Back to the Edge

There is a new show on the National Geographic channel entitled: Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin

The tag line for the show is: “The world’s greatest adventurers share stories of confronting the unknown.”

On a recent television commercial, Mr. Chin is quoted as saying about edges:

“Pushing through the physical barriers can be transformative, but pushing through the mental barriers is a transcendence experience.”

Jimmy Chin

“I am all about edges.”

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

My blog post and podcast channel is: Out there on the Edge of Everything®.

From my first blog post and podcast I have talked about edges.

An “edge” is place of contrasts, a place of chaos, where boundaries are visible and encountered and changes occur.

In nature, there are many natural edges including an edge between a beach and a body of water, between the water and the waves, between a cliff and the air, the boundary of two or more habitats for vegetation and animals, many others.

Change occurs at life’s edges.  Change events can be unwanted or intentionally initiated in your life.

Edges are also places where where fear occurs and has to be overcome. Edges are places where you need to trust when the outcome is uncertain.

Mr. Chin is also quoted as saying:

“Sometimes the only way to find the edge, is to go over it.”

Jimmy Chin

I have found an edge and gone over it many times in high risk situations in my own life including:

• Skydiving with static line jumps and handling several emergencies with parachute lines.
• Learning to scuba dive from a U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) diver (the UDT program evolved into U.S. Navy SEALS program) and Vietnam veteran who was never satisfied I ever did anything correctly in the water.
• Scuba diving at night, in underwater caves, at great depth and ending up upside down in the water with vertigo with my head inches from smashing into rocks at the bottom in a quarry.
• Flying a single engine airplane and handling several emergency situations as pilot in command.
• Surfing in Hawaii and losing a portion of the ball of my foot when I hit coral.
• Turning my back to the waves in Hawaii and California on a stormy day and getting crushed by rouge waves.
• Rock climbing where I badly screwed up decent and ended up in a critically bad situation.
• Making maps for the U.S. Government in a wilderness area and being chased by bears.
• Competing in martial arts tournaments and ending up with a broken jaw.
• Working construction and walking along the top of an 18″ wide wall twenty or more feet off the ground carrying an 8’x10′ sheet of plywood on a windy day.
• Bar tending in a rough blue collar bar filed with bikers and factory workers where fights occurred on a regular basis.
• Riding 100+ miles on my bike and turning around in a few hours and riding back home another 100+ miles.
• Running many 26.2 mile marathons in all kinds of weather.

You don’t have a surf an 80 foot wave, snowboard down a 60 degree slope or jump out of an airplane to go over the edges in your own life.

An edge in your own life can be reacting in a new way to stressful situations, making new lifestyle choices, trying a new physical activity such as yoga, cycling, power walking, etc. a new social activity such as volunteering, joining a dating site, a new club, changing the way you emotionally interact with your significant other, family, friends, co-workers, etc.

So how can you find the edges in your own life and then safely go over them?

PODCAST: BACK TO THE EDGE

1. Identify the Physical Edges in Your Life. The physical edges in your life include the physical barriers in your own comfort zone. Your comfort zone in your life includes a set of physical boundaries with rules, principles and risks you live by, including what you will do, or will not, do. To have a transformative experience you must step past the physical boundaries and take new calculated risks. A “transformation” is defined as “a process of profound and radical change that orients a person into a new direction and a new state of being.” A transformation changes the composition, character or structure of something in your current physical barriers.
2. Identify the Mental Edges in Your Life. The mental edges in your life include the mental barriers inside your own comfort zone. Your mental edges include a set of a set of internal and external physical, emotional, psychological, sexual and spiritual boundaries. Your mental edges define a define a set of behavioral constructs that predict how you will react to the risky situations you encounter in your daily life. A “transcendence” experience is spiritual state, or a condition of moving past your physical realities into other dimensions beyond your current mental barriers.” To have a transcendence experience you must step past the mental boundaries of your comfort zone and operate in a new state of being beyond the limits of your ordinary everyday experiences with new calculated risks.
3. Go Over the Edges in Your Life in a Controlled and Calculated Manner. Create a plan of action to define your own superpowers to go over the edges in your own life (i.e., outside of your comfort zone). Your superpowers are something that intuitively know, or have learned, that makes your feel energized, fulfilled, engaged, passionate and having a purpose in life, when you use them. Create a plan of action that focuses on taking achievable steps with your own superpowers towards an end goal of overcoming any fears you may have about changing the physical and mental edges in your life. Create your plan of action and trust knowing you are supported by a Higher Power. Create your plan of action with confidence and optimism having a clear vision for yourself and who you really are. Then walk up to the edges in your life and with courage, just jump (metaphorically, not literally). Courage is a tipping point emotion between negative and positive emotional states. What you will find going over the edges in your own life in a controlled and calculated manner will be a new empowered stated filled with abundance, excitement, happiness, joy, love, passion, etc.

Finding your own edges and going over them in a controlled and calculated manner will help you create a positive impact in your own life and allow you to create a new exciting life, you truly desire.

I am going over the edges all the time in my own life. How about you?

Out There on the Edge of Everything® …

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

Copyright © 2022, by Stephen Lesavich, PhD.  All rights reserved.

Certified solution-focused life coach and experienced business coach.