fun – We Only Get One Chance

THE SECOND STRAP

He always reaches for the second strap.

It doesn’t matter how many hundreds of times I have put this walking boot on, he reaches for that second strap to help out.

Most of you know I have been in a walking boot since early August. This has been an overuse injury do to my climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro back in March. Actually it didn’t happen on the mountain, it was when I got home and never took the proper time to rest that the injury happened. And beyond that I have been dealing with plantar fasciitis off and on for the past 4 years in my left foot. It was simply the perfect storm of events.

The trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro was life changing and amazing however since Kilimanjaro it has been the best seven months of my life and all due to meeting one heck of an incredible man.

He has been such a light in my life and I will be sharing our incredible life adventures as we go but I wanted to introduce you all to Mike.

He is the most kind, gentle, generous, hilarious and loving man I have ever been around and I feel lucky to even be able to hang out with someone like him on a regular basis and even luckier to be loved and supported by him.

The other day as I was leaving to head back into work after my lunch, he was there grabbing the boot and helping me. Of course I am the only one that knows exactly when I am putting it on and taking it off but as soon as I grab and velcro or un-velcro the first strap, he always grabs the second strap. I got choked up “Even after all this time, how do you just keep doing that and helping me?”

Last week must have marked 500 (not exaggerating) times or so that I have taken this boot off and put it back on. If he is with me, he jumps up from any place and is instantly up in my business and helping me get this thing back on and he is always fast enough to grab the second strap. There are 5 total and by the time he has his hands on the second strap he is fixing the rest of them up for me to go out and take on the world. Every. Single. Time.

We have worked and camped and traveled and danced and played since I have had this boot on. He is always always always making sure it is handled.

There is an air pump on the boot that pumps air around the liner and softens the hard rough corners of the boot. He knows it takes 8 pumps to pump it up to a comfortable level and that when I stand up it needs 2 more pumps of air for it to be solid. He counts out loud as he does it. It comforts me.

I have never ever known a man so willing to help me in my life. He is there for the fun times but also there, right by my side for the mundane-ness of life…like taking this boot off and putting it back on. The extent of his help is endless, I am just using this simple task as illustration.

I would be a liar if I said this has all been easy for me but honestly, to accept help in my life isn’t easy to begin with and it has taken this long to really be alright with leaning on him. His continual willingness to grab that second strap has been eye-opening, as well as mind-boggling. For the 40 years of my life so far, I have never had so much help, love and support.

Does it sound strange to say that I believe the Universe sent me such a crazy injury that needed so much tending to and sent him at the same time just so I could truly have a shift in my being and allow him to infiltrate my life? Does it sound crazy that this boot has been like a “boot camp” of sorts to break me down, break all the guards down and teach me to allow someone, him, in?

A friend said to me the other day “I sympathize with your foot thing as I dealt with something similar for 6 months. It took me getting to a place in my mind that if this is how it was going to be for the rest of my life, if this pain is permanent and I have to deal with this limitation for life, I accept that as my reality…and then I started healing.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks mostly because I have learned to accept it into my life with the condition that it is just for the time being assuming it will heal and feel better. But taking the idea up a level to the concept that if I have to live in this boot for the rest of my life and be alright with that has really allowed a huge emotional release for me and I can feel the healing happen…on many levels.

…because if I get to have his help with this (which I am finally healing so I will be back to normal in the next few weeks so I won’t need help with it for a lifetime BUT there are ALWAYS other obstacles) life for the rest of my life, I open my arms and heart fully and accept it.

After all of these months and never wavering ever even once, I know he will always be by my side ready to grab that second strap and help me move forward. I am forever grateful for his love.

SURRENDER

Many things have crossed my mind over the past 3 months, many, many, many life lessons learned and one of the greatest has been SURRENDER.

In the 10 days that we were on Mt. Kilimanjaro and and traveling to and from Africa, I counted somewhere around a total of 24 hours of sleep. Once I was on the mountain, I averaged around 3 hours of sleep per night.

The dayss would look like this:

The team would come to each tent and wake us up at 6:30am.
We would make it to breakfast at 7 and on the trail around 8.
We would hike for 3-4 hours and stop for lunch. We would hike another 3-4 hours to the next camp so our days were around 6-8 hours of total hiking time.
We would get settled in and they would call us for dinner around 6:30-7pm.
We would get our briefing for the following day, turn our water bladders for our camelbaks in and head back to our tents around 8-8:30.

At this point we were free to go to sleep and that would have been AWESOME if I would have been able to. There is this thing called “high altitude insomnia”. It happens because the heart is beating faster than usual, like it does for exercise, because there is less oxygen. My my mind thought my body was still working out and it is very hard to sleep with my body in that mode.

