One summer day when I was about 10 years old, I decided to climb a tree. A BIG tree!
It wasn’t actually my idea, but a friend dared me to do it. Has that kind of thing ever happened to you?
Well, instead of settling for the lower branches, I decided to go all the way to the tippy top. It was one of the tallest trees in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and I could see the whole city from my lofty vantage point.
What a view! The rush of adrenaline was incredible.
However, my euphoria was abruptly shattered when my mom saw me and freaked out at the danger I had put myself in. You see, the branches at the top were pretty thin and brittle. But I was so caught up in the thrill and emotion that I had hardly noticed.
So there I was, clinging to fragile branches that seemed a mile off the ground. My mom stood at the base of the tree, screamed that she would tan my hide if I didn’t come down that instant.
I was stuck. And suddenly the adrenaline was gone, no help to me at all. Somehow I managed to find my way down, branch by fragile branch.
I wish I could say that was the last of my adrenaline-induced adventures, but it wasn’t. As a teen, I loved the thrill of riding roller coasters. Being scared out of my wits was my idea of a good time.
And some of my adrenaline escapades simply aren’t appropriate to write about in this blog.
You see, rather than sitting at home and being bored, I’ve always loved to live “on the edge,” facing challenges and transitions that most people are happy to avoid.
You might say I’m an adrenaline addict.
There are lots of us out there—people who have a “wild and crazy” side and want to live life to the fullest. Like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, we typically are looking for mountains to climb, even if that also means quite a few valleys along the way.
I was shocked, though I guess I shouldn’t have been, when my doctor told me several years ago that I was suffering from “adrenal exhaustion.” Too many thrills and chills, I guess. Being a little on the hyper side, I thought I could live on adrenaline forever. The rush of adrenaline was exhilarating, but as they say, “What goes up, must come down.”
Addiction to adrenaline is not a healthy way to live, either physically or emotionally. Although some people view their roller-coaster existence as normal, but in all likelihood they are just suffering from a bad case of adrenal addiction. So great is their attachment to adrenaline that they now cannot separate even their emotional experiences from the rush they get from overexerting their adrenal glands.
Adventure is one of the life areas we focus on in the Source, the coaching system I teach. Kathrine Lee defines adventure as an exciting or very unusual experience.
My life changed and my adrenaline glands were healed when I began to schedule adventure into my life. Learning the art of participating in exciting, unusual experiences or activities that take us out of our comfort zones can be fun and exhilarating. It helps us deal with the mundane parts of life and gives us something to look forward to. Playing it safe is easy but I want to live a life with no regrets. Having said this, I want to make sure I am taking good care of my health and the safety not only of myself but of those around me.
Making adventure a part of your life is a rush that has nothing to do with adrenal glands. And this is a lift that lasts!
What about you?
How can you become an adventurer? What are you looking forward to? How can you press past what you think you cannot do?
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