The Challenge Excites Me!

Adventure has long been a part of my life. Oh, the fun of it all! Small adventures when I was small to large adventures later. I realized adventure is what fuels me and that I need to make time for it in my life. I learned adventure is a state of mind.

My walk to work is a daily adventure. What bird will I see? How much snow is blanketing the mountains? Will I smell the bucks today? Seeing the world with awe and wonder opens the door to even small things being adventures.

It’s occurred to me that events that don’t start out as adventures are the best ones. Sometimes, the adventure is in your mind. You may wonder what I mean by that.

I’ve long danced with a few food demons. Sugar is my number one nemesis. Since realizing that grains make my Hashimoto numbers worse I vowed to quit eating them — repeatedly. Putting the two demons together often gives me an irresistible treat. The dance spins me around through life.

One day I connected the statement “the challenge excites me” with the fuel that helped me tackle my biggest adventure to date, walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago, with success. If that little statement can fuel me over three mountain passes and across the Meseta, the high plains of Spain, why couldn’t it fuel me through to success with my demon dance?

I decided to control my demon dance by reminding myself “the challenge excites me”. I decided that statement would curb my interest in those two items. And while I was at it, I decided to quit drinking until I’d lost 10 pounds. It’s working!

I find that I don’t often think of my demons, much less crave them. Well, I dreamt about a huge, buttermilk Texas biscuit one night, and laughed when my dream self said, “put that down, the challenge excites you”; that doesn’t count as a craving. Even if it does, I didn’t eat it. <wink> My husband has permission to remind me of my phrase if he hears me suggest that a little nibble of something he’s eating would be lovely. He hasn’t reminded me yet.

With great success, I’m seven weeks into my new adventure. Historically, at the two-week and two-month points, I get tired of restrictions diets put on me and I cave. I passed the two-week point with flying colors. Since I’m not craving my demons, I’m confident that I’ll pass the two-month point swimmingly too.

Interestingly, I’ve energized myself to write when I “wasn’t up to it” and to take action on a project I had been procrastinating using that phrase, too. Who would have guessed that a simple phrase would do so much good in my life and keep my adventures rolling?

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