Expand Yourself
Let’s talk about expanding our capacity. Expansion is a big focus for me this year - EXPANSION is my word for 2023.
Words of the year are great unless they have no depth or action behind them. For me, expansion is a verb - expanding my business, my marriage, my personal growth, my adventures, my health, my wealth, my opportunities. Expansion can happen in big ways or small, and we are given opportunities to expand every day.
Earlier this month, Danny and I went to Arizona for a family wedding. When we booked our flights last year, we booked them to arrive in the late afternoon on Thursday (wedding on Saturday). Our first obligation wasn’t until Friday evening, so we were figuring out what to do with the extra day. A quick map search showed us the Grand Canyon was just under four hours from Phoenix, where we landed. We had played with the idea of visiting it, but were allowing things like travel time, logistics, minimal time at the canyon itself, yada yada, to slow our decision making process.
Finally, we decided to book a small cabin on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and drove straight there after we landed Thursday night. While my word of the year is EXPANSION, Danny’s is MAXIMIZE. Pushing our energy to include this trip to the Grand Canyon was a perfect way to test whether or not we were truly committed to expanding ourselves and maximizing our time. And we are committed, so we made it happen.
We got to the canyon about 9:30pm, and were greeted with the beautiful historic hotel where we’d be staying, right on the southern rim. There was a full moon when we arrived, so we got the chance to see a little bit of the canyon as it slept, noticing there was a dusting of snow along the top of the canyon. We were already so thankful we made the trip, and all we had seen was a canyon half buried in shadows.
We woke up at 5:30am, got dressed to hike, got coffee, and waited with excitement and anticipation as the sun slowly started filling the canyon with light. It was about 20 degrees outside so we had a private showing of the sunrise, spilling light across the crevices, the cliffs, and the trails below. We took it in for an hour or so, then went back to pack up our cabin so we’d be ready to leave after our hike.
We hiked along the rim of the canyon for a couple of hours - finding amazing lookout points and historic sites. We had to leave at 11:30am if we were going to have enough time to get ourselves ready for the family dinner that evening back in Phoenix, so we eliminated distractions and stayed focused on our goal - being present with each other and the canyon.
From the time we arrived Thursday night to the time we left Friday morning, we spent about 14 hours at the canyon. Committing to 8 hours of driving to spend 14 hours at the canyon is not something that is appealing to a lot of people. I know that because when people we met throughout the weekend asked us how we spent our time before the wedding festivities, we shared our adventure to faces of “wow you didn’t really get a lot of time” and “I would never do that” and “what made you want to drive that far for a short time”? It’s all about perspective, and sometimes people’s perspective keeps them from seeing all the opportunities waiting for them.
Our perspective is to lean into life and expand ourselves to experience more. We want to maximize the time we get, no matter where we are, because we believe it’s more about the quality of time and not the quantity. There was no way we would be a few hours from the Grand Canyon and NOT go. Experiencing nature is how I feed my soul, how I recharge my heart and mind. And experiencing the Grand Canyon gave me opportunities to explore my thoughts and shake off some metaphorical dust, all while admiring the beauty of what was in front of us.
As the canyon was waking up, and the sun continued to rise, the shadows throughout it morphed and shifted. As the light was rising with the sun, more and more of the shadows became smaller - little slivers as opposed to giant areas of darkness. I find a lot of metaphors for life when I’m out in nature. I think it’s because my mind is in a freer state, one that is more creative and open and alive.
Watching the canyon shadows shift reminded me of how many shadows we hold within ourselves. Whether it’s fear or shame or grief or uncertainty or loneliness, we all have shadows inside us. When we live in those shadows for too long, it can seem like the sun will never shine on us again. Then the right person comes along, or the right quote, or the right group of like-minded people, and they start shining light into our shadows. The shadows become smaller, become less unknown, and slowly become filled with light. We start to see ourselves again, and see all the opportunities that lie before us.
We just have to choose to see them, and to expand a bit more than we thought we could.