Personal Strength From Doing Something Extreme

Like stunt bi-plane flying

Why did this djv-er get involved in such a sanity questioning activity? A dear gal pal was turning the big 40, and wanted to do something exciting. We've gone swimming with whales, saw a Cirque du Soleil-ish show with horses and got pretty dang close to a polar bear. Shark diving was out (clearing the mask was far too terrifying to enjoy the experience) and race car driving didn't match our frugalista ways. So with land and sea out, we took to the skies.

Side note to cover my rump. This blogger did not receive a free flight for this posting. SkyThrills was an amazing experience, and a special thanks to Mike (call sign "Rocket").

After a briefing, and getting dressed in Top Gun gear, up you go. You do actually fly the plane. It's like a driver's ed car since Rocket is behind you with another set of controls.

Ready for rolls? Level the wings, push the stick all the way right, look over the wing so you don't puke, and level it back out. For loops, Rocket tells you to pick up speed by pointing the nose down. Point the plane towards the ground going 200 mph. It questions everything you know about safety; it's a completely unreasonable (and insane) act, it's toying with the natural and unquestionable law of gravity. But to this djv-er those were the actions that produced the most significant outcome.

Some interesting things started to happen the next day. All of my previous fears and annoyances seem to go away. There was a new/renewed strength and confidence that continues today.

Morning coffee with a CEO the following week was a joy. Meeting people with big titles for the first time can scare the living you know what out of me. Their title, their success and smarts cause me to question how I will keep up with them in the conversation and blah, blah, blah. Pushing through the fear always works, but there was no need to push through this time because the fear wasn’t there. Perhaps the unconscious conversation with myself was going like this: “you have to be kidding me! You are nervous about meeting with this person after you survived (and enjoyed) flying inverted and hurling yourself towards land at 200 mph? After that, you have nothing to be afraid of.”

This djv-er’s message to you is to do something extreme, an action that questions your sense of what is reasonable. Not just outside your comfort zone, but a significant stretch. Everyone surviving divorce gets in a rut. No matter where you are in the divorce process (and even after the decree) we all get stuck. Sure you will eventually push yourself out of it, but why not take a bold step? Go for something extreme that questions the reasonable, and could jolt your system not only out of the rut, but into a stronger place.

It's made a huge difference for this djv’er, and perhaps it would for you too.

Until next time,

djv