By the time you’re reading this, my best friend Kara and I are somewhere on the road.
Maybe we’ve already finished whitewater rafting through the Chattooga River in SC. Maybe we’re winding through Arkansas, or watching miles of open highway disappear beneath our tires as we continue heading west. Somewhere ahead of us are the Grand Canyon, Zion, Hood River, Glacier National Park, and more adventures than I can count.
The funny thing is… I have no idea what this trip has looked like so far.
I’m writing this before we leave.
As I sit here in the Outer Banks, helping Kara get her house ready to be rented and preparing for our adventure, only one word keeps coming to mind.
Risk.
Life and healing are never linear. Even though I’ve always considered myself someone willing to take risks, there have been moments when fear quietly took over. Moments when I paused longer than I should have. Moments when I let uncertainty convince me to stay where I was because it felt safer than moving forward.
But the older I get, the more I realize that life keeps asking us the same question in different forms:
Will you take the risk?
The risk of trying something new.
The risk of failing.
The risk of looking foolish.
The risk of getting hurt.
The risk of opening your heart.
The risk of building something that may not work.
But somewhere along the way, I realized something