Get out of your comfort zone, and lose yourself in Nature!!

Don’t you ever have a feeling of restlessness? A feeling urging you to get out, explore, experience, live.

 I believe that for most people, if not all, it is fundamental to once in a while get out of our comfort zone, and get lost in the big beautiful world. I say comfort zone, because that’s where most of us reside the biggest part of our lives. It’s the place where all is guaranteed: food, home, money, security. It consists of the limits we ourselves create to get a feeling of comfort and being protected.

But it’s like living only half. Since when does someone fully live whilst remaining forever in the comfort zone? Since when does anyone get the feeling of being truly alive if you never dare to challenge yourself, to push your boundaries, to take the risk, and in the process, find your true self?

In the last few years I have been on different journeys, and especially the last two times have been incredibly mind-opening and boundary-pushing. It isn’t always nice nor fun to get out of your comfort zone. You encounter a lot of personal limitations, prejudices, and weird stuff you never knew you possessed. You get tired faster, as you learn so much. You get confused because you have to redefine who you are.

But the experience is worth it. You get a better idea of who you are, in good and bad times. You get the opportunity to change the things you don’t like about yourself. You feel alive. You live experiences you’ll never forget.

Don’t you just love being alive? But… are you alive, consciously, fully, completely alive? You should ask yourself that question once in a while. Because it’s only too easy to fall into a waking sleep, and miss out the most spectacular moments in live, which at the same time we normally consider so ordinary.

Personally, I cannot wait until the next time I can get out, into the wild. I cannot wait until I can again measure myself against the great mountains. To climb a mountain, is to learn to be humble, and at the same time have endless faith. Climbing a mountain is pushing boundaries, its suffering deeply at times, but knowing that, once you’re there, you enter into the world of the mystic, of the spiritual, because, dear reader, on top of the mountain the divine exists in all its glory. On the top it is where you fall in love with life, and inevitably, with the mountains.

“You don’t really conquer a mountain. You conquer yourself. You overcome sickness, and everything else – your pain, aches, fears – to reach the summit” 

“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”

"Each fresh peak ascended teaches something."

"I love to think of Nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through 

which God speaks to us every hour, if we only tune in"

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” 

 (and yes, all the photo's are mine :) )