Tag Archives: aliveness

“Plenty of growth can be found in removing your vices, but the real leaps are unlocked when you stop clinging to your comforts.”

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“Plenty of growth can be found in removing your vices, but the real leaps are unlocked when you stop clinging to your comforts.”

—James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits

Image from Unsplash by Fiona Dodd

We spend years pruning bad habits—late nights, excess sugar, and reactive anger.

Yet, the deepest transformations begin not when we abandon what harms us, but when we release what merely soothes us.

Comfort is a quiet jailer of potential.

It whispers, “Stay here. You’re safe.”

But safety is not aliveness. The leap—the breakthrough—arrives only when we step into the unknown, the uncertain, the uncomfortably alive moments of each day.

EXERCISE:

In what areas of your life are you clinging to comforts that don’t support your best self?

Consider replying to this post identifying these area and what you intend to do to grow beyond them.

There are two ways to feel the wind

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“There are two ways to feel the wind: Climb into the open and be still, or keep moving.”

—Mark Nepo, author of The Book of Awakening

Image from Unsplash by Crystal Baeza

We all want to feel vital and alive. Feeling the wind on our skin when we are still lets us know that the world around us is alive. When we feel no breeze about us, we often tap our own stores of energy and take action to move in the world to feel something.

On most days, I take a walk around my housing development. One circuit is about eight-tenths of a mile and there are four primary segments that point in all four directions. During parts of my walks, I feel the wind directly in my face. Other times it comes toward me from the sides or from behind. It is in this last situation I can often make my walking pace equal to the speed of the breeze when only the aliveness from within my heart and breath can be felt.

EXERCISE:

Where and when do you feel the greatest sense of aliveness? Try some experiments of being still and doing something active to see what you discover.

“Aliveness comes from living a life of personal integrity in which…”

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“Aliveness comes from living a life of personal integrity in which our outer actions match our inner values, beliefs, wishes, and dreams.”

—Jerry Colonna, American venture capitalist and professional coach

Image from Unsplash by Katya Austin

How alive do you feel at this moment?

Take a trip down memory lane into your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and ask yourself the same question. Dig a bit deeper to determine the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for your answers.

What about projecting this question forward into your 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond?

How can you maintain and even increase your aliveness well into your senior years? What can and will you do to experience far more life in your years, not just more years in your life?

Life expectancy data points to many more of us becoming centurions due to exponential technologies, especially in the field of medicine.

EXERCISE:

A few books you may wish to explore relative to this topic are:

Halftime by Bob Buford
Replace Retirement by John Anderson
Abundance by Peter Diamandis
Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley

Also consider taking the online Real Age Test to see how biologically youthful you are today.