So the conversation goes like this…with my best friend of many years
Elaine - ‘Happy Birthday I’ve bought you a bungee jump for us to do together’
Me - ‘Erm… why….oh qnd thank you.. I think…’
Elaine ‘ It’s on our bucket list’
Me ‘I didn’t know ‘WE’ had a bucket list… ‘
Elaine ‘You wanna do it?’
Me ‘'YES, why not'
That was last September and now it’s only a few days away I’m starting to think about it…
Now as many of you know, I’m not shy of a challenge. I love cold water dips am a handstand addict and will try most things. I’ve even done a charity sky dive (the face on the below pics says it all!) and zip wired across the Costa Rican rainforest 800m and got stuck 3/4 over!
However, there’s something about a bungee jump that just gets the pulse racing more than the others… we can call it fear. Or is it excitement?
Why is this one more scary than the others for me (of course we are all different but I suspect I’m not alone here…)
Perhaps it's because i'm making an active choice to step over the edge… with no one attached. A pure leap of faith.. and this can be scary even though we know its just a few seconds and I’m sure I’ll feel exhilarated and awake like I did with the sky dive.
How much easier is everything in life if someone else pushes us.. or is attached to us… but this is one we do alone. It’s a great opportunity to exert strong will power and determination and learn about myself along the way
And anyway, what is difference between excitement and fear? The physical feeling in the body is similar even though the mindset is very different of course
Can we re-frame fear and use it to wake us up? To know fear and not let it sap our energies or stop us? To say hello to it, let it flow through and then stay present in this moment rather than live in the future which is a mystery (False - Evidence - Appearing - Real)
Think about how much time and energy we waste in advance of things that we are afraid of? Whether that be a difficult conversion with a work colleague or loved one or an event we are ‘dreading’ and then when the moment comes, we tackle it and feel exhausted and relieved and wonder why we ever worried. In fact, the energy used in these future worries can be so much better spent can’t it.
I’ll give you an example of how the mind works…
A few years ago I found a lump in my breast. I wasn’t particularly worried to start with but my doctor sent me for a mammogram the next week to make sure
In that week, I was able to observe what happened. I made up so many scenarios in my head. In fact in meditation one day I even caught my thoughts planning my funeral and seeing my loved ones faces sad… I remember noticing what my mind was going and saying to myself 'What on earth are you doing!" I said to myself ‘You haven’t even had the test yet!!’ Thankfully all was clear and no treatment was needed but the lessons I learned from the experience were valuable.
How yoga can help
So what does yoga and in particular meditation do to help this. It gives us the space to ‘notice’ to watch where our pesky thoughts wander, notice they are prone to the negative and see them for what they are. Thoughts, fears, emotions - we watch so we can change them and question them.
Then we make an active choice to allow them to dominate or to let them go and send our awareness to something we choose such as the breath, a positive thought or another subject of concentration
This is the first step to training the mind. Awareness. Bringing ourselves back to the present. Learning from the past, planning for the future but not spending too much time there
So yes, I am a little ‘excited’ for the bungee jump but for now I’m planning to not spend too much time thinking about this future event with uncertain outcomes. My energy is needed elsewhere . I’m determined to enjoy it and see it as a life experience to learn from.
As they say..feel the fear and do it anyway!
Watch this space for the next blog part 2 after I’ve done it..
Love Lisa x
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