FINDING YOUR PASSION

Hi
Please indulge me the following travel story, to get to the point of passion.
For those who don’t know me.
I LOVE travel!
My parents were against me traveling in my youth, so being a slightly defiant only child, my friend and I spent 2 years saving to travel on a 5-week adventure to Australia/New Zealand/Hawaii and Fiji. We were 18 when we departed on our great adventure! Why my parents didn’t protest more, I have no idea!
Part of my passion ignited with a fearless drive to try and squeeze in as much adventure as we could into our trip.
I remember the bus driver in Australia saying to us “do your parents know you are taking the bus? ”I said, we are 18 and are travelling from the US!“ We did look young.
One of the things you do in Australia, if you have NO idea of the dangers there, is go on a “walk about. “ One B and B we stayed at was on a large farm, so my friend and I went exploring looking for kangaroos in tall grass. When we returned, the proprietor said,” do you find any black snakes out there?” We said,” no. are they dangerous?” the owner said “dangerous? they are deadly!”
That was our first clue that we should be more careful.
However, I don’t think we were as careful as we should have been, ahhh youth.
I could go on and on about our trip. But our funniest adventure was when we were in Kiwi land and we rented a camper van that was supposed to be automatic but was a stick. As we pulled out of the car rental facility, on-coming lights were flashing at us! OMG we were on the wrong side of the road. Turns out, one of us couldn’t drive up hill, and the other couldn’t drive in reverse. So, we spent many a time changing drivers on hills and in reverse. This was particularly challenging at sheep crossings.
I think we almost burned out the clutch by the end of the week!

When swimming on the Great Barrier Reef, both of us were overwhelmed with the swim/distance back to the boat and the fact we didn’t have life jackets on. We both had too much pride to let the other know we were both drowning!!

Was that a crazy trip to go on at 18? probably. Could we have died many times? possibly, do I regret going? NEVER! It is the slight danger, the thrill of trying new things, foods, culture and nature that really sparked a curiosity and lust for travel for both my friend and I.

This was the beginning of a yearly pilgrimage to wherever we wanted to explore over the next 7 years. My friend got married after those 7 years and we traveled separately until this year when we re-united to travel again.

So, what does travel have do with living a more passionate life?
Because nature is the perfect balancer! It is always demonstrating the yin and yang of life. For example-Adventure and Relaxation. The rush of adventure like white water rafting and coming down off a adrenaline rush, a chemical let down happens, ahhh best night sleep ever!

Nature challenges us to go deeper into who we are. It whispers and sometimes screams. It is quiet and sometimes tumultuous. It is the polarity of nature that connects us to the polarity of human nature. When we are connected fully with ourselves, joy happens, passion can happen, peace floods the senses. Everyone experiences their inner balance differently, but something shifts. Challenges are also our teachers. Whenever challenges stretch us beyond our capacities, miracles of self-discovery and passion unfolds.
So next time you have a chance to try something new, even though it is scary, try it...you never know... a part of you, you never knew existed, might reveal itself and wouldn’t that be amazing?!!!
 
Maybe travel is not your passion. That’s okay. If you don’t try new things, you will never know what your passions are? Why not try something new once a week? or once a month? Whether it be a new food, a new meet-up, a meditation app?
​Life is calling, why not answer the call?
 
Enjoy the ride!!