My usual is I would finally find sleep around 11ish and sleep for about 3 hours and then be up for the rest of the night. This happened every single night. I would lay there frustrated because I knew every minute I wasn’t sleeping was also a minute my body wasn’t truly resting and recuperating from the intense day before and not really able to prepare for the next intense day ahead.

When the team would come by the tent at 6:30am to wake us up again, I would be so beside myself with frustration.

I would get my stuff packed up anyway. I would strap my boots on and get my backpack ready, grab my water and be ready for breakfast no matter what. In the back of my mind I would think to myself, “maybe later tonight I will be able to finally sleep”.

The thing is, I felt miserable inside in those moments. But there are 30 other women maybe feeling just the same or having some other experience just as miserable. It didn’t do me any good to complain to anyone. I would get in this mode of I need to do what needs to be done right now, which was strap my boots on and prepare for the day ahead. Even though it would have felt good to at least express my stress and frustration to the staff, that didn’t matter either because the trail heads in one direction, it isn’t an “out and back”. We start on one trail and continue to another one for the descent. Forward momentum is vital.

It didn’t matter how much I slept that night, or the night before, or the previous 6 nights. It didn’t matter how sore I was, how foggy my head was, nothing mattered but forward momentum and so I knew I better get started.

Endurance, the whole “put your big girl panties on and step forward“ness of this trip was such a powerful lesson in surrender. I had many logical reasons to resist what was happening and most people in that position would have similar self-talk going on about the whole scenario. But pure surrender, strapping on my boots and getting after the task at hand for that day was my only option. There was no turning around, no turning back and only one way to move. FORWARD!

When I equate this to things in my life back home, I see how this lesson has served me so well in the past few months. I have a different view on life. I have spent a lot of my years paddling upstream. I have spent so much time and effort pushing against the current going in the other direction. The past three months I have spent more time setting down my oars, surrendering and allowing myself to be pushed in the direction that life is trying to naturally take me anyway.

I have always had high and lofty goals for my life and I always will. Though I have goals and the “WHAT” I want to accomplish figured out, I don’t have to be so wrapped up in trying to control the “HOW” it all happens. I set some really powerful intentions at the beginning of April this year and life has unfolded more beautifully than I could have ever imagined. I am in shock and awe sometimes knowing that the most powerful move I can make is keep surrendering my own plan for the bigger plan of the Universe.

Maybe surrender in your mind means “to give up”, “to give in” an “to stop progress”. To me, it means to “let go and let God”. It also means to set the goals you want to achieve but surrender to the process of how it all unfolds. Our thoughts about how we want things to be or how we want them to look is usually a limited view of what is really possible. I have been taught this lesson over and over and over.

My action of surrender in the mornings on Mt. Kilimanjaro was the moment I strapped my boots on. From that point I would stand up from the tent, put my arms through the straps of my backpack, embrace the unknown for the day ahead (have no idea exactly what the day would hold, which direction we were going or how long it would take) and start stepping one foot in front of the other.

“Surrender isn’t about being passive, it is about being open.” -Danielle LaPorte

For 8 solid days, this strategy worked and I realized it would work for my life when I got home as well “Have a goal and a destination ahead, surrender to the process of the steps in getting there.” Yet another humbling life lesson and a huge THANK YOU to KILIMANJARO!!!

20 YEARS

About 20 years ago, I was clued into this place called Antelope Canyon. I am not sure where I heard about it but it has sat in the back of my mind for that long always thinking and knowing that I would visit someday.

I do not have a bucket list. I do, however, have a LIVING FULLY list. There are a few things on that and visiting Antelope Canyon has been one just waiting for the chance to make it happen

I am lucky enough to have quite a few phenomenal friends in my life, but 3 very special sisters. I grew up with 3 brothers and begged my mom for a sister right from the start. These 3 started as, what so many consider, “soul sisters”. However a couple months ago, as we traveled to a conference together, we decided to drop the word “soul” and just be “sisters”. Two of them are actual blood sisters, but two of us only had experiences growing up with boys and were ecstatic about the idea of having sisters.

We planned a sisters trip to Sedona, Arizona about a month ago. As the weekend approached, one of my sisters likes to have a couple things planned out and so she threw out some ideas over text message…and one of them happened to be Antelope Canyon.

Of course I jumped at that chance and shouted “YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!” as loudly as I could…over text message…and the day trip was planned.

There really is plenty to see in and around Sedona, and traveling 3 hours by car one way was not really necessary, however it was so incredibly worth every minute in the car. I don’t think I could use words to explain this, let’s talk with pictures for a bit…

The canyon hike was down into the earth around 30-100 feet.

It is really just that beautiful!!!

The pictures are amazing and truly don’t even come close to doing it justice. They were taken with a simple iPhone camera, nothing fancy. It is just that beautiful! Of course it appears super peaceful as if nobody is around, however, there are hundreds and hundreds of people going through this canyon in a group hike format with about 20 people per group all day long…but the crowd hardly matters.

Please do yourself a favor and go check it out for yourself!!! I’m serious!

20 years I have had this on my LIVING FULLY list…and I would go back in a second!!!

MY TRIBE

I never really felt the word “my tribe” until I went on my last vacation over the holidays. This is my tribe.

We have a resonance, ride the same wavelength.
We look at life through a similar lens.
We were familiar to each other from the beginning.
We laugh louder and harder together.
We mastermind.
We play. Like kids, we play.
We call each other out on limiting beliefs.
We call each other to be bigger people than we currently are and hold one another accountable.
We love in a really big way, each other and the world.
We bounce ideas off one another and truly gain so much from the other’s perspective.
We live fully and loudly and that is magnified when we are together.
We make our little crazy lives and ideas seem “normal” when we are together.
We have worked so hard, dug and excavated all kinds of stuff in order to uncover more of who we each are at our core. We did a lot of that work together and have tremendous trust in one another.
When there is time to shift and change and grow, a gentle space is held for when one stumbles.
We dance and sing. A lot! Fenton Chiropractor My Tribe
We can be our authentic selves, and it is encouraged.
We love life and remind each other to remain keenly aware of how blessed we are in our individual lives…and also as a group.
We have seen each other at our worst and helped to elevate that space.
We serve others and realize service is the key to happiness.
We have learned love, loss and so many other life lessons together.
We have great respect for one another.
We plan and plot and scheme.
We are family but we are so very different from our own blood-family.

That is my tribe and I wish all of you had a chance to get to know all of them. They are some of the most incredible people and my life would not be quite as rich without them. There is a great line in the Broadway play “Wicked” that goes something like this…

“Because I’ve known you, I’ve been changed for good.” This is my tribe.

LIFE IS A ROLLER COASTER

It’s been quite a few years since I rode a roller coaster. I had dinner with a friend the other night and they had mentioned that Cedar Point http://www.cedarpoint.com has a new “fast pass” that makes the day so much more enjoyable with faster lines. There is a behind the scenes entrance to all the major rides and when people are waiting 1-2 hours for a ride, this “fast pass” line takes about 20 minutes. It is over double the price of a normal ticket but worth every penny!

From the Front Seat — Front Seat of Maverick

Once I decided to go and roped a friend to go with me, my goal was to ride a couple of my favorite roller coasters, the Maverick and the Millennium Force, all day long…and that is exactly what we did. I love both of these roller coasters for different reasons. Millennium Force is just plain HUGE and really fast, rising to 310 feet, 80 degree drop, and traveling at 93 miles per hour. The Maverick is a totally different beast and travels a mere 70mph but is full of twists and turns and tunnels and is meant to mimic a rodeo.

The lines moved so quickly it was actually worth waiting a couple extra minutes to ride in the front seat of the Maverick. It is a game changer to experience that ride from the front seat. You get to see everything first hand and shooting up and over a hill with a 95 degree drop (more than vertical) really gets the butterflies and adrenaline moving! From there it is up and over another hill, twist one way, twist the other, over, under and around for about 2 min 30 sec. In the middle there is a pitch black tunnel that you come to a complete stop in. Anxiety builds while sitting in the dark waiting for the next phase. You are then blasted through and out of the tunnel and twist one way, then then other, over under and around again until you come to a complete stop at the end. Go try it sometime…it is a wild rush!

Of course as I am riding this ride over and over, I am thinking about how it relates to life. Life has its ups and downs. As soon as we are up, we are down, and when we reach the bottom, we are already heading back up. Life twists one way, we make a correction and it twists the other way. We get over things, we feel pinned down under things. Just when we have given up and stop to close our eyes and reflect, it is time to open them back up as we are slingshot out of a dark tunnel and more ups and downs and twists and turns. WOW!!!

So what are we supposed to do? How can we gracefully maneuver this ride called LIFE? When I get in line for these roller coasters, I am nervous every single time. I don’t care if I rode that ride 3 times already that day, I am still nervous when I strap myself in. I bank on the fact that there are loads of people, on a daily basis, making it to the end alive and well. I realize if I am strapped into the seat correctly, I have a really good chance of making it safely.

This idea doesn’t work quite so easily and readily for real life because there are no seats, harnesses or seat belts. I relate the harness and seat belt to our ideas and concepts about the world and the seat is the solid foundation we build on. If we figure out what our core values are, keep a positive attitude, and keep laying down a good, solid foundation, we will make it through the ups and downs and twists and turns quite gracefully.

When you get a chance to take a wild ride on a roller coaster, DO IT! When you realize your own life is the roller coaster, EMBRACE IT! Have some fun with it and know that if you have employed the proper harness and seat belt, though its not possible to come out of life alive (that is just against the rules), we can have an enjoyable ride!

Can you relate? Have you been on a wild ride, either literally or figuratively? I would love to hear your stories!