Thrive Wherever Life Takes You #4
One adventure in the books: Alaska- Wild and free
As an avid outdoor enthusiast and adventure lover, Alaska has been calling my name for some time now. In 2019, my husband Kevin and I planned a backpacking trip that was supposed to take place in the summer of 2020. Although that trip didn’t happen, Alaska, and the adventure that came with it, remained on our minds.
This summer we took the plunge. On June 9th, we packed up our 2015 ford transit camper van and started our drive to Alaska. Seven days, 20 bear sightings, a heard of bison, countless coffees, and one hot spring later we arrived in Anchorage Alaska.
Once phase one (driving the Alaska Hwy) was complete, we started phase two of the journey, the Denali 135 Great Alaskan Endurance Run. On the summer solstice, I traversed 135 miles across the Denali highway from Paxson to Cantwell. Kevin and our good friend David crewed me from the van, and shared a few miles, a few smiles, and not enough zzzz’s over the 33 hours it would take for me to complete the distance. Running through a sunsetless night and never needing a headlamp was wild. The sun stayed up and low in the sky and I was treated to the most beautiful, vibrantly colored, multi-hour long, “sunset” from 12:30am until 3:00am. I cruised through the 100 mile mark in my fastest 100 mile time ever (22 hours). The last 35 miles seemed to last forever, but one step at a time, I remained in the moment, and kept moving until I crossed the finish line in Cantwell. Upon finishing, my crew and I were greeted by the race director and served up fresh food and beer. It felt glorious to sit down and laugh in the warm sun and be off my feet.
After the run, we started upon the third phase of the trip, exploring the Kenai peninsula. The wild beauty and grandeur of Alaska took our breath away. In every little town and down every stretch of road there were endless snowcapped mountains, vividly rich and vibrant green foliage, rugged raw exposed rocks, and glacier lakes so impossibly blue they looked unreal. We took our time soaking in the endless beauty and endless hours of daylight.
This trip has made me think a lot about time. From taking time off of work, to observing the slower pace of life in Alaska, and experiencing the seemingly endless amounts of time on the ferry ride, its undeniable my relationship with time over the past few weeks is different from my typical day to day. Time is something we never seem to have enough of. It’s easy to say you don’t have time for something. It’s a common complaint and often tossed around excuse. It is challenging to make time for the things that are important to you. But isn’t it even harder to not make that time? Because if you don’t, you risk filling your days and your life with the “should dos” and the “have to dos” while never getting to the “want to dos”. Making time for the “want to dos” reinvigorates the soul. When you spend an adequate amount of time doing the things you want to do, it becomes easier to face the things you have to do. In a world where time is a precious resource, it’s worth thinking about how you want to spend yours. And how different life could feel if you spent more of it pursuing something you wanted.
One lesson worth learning: Detach from your thoughts
We have thousands of thoughts a day, ranging from the mundane (e.g., I could really use more coffee) to the profound (e.g., I am stronger and more capable than I ever imagined). Our internal dialogue can be encouraging or it can be discouraging. If you are like most people, you’ll have some negative and discouraging thoughts each day. However, negative thoughts don’t have to derail you. The trick is to not allow yourself to get to attached to them. Creating space between you and your thoughts will change your relationship with the negative thoughts you have and help you move past them to become a more confident and powerful version of yourself.
This can be accomplished in many ways. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has many powerful tools to help us separate from our thoughts. These are commonly referred to a diffusion techniques. One classic tool is to call out the thought by adding the phrase “I’m having the thought that…” before your thought. This can change our internal dialogue from “I’m stupid” to “I’m having the thought that I did something foolish”. By inserting that one additional phrase, you’re creating a small, subtle, but certain space to allow yourself to believe something else and entertain another perspective. Just because you think something, doesn’t mean it is completely true. Other metaphors and visuals can be helpful too. For example, thinking of thoughts as radio frequencies and giving yourself the power to turn the volume up or down. Thinking of thoughts as leaves on a stream and watching negative thoughts come and go. Thinking of them as passengers on a bus, with whom you may share a short ride but who will eventually get off the bus.
Other ways to diffuse thoughts include: Sing the thought, say it in a silly voice, say it very slowly. Another classic is to thank your mind for the thought, “Thank you brain for reminding me of that, I already know”, or “Ah I was already expecting that thought, so glad you could join me”. You can simply even say, “that’s an interesting thought”.
One more diffusion tool that I like is called naming the story. Many people have a pattern of repetitive, negative thoughts that continually and reliably come up when prompted by certain cues, circumstances, stressors, etc. Imagine all these thoughts and feelings put into a book, and titled the something something story. Whats the name of your story? What would you call it? Each time the story shows up, name it and call it out. “Ah, there’s my XYZ story again.”
Again, calling the thought out in this way can serve a simple but powerful function by reminding you thoughts are just thoughts, they may or may not be true, valid, valuable, or helpful.
One quote I’m loving:
“The space between suffering and breaking is called spirit”