Hang Gliding Adventures and Comfort Zones

That’s me – doing a crazy summer event yesterday.  I thought it would be cool to take my husband hang gliding.  The things we do for love!  We both tried it.  It was scary and exhilarating all at once.  It was literally breath-taking!   I had to remind myself to keep breathing and to relax my muscles!

If you look closely, there I am, 2500 ft above the earth.  Holy Bird!

•  Sometimes I wonder what possesses me to do things that take me way out of my comfort zone, but then I remember…  that’s where I learn so much about myself and all the juicy good stuff happens.

In my case, it was literally trusting a total stranger with my life.  It looks peaceful in this picture, flying up there so high… and it was;  but it was also really frightening!  I felt so vulnerable and so naked to my own existence.  The experience vacillated between feeling like a typical airplane flying experience, peacefully looking out the window, but then the realization would strike that there was NO window! and I was dizzifyingly unprotected.  It was so mind bending that I had to create a new word to describe it!

 I relate it to how scary it may be to begin a journey to change your life because working on new challenges may change your life forever.  Just a little food for thought.  Speaking of food for thought, “Food changes everything!”

How I survived this?  I am not sure…  After the instructor who was flying the glider said something to the effect of:  “okay, you want to fly this thing?” and I said “yes!”  I was completely freaked out.  I didn’t expect to be given the reigns to literally my life and his (it’s not like he was going to let anything happen to us) …but really it was a pretty intense experience.  I had to take a mental break from “flying” with the reigns in my hands.  He took back control of the glider (ahem, he had control of it probably the whole time).  Then he said, “You like roller-coasters?”

Although generally, I am fond of roller-coasters, say, at an amusement park, my stomach, as I learned, does not appreciate roller-coastering through the wide open skies.  So after the roller-coaster, we had to make an emergency landing before I lost my lunch.

Moral of the story?  Do not eat lunch before flying!  By the end of the day, after a good nap, a lot of water, and some serious deflating (that’s my code word for gas bubbles release… okay, okay! burping like a volcano), I woke up and managed to get myself out to a swing dance.  Somehow, I managed to have energy to do all of this in one day.  Pretty crazy, if I do say so myself!