental and/or emotional challenge?
As I think about it, I know that my greatest growth has always occurred when I feel 'stretched', not as in too thin but reaching outside of my comfort zone. There is always the chance of not being successful, but when I consider turning down a growing opportunity my gut usually tells me that not even trying is worse. The interesting part of the whole event is that it often turns out better than I might expect, but maybe that is internal because the sense of 'success' is from the doing, not from the outcome - though I won't turn down that A I got in genetics! :)
ReplyDelete