These principles reflect a life philosophy developed from exploring nature as an athlete over the last couple decades. In these years, I’ve worked to retrain myself as a person, break free of things that I didn’t truly value, and move towards greater personal alignment. Everything in life is trainable and these principles can provide a useful compass for training to be the strongest expression of whoever we’re meant to be and for finding greater freedom in life. I look to this philosophy to guide myself today but I have certainly not mastered it. If anything, I know resistance deeply and these are my life lessons from one thousand things I feel that I have done well and ten thousand times I have resisted and paid the price.
Strongly and boldly we roam the earth
A bold, athletic, and adventurous outdoor life is an essential part of being human. Starting with this simple truth we can work to reconnect with ourselves and with nature. One of the joys of being human is wandering around, going on adventures and engaging with the forces of nature. We are inspired by great mountains so we climb them. We arrive at the ocean and we jump in. We venture into deserts and test ourselves. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years and it can help cure us of many of our modern problems and teach us to navigate fear to live more boldly.
With training as our path, we open ourselves to strength and discovery
Training helps us become the strong people we are meant to be. By training our bodies and minds and challenging ourselves in nature we strip away our separation from nature and we open ourselves to nature’s flow of development. With regular training practices performed over time we can set ourselves on a path to develop any of our incredible human capabilities. Anything in life is trainable and anything that seeks expression can be approached with training. As we challenge ourselves in difficult environments, we open ourselves to nature’s lessons and develop our ability to respond effectively to the changing realities of life. Life is a constant process of learning and self discovery as we move closer towards our core and untrain beliefs and limitations that we no longer need.
Following our primal call, we enter nature’s flow
As we train and engage with nature we learn to tune into ourselves and to nature’s other forces. We can train intuition by pursuing a stimulating path of athletic challenge. Nature helps us relax our grip on control and we learn to interact more effectively with the forces around us. Our own athletic inspirations guide us to challenges that help us develop further as people. They are a bit different for everyone and there are different lessons to be found in different experiences. We may not understand exactly why we are inspired to do certain things and what lessons they hold for us until after we do them or until after we open new chapters of our lives, even if we don’t know yet why. As we tune in, we can realign ourselves and find greater fulfillment.
We enjoy light in the dark, calm in all storms, and comfort in discomfort
As athletes in nature we become skilled at balancing our minds so that we can effectively deal with life’s challenges. Nature’s swirling balance of forces provides a great forum to train. It is difficult to learn to balance our minds in ordinary modern life where imbalanced perceptions are projected everywhere, where we tend to avoid shadows, and where imbalance actually underlies many of our goals. All darkness comes paired with light, all hardships come paired with gifts, and the quicker we can find our balance the more effectively we can live. Challenge and resistance are what make us strong. To grow and develop, discomfort is right where we want to be. Our weak links are our greatest opportunities to strengthen our whole. Blissful peace may seem to appear in certain moments, but nature and life will always be turbulent. As we learn to become the eye of the storm we can take effective action from a clear mind and a full heart.
We dance between inner strength and outer triumph
We generally see in the outer world a reflection of our inner world, and the same is true in our athletic lives. We can bring our inner and outer worlds together through athletic experience to learn how they operate together and to develop ourselves. Outer triumph flows from inside, and our inner strength is trained outside. Our mindsets and mental blocks are generally the biggest factors in our training and athletic success. Our beliefs about ourselves in training generally manifest themselves. Outdoor landscapes and challenges may provide us with pathways we need to navigate twists and obstacles in our inner landscapes. Ultimately, the greatest gifts of our outdoor challenges are the inner strengths that we develop and the lessons that we learn.
We live and die with every breath
Life and death coexist and give each other meaning. Life is more powerful when lived in the awareness of death. With every breath we take we are actually simultaneously living and dying. No moment can ever be re-lived and death can come at any time. We may have certain plans and visions that we are working towards and certain things we enjoy more than others but if our lives are well aligned feelings of wholeness and freedom are available each day. There is nothing to wait for. The moment we are training for is right now.
In solitude we find our path and in fellowship we find purpose
We can follow our own path in life and live with purpose if we are willing to accept the challenge. We won’t find it just by looking at what everyone else is doing and by following or competing with the crowd. Our strongest expression of ourselves is unique and is shaped by the entirety of our experience. Solitude in nature can help us find our own way and keep us on our course. We all have a unique set of struggles in life and it is these struggles that define our experience and give it meaning. In these struggles we can learn things that can help us light up the path for others and that can give us a sense of purpose.
We travel light and nature sets us free.
The overwhelming demands for our attention in modern life can block our strongest expression. We are generally trained to accumulate, live in a state of constant unfulfilled desire, live in fear, disrespect and conquer nature and other beings, and live within narrowly established lanes. This does not seem to be the way of nature and it can become all-consuming. Streams of fear and divisiveness and “information” can drain almost all of our energy. We become calmer, more effective, and freer when we let go and find greater simplicity. As we surrender to our inspiration, drown out some of the noise, and align with what is personally meaningful we can begin to unleash our strongest expressions.
Comentarios