Читать книгу On the Verge - Cara Bradley - Страница 9

Introduction

I was nineteen years old when I stepped up to the starting line for my last college track race, with no clue that my life would be forever changed. On that auspicious day, I managed to settle down, show up, and — with surprising grace — sail across the finish line in record time. In two minutes and change, I went from ordinary runner to elite athlete. In a flash, I experienced a surge of strength that didn’t come from merely trying harder but, instead, seemed to emerge from a place where I felt clear, powerful, and fully alive.

Prior to that race, I rarely took the time to properly prepare for competition and often crawled to the starting line crippled with prerace jitters. Since it was my last race, I felt I owed it to myself to go out on top and to try my hardest to beat my long-standing personal record. And so, on this day of my last college race, I went for a warm-up jog by myself during which I repeated out loud, “Personal best, personal best.”

During my track career, my fastest race was mildly respectable, but by no means exceptional. I trained hard, but not super-hard. I was competitive, but not that competitive. I was, at best, an average runner. But I knew I had more in me. My strength was there. Somewhere. What I didn’t know was how to access and use it.

I stepped up to the starting line that day unusually calm. I focused on the track ahead, waiting for the starting gun. Bang. I took off. On my first lap, I felt completely awake — sort of as if the lights in every cell in my body had suddenly turned on. I felt supercharged with energy. On my second lap, my mind cleared, time slowed, and I became conscious of every step and breath. I passed our top mid-distance runner, forgetting that I was supposed to be average.

As I crossed the finish line, my teammates jumped on me. I had no idea why. What just happened? Personal record? What, six seconds off my record? Hold on…What did I just do? My first reaction was “Wow! I did it! A new personal best for me!” But in the very next moment, a surge of “Are you kidding me?” took over my entire body.

Although I felt proud of my race, I also felt disappointed that it had taken me my entire track career to find my inner strength and break my long-standing record. When the rush of excitement settled, the big questions began to mount.

Why had I doubted my ability for so many years? Why hadn’t I ever felt that strong in prior races? Where did that incredible charge of energy and sense of aliveness come from? And, most important, how do I find it again?

Deep down I felt certain that breaking my personal record was related to my prerace jog. Repeating “Personal best” had settled me. I’d shifted into a relaxed yet alert state where I had no doubt and no fear. In this state, beyond thinking, I soared and I shined. Immediately, I wanted to understand what exactly I’d done to feel that awake and alive. I had to find a system or discipline to help me feel that clear and confident — all the time. I knew one thing for certain: I wanted more.

After my extraordinary experience on the track, I knew my life would never be the same. During that race, I encountered who I was capable of becoming, and I refused to settle for less by falling back asleep. I became hungry for answers, sparking a lifelong curiosity about my own potential and human potential in general.

Years later my husband, Brian, spent a few weeks in the Amazon jungle working with an indigenous community, during which he explored rivers and tributaries in the most vibrant ecosystem on earth. He traveled throughout its vast river system, often stopping at specific places where two rivers merged into one. These places are revered in the river basin as sacred, because it is at these junctures that plants and wildlife thrive more than in any other area on the river. This special place is called “the verge.”

As a human-potential junkie, I was ecstatic to learn that a place like the verge actually existed. Imagine the feeling of living on a verge in the Amazon. It made me wonder if, like the plants and wildlife, the people who live on the verge thrive there too. It made me wonder if there was a verge closer to home, and if such a place or state existed, how I could get there and live there.

I started experimenting with techniques and practices that could help me thrive as if I were living on the verge. I took thousands of yoga classes, sat in meditation for hundreds of hours, spent days in silence, chanted, prayed in sweat lodges, had my chakras cleared, read countless self-help and spiritual books, studied the great world religions, bungee-jumped, zip-lined, and walked on hot coals. I searched for a place like the verge where I could feel as awake and fully alive as I did when I was nineteen.

Intrigued ever since, I’ve discovered you don’t have to go deep into the rain forest to find the verge. It is, in fact, available to you in every moment. It’s at your fingertips all the time, because this moment is the verge.

In this exact moment there’s a gap, a split second of time, when you’re not quite in the past and not quite in the future. In this moment you are on a threshold, you are on the verge. Do you feel it?

If you’re distracted or busy, you’ll miss it. You may speed right by it. Poof! Just like that, this gap in time will be gone forever. The verge, by nature, is fleeting and elusive. You can’t hold on to it, and you can’t search for it. You simply need to show up on the verge — on the threshold between a moment ago and a moment from now.

The verge, this very moment, is not just where your mind and body go through the motions of life; it’s also where you feel awake and fully alive.

The verge is not only where nature thrives; it’s also where you thrive.

The verge is where you wake up, show up, and shine.

On the Verge is based on my own direct experience of being awake and fully alive and on my curiosity about human potential and what it means to thrive. Although I stand on the shoulders of many teachers, the insights I share with you flow from my own investigation and discoveries. My intent for this book was not to try to rehash the words of great masters of philosophy, science, and religion. So you won’t find quotations of great sages or references to scientific studies.

I am offering a raw and unfiltered expression of what I have experienced in my own practices and in teaching thousands of people. I attempt to express as simply as possible how it feels to break free of the confines of my own cluttered, often chaotic mind and be conscious in a human body in a busy world. I humbly offer you my experience of what it feels like to wake up, show up, and shine.

On the Verge emerged from my thirty-five years of teaching fitness and yoga and my lifelong dedication to coaching thousands of people to experience life fully — and to do so over and over again. By taking this journey with me, I hope you’ll learn to do the same — to adopt a few practices and strategies that will help you show up in this moment and embrace life fully.

On the Verge isn’t about changing your body, love life, or finances. In the pages ahead, I’m not going to tell you what to eat, how to exercise, or how to pray. I won’t ask you to sit still for hours at a time, nor will I tell you what you need to improve. There’s enough advice out there and, in my opinion, the more you read about what you should be doing, the less likely you are to actually commit to anything.

Living on the verge is not about doing more, but about being more. It isn’t about achieving more; it’s about experiencing more. It’s not about being someone different, as there’s no “better version of you” on the horizon. Everything you’re searching for is available to you in this moment. Everything you need is right here on the verge.

You’ll discover that when you show up in this moment — when you are 100 percent engaged right here and right now — you arrive in a space where you are fully aware. In this space, beyond your busy mind, you glimpse your naturally occurring state of being awake and fully alive. In your natural state your mind is clear, your body bright, and your heart open. On the verge, in your natural state, you show up and shine.

In the pages ahead you’ll learn practices and strategies to help you shift your perspective beyond your busy mind, glimpse your natural state, and live on the verge. But don’t assume you’ll wake up and show up just by reading this book. Don’t just hope that somehow you’ll be ready to shine when you need to shine most — during the big board meeting or the last play of the game. That kind of thinking is risky business. Don’t hope you’ll miraculously feel awake and fully alive when you want to or need to most. Instead, commit to taking this journey with me and discover through practice what it feels like to show up and live on the verge over and over again.

You are already awake and fully alive. You are already on the verge. You just may not believe it — yet. I want to help you believe in your extraordinary human potential to show up and shine in even the most ordinary moments of your everyday life. I want to help you show up and shine as I did on the track thirty years ago, and to do so not by accident or once in a while, but on purpose and all the time. So buckle your seat belts and get ready to break your own records and achieve your own personal best. Let’s get started.