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Fear, the Biggest Hurdle

They say that deciding to make a major change in ones life, following through and taking that initial first step, is the biggest hurdle to accomplishing goals and approaching transformation head on (whomever ‘they’ are). At this juncture in my journey, I can honestly say that indeed yes, ‘they’ are correct! A statement that I heard today resonated profoundly to the depth of my being regarding change: “Live fearless. Find joy. Live large.”

Leaving on a Jet PlaneI’m in the throes of excitement sparkled with fear as slaDE and I plan a last minute trip to Europe for 9+ weeks. I’ve always been a very spontaneous and somewhat fearless international traveller. If I felt an urge or craved an adventurous getaway, I would jump at any chances or opportunities that oozed my way regardless of their shape, size or form. My passion and enthusiasm for stepping beyond my own comfort zone into a different country and an unfamiliar culture in the past has been my strength and motivating force to perpetuate adventure in my life. And I am so feeling this with the notion of taking yogaFLIGHT to Europe. Specifically to Barcelona. Initially however, I was faced with a whole different and puzzling challenge of extending to my husband the premise that such a trip could be hugely viable, sprinkled with the potential for yogaFLIGHT greatness. I really wasn’t expecting his walls of uncertainty. Fear was getting in the way. For the first time in a longtime, we were at a crossroads in the way that we approached our life’s journey together.

Historically, I’ve tended to leap before looking, without forethought of the potential consequences when it came to travel (BS ~ before slaDE). On the flip-side, slaDE tends to logically think out and rethink every step of the odyssey. Me, I just go. And live with whatever unfolds along the way (I may be generalizing somewhat hugely, but you get the picture).

When I travelled in my twenties and thirties, I didn’t have the internet or the massive educational resources (library books, travel blogs and DVDs, etc) that we have today at our fingertips ~ instant consumption. Back in the day, I was an intrepid nomadic global wanderer. Now that, as a society, we have opportunities to go crazy in online planning, I’m finding myself overwhelmed by the possibilities and the plethora of vast information overload available online. Such a different medium and age in these travel plans. This however seems to be a positive influence for slaDE and his process, helping him work through any anxieties and fears that might have existed. After watching an instrumental inspiring video on living life fully (What would you do if Money Was No Object ~ Alan Watts), slaDE has now boarded the sKYtrain line of thinking, and currently, we are in the process of booking flights! Hurrahhhhhhhhh!

I’m noting that once an initial decision is made to actually go forth and explore, the rest is awesomely ‘easy’ and hugely fun!  For me, lists play a HUGE part in maintaining my sanity and organization. Thoughts, ideas and must-dos come tumbling out at the most random of times. And having a notepad at hand is vital to keeping me sane and on-track! One challenge that I am discovering, however, revolves around the planning details of currency exchange and money. I’m still trying to figure out best and common practises, and what would be the ideal choices for uS. My days of backpacking in the 90s revolved around the usage of Travellers Cheques (TCs) and cash as a way to live, with little difficulty in travelling from country to country currency wise. However, I’m repeatedly hearing that TCs are not as globally painless or accepted as they once were, during my heyday of overseas trekking. But I’ll leave that for another blog posting :).

As of now, I am so ready  and excited at the decision to catapult into this next shifting and phase. For the longest time, my head and heart have been out of the starting gate with an engine vibrating at the ready, yearning for international travel. It has been WAY too long!!! Yahoo!!!! Europe, here we come.

Here’s the transcript of Allan Watt’s video if by chance you are interested and searching for answers to that very same question of “What would you do if money was no object”!

What do you desire? What makes you itch?  What sort of a situation would you like?

Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, “we’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do”. So I always ask the question, “what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?”

Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?

When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much.

That’s everybody is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will. But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on spending things you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track.

See what we are doing, is we’re bringing up children and educating to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it’s all retch, and no vomit it never gets there.

And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question: What do I desire?

What are your biggest hurdles in initiating change? Do you have someone cheerleading you on the sidelines when faced with the obstacles of doubt and indecision?

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2 Comments

  1. Hope you guys have a wonderful trip! I’m envious of your travelling – something I always said I would continue to do and unfortunately have stopped over the last couple of years 🙁

    I am trying to figure out a way to bring it back and make it part of my life again, but for the time being I’ll have to live vicariously through some of my friends adventures! Like you it has nothing to do with fear, just go for it was my attitude, regardless of what people thought about a “girl” traveling alone. When I was younger I always had one bag packed ready to go, and some of my best vacations were the ones I took alone! I use to troll the then printed travel magazines flipping through the pages trying to decide my next destination.

    I suppose it’s about choices, and I am questioning some of the ones I’ve made over the last couple of years. Many times I feel like a caged lion pacing back and forth inside my townhouse in the burbs thinking…this is not what I want. Its true we are taught that we need to make money and accumulate “stuff” in order to prove our success? But what for, and for whom? It certainly doesn’t make me feel any richer to have all this stuff, on the contrary, I feel more trapped because stuff comes with expenses and stuff needs to be taken care of. You pay big bucks to have stuff, but once it’s there…

    If money was no object, I would absolutely travel the world and learn and see and smell as much as I possibly can. I would visit the jungles and rain forest before there is nothing left. I would dive off mountain cliffs in Hawaii because it’s always been on my “to do” list. I would find a way to see gorillas in the wild before they are all poached to death. I would ride camels and ostriches’ just for the fun! I would dive the barrier reef before its barren and left in ruins. I would smell the food and fresh produce sold in the outdoor markets of European villages. Yup there is tons of stuff I still want to do… Back in the day the only reason I worked was to afford to travel as much and as often as possible – work hard play harder was my motto.

    Somewhere along the line the focus got blurred and well as he said I’m miserable! … I am “doing things I don’t like doing in order to go on living!” But this is not living…getting up every morning to go do something I don’t really like just to pay the bills is just plain SAD.

    What do I desire? I desire to make a change as soon as possible and get back to living & crossing things off my bucket list. Today, I desire to get the hell away from the ice, the cold, winter and the uneventful suburban living … cuz, this just ain’t me!

    Thanks for sharing this info and have a wonderful trip!

    1. Thanks so much for sharing Deb. I understand about the power of things and the cost and hold it has. I have travelled for so long. And over the years continue to accumulate stuff and leave in storage. It’s all quite overwhelming if I even begin to think about how to deal with it all. Baby steps. In the interim, I tuck it away and don’t let it weigh me down. It would be incredibly freeing to release it all, and through the profits of selling, travel even more!

      Travel doesn’t have to be so expensive that it mitigates you from following your dreams. There are so many ways to realize your visions! I travelled the world in my twenties on very little money. Worked my way through with packing et al and managed to get my private pilots license on this kind of budget, all the while skydiving and having the most amazing life adventure. And so it continues. It’s just a matter of how much are you willing to give up for your dreams? I know that you have it in you Deb!! One life, many loves, many chances. My dubbed saying: ‘Live it, Love it, Kick it.’ For all you’ve got. Don’t let your dreams die! Breath it all in and just go for it. After pursuing your dreams, yOu’ll never die saying “I wish that I hadn’t …..”

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