Life is an Adventure - Dr. Jeffrey Bland

Hi, this is Jeff. And I just wanted to share a thought with you. This is not related to any nutrition or health related direct association, but it's one of the most powerful things in terms of emotional, physical and psychic health that I've undergone in my last decades. So I wanted to share it with you. Bear with me, because this is a little bit of a personal thing, but it may have some value to you because I just had an experience personally with my two older sons. I have three sons who are 52, 49 and 39. My two older sons were able to get released from their families, their spouses and children to spend two weeks with me in a small space of a boat circumnavigating Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagov Islands in southeast Alaska. And having a chance to spend 24, 7 together. Just recounting the fact that we've spent upward of a half a century together as fathers and sons. And that particular experience was heightened in its impact as a consequence of something that my middle son Kyle did that I wanted to share with you because it's something that I'm not saying is for everyone, but the concept that comes out of this I think should be for everyone. I wish that every human being could have an experience with their parents or their children like I just experienced. Because as was said to me as we got on the plane on Juneau to head home by my sons, none of us are the same as a consequence of this experience we shared. And that's for the better. So now, what was the catalyst that made this so profound, other than just having the chance to see glaciers and whales and bears and kayak and be out in nature and the wilds of Alaska. But it was another feature set that is actually a tool that could be used that I credit my middle son, Kyle with having implemented. He came with a pack of cards. These are some of them right here. Adventure cards. There were 45 in the pack, which actually worked out fine because we had 15 days together and there were three of us. And so each day, each one of us selected a different card out of this, at random out of this collection of cards. And we made a pact then that each day we would spend time together before dinner reading our card and then giving our interpretation of it to the other two. And then we would go around each of us three doing that, and then we'd have kind of a group discussion. This turned out the first couple of days to be kind of like learning how to do this. So it was. Maybe I wouldn't Say, awkward, but kind of getting into the flow. By the third day, however, this became something we all were looking forward to. And it took about an hour. We didn't actually put the timer on, but it just actually turned out that the conversation was deep enough and profound enough and important enough to really occupy about an hour a day. Now, these cards, when you look at them, ostensibly you think, what's an adventure card? Well, on each of these cards was a different little short quote or excerpt from an artist, an adventurer, a poet, someone who had something to say that could be kind of ascribed or related to adventure. So here would be an example. This one says, wherever you go, go with all your heart. So the person, in this case it would be me, would read that and then they would give an interpretation, I would give an interpretation of what that meant to me personally. Now it turns out that as you go through these cards that you find out that adventure is a lot different as a word catalyst than you might have thought, because we were using it initially. Adventure, meaning adventure in the wilds of Alaska. But actually, life is an adventure. Every moment of our life is fraught with the uncertainty of living. It's fraught with new experience. It's opportunities for new learning. It's an adventuresome experience to be alive each moment. And, and so adventure is in all of our lives. And sometimes we forget that. We forget that just the nature of being human, of breathing oxygen, getting up in the morning, having another day is an adventure. And out of that adventure is kind of many things that evolve. It takes courage, it takes forthright thinking, it takes all sorts of characteristics to fully enjoy and to celebrate that adventure. So when we went through these cards, each card then took on a bigger meaning about life. Its principles, its mission, the uncertainty, the ups and downs, the topography of living, which is not a linear path, and how that relates to our identity as human beings. And then in a group, in this case the two sons and I, it led to our shared happiness, half a century together, of how we have shaped one another's lives through our experiences, of what it took in this adventure of being a family. So I just want to share this idea for you because I think there's something here for every human being. You don't even have to have children to do this. It could be with your closest friends, your partners, your whoever. But this construct of setting aside time and then over a number of days, allowing this to become kind of a self reflective process is a really, really powerful tool. And I can tell you without any question, this led to a deep level of inner understanding and the ability then to express those feelings to someone that you feel safe with. In this case, my sons and them the same. Expressing it back to us was probably the best therapy you could ever imagine in terms of mental house cleaning, emotional house cleaning, and health, in the broadest term of the use of the word health. So just a little tool. We're all on an adventure ride together, and sometimes we just don't take the moment to share that and really explore what it means. Thanks.