My Wild Within
I just returned from 4 days of solo bike packing in the Kootneys of southern BC. I had a lot on my mind going into the trip and had a lot of time to think and pedal throughout the trip. I was on a search for clarity about a particular question and needed to go to the wilds to get within.
The question was both simple and complex. In it’s simplest form, it was just: “Do I stay or do I go?” In its more complicated aspects it was unpacking the ‘what ifs?”. “What if I stay? Why did I take this job in the first place? What happens to my reputation if I leave this soon, what happens to the organization? They have invested in training me, how can I leave so soon? But then, how can I stay? This totally feels like the wrong place to be, like a full energy drain that I don’t want to give the energy to.”
I was waking up thinking about it, stewing about it, wrestling with it. You probably know the feeling, not pleasant contemplation but angsty indecision. I would try and put the idea to bed with a decision to meet and talk about it, but it just would not go away. In previous chapters I would have just hit it harder, I would have made pros and cons lists, I would have asked for advice. Through the process of becoming a coach, of being coached and coaching a lot, I have realized that no one has the real answer but you. That is what Wild Within stands for. This journey by bike was a metaphor for this cause. Going into the wilderness of the mountains, forests, rivers, can be just as thrilling, beautiful, scary, intense, challenging, rewarding, etc. as going into the wilds in ourselves. Both offer a platform to go within, where the real answers are for us to find.
What answers did I find then? That this is what identity evolution feels like. The job I was deciding whether to stay with or leave was part of a past pattern. I was so torn because it was work I was familiar with, that I took pride in. That when things got hard and I fell into old patterns, that it felt normal. It felt normal to have a really emotional shift, to cry, to have a drink or two and get angry about the system. It felt like an old familiar friend that I had missed. But, that friend took up a lot of time. I didn’t sleep well for the week, it felt wrong to be using alcohol to leverage emotions, I wanted to be really present with what was here rather than creating something more dramatic.
This quote best summarizes the lessons I am learning:
“We are kept from a goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal”
-Robert Brault
This is the transition and challenge I find my self in at the present moment. I made a choice that was totally in line with my past self, now it is interrupting the path of my current and future self and creating chaos. It was easy, it was a clear path, but it is no longer the work that makes my heart sing and pushes me to be my best. Rather I feel myself settling for complacency.
As I biked along, spent time by myself and nights alone camping in the wilderness, the layers of thoughts and perceptions and care for what others would think slowly peeled away. I got back in touch with who I am, what is currently making me come alive, what I do know about the next steps. I was encouraged by the contrast of who I showed up as on this bike trip compared to who I was at solstice a year ago and who I was when I attempted this bike trip last fall. It was just last summer that I really started to work the habits of the Foundations to Thrive curriculum. That I started making choices in alignment with the goals of my future self, even though they were different and scary in comparison to what I had been doing and what I was comfortable with.
Now, as I move forward, still with so much that is unknown but clearer than before, I am paying attention to tension. When there is so much tension in trying to make something work, so much attachment to the outcome, or just force or persuasion to it all, it get’s my attention. Why is it so hard, why am I set on this, why is it so important? What is my intuition saying, what is my heart saying, what is my head saying? Taking the time alone, outside, without a phone to get back in touch with the wild within me, to that flowy state of truth and self, where the answers are.
