Sliding Door Moments

I went on a bit of a rambling tangent in my IG stories yesterday. Not something I usually do, but something felt compelled to come out, I guess! 
 
It was sparked by some “hiking wisdom”. I do a lot of my internal processing and life pondering while on long treks in nature. 

A hike in the forest is very much like a micro dose of 🍄 for me. The world just makes sense to me in a different way when I’m out there. There’s clarity about life. But in a tolerable amount and a way that can be integrated. Not like the blast into “nothing matters because everything matters, but WTF do I actually do with that in this reality” kind of dose. 
 
On this particular hike, my mind wandered to life choices and the paths we take. Not necessarily the, “do I blow up my life for this new path?!” kind of choices, but the “micro-choices”. The seemingly insignificant decisions we make every single day.
 
It was sparked by a moment looking out over the Columbia River Gorge. Feet in the snow. Feeling the sun trying to shine through. I was in awe. The kind of awe only found in nature.  
 
And I thought to myself, this view and this exact moment is 100% worth skipping the final day of the training I was in Portland for. Without a doubt, I was immensely grateful I’d chosen to play hooky and was alone in the snow, a bit breathless from the incline. 
 
Then, the thought spiral went to: well, you don’t actually know what would’ve happened if you’d gone to the training as planned. Maybe you would’ve gained a priceless nugget of wisdom. Maybe you would’ve had a conversation that completely altered your life. Maybe something about being at that training today would’ve set off your life on a different (and of course, way better) trajectory. 
 
And maybe that’s true. It’s one of those Sliding Door moments (or Midnight Library moments). We never really know how our life would’ve turned out if we took the other path. If we had caught the final train home. If we didn’t play hooky. 
 
Spiraling into questions about parallel lives isn’t out of the ordinary for me (though posting about it on social media is). The interesting thing about this particular thought spiral, was that’s all it was. I just noticed where my thoughts went and the questions my mind conjured up. And then, I came back to the view and my actual life in that moment. And I felt really fucking grateful. For the choice to go on the hike. And for many other decisions I’d made that had ultimately led me to that moment. Both the “blow up my life” decisions and the “play hooky” kind. 
 
That’s a long way from a past version of myself. Always wondering about the path not taken. Assuming the other choices would’ve turned out better. Fearing committing. Never fully being present in my life. 
 
So then, I took some time to be grateful for her. That past version. And everything she had to go through to get me here. 
 
Present + Grateful. 
 

That’s when I really let my mind go where it needed. I started reflecting on why I’d signed up for this particular training in the first place. And realized I’d done it almost on auto-pilot. There hasn’t been a time since I finished grad school where I’m haven’t been in some kind of training program. Constantly being a student has been part of my identity, I’m realizing. 
 
Always learning. Always curious. 
 
And I hadn’t seen anything wrong with that. I thought it was a purely “good thing” that I was constantly wanting to learn more and be on the cutting edge of therapy. I’m always eager to find another expert to listen to. To learn from. To find new ways my therapy practice can grow and expand. I hadn’t realized there might be a shadow side to this. Which is also pretty comical since avoiding ‘all or nothing thinking’ and exploring the paradoxes of life is so much of what I do with people.
 
The thing I’m starting to more fully understand, is that it’s time to push myself outside my comfort zone. The comfort zone of being the “student”. And I might need to acknowledge I have things I want to share. Valuable things I can actually teach. 😬
 
If “reluctant teacher” was an archetype, I think that’s where I’d fit right now 😵‍💫. Feels a bit like the universe is dragging me along, kicking and screaming at times. I’m trying to be a little bit less like a melting down toddler, but eeek, it’s tough! 
 
This insight doesn’t feel completely new. I’ve been getting it in doses for a while now. It’s a big reason I created Adventure Club last year. Pushing myself to share and teach beyond the 1-1 work I do.
 
While this particular newsletter is a bit of a behind the scenes brain dump, it’s also some accountability for me. The wisdom inside is telling me to STOP taking more trainings. To STOP adding external input. Instead, I need to integrate and begin to explore how to SHARE with others. In future Adventure Clubs and in more accessible and ongoing ways. Stay tuned…

I guess the forest ended up being a much better teacher than any “expert” I could've learned from this week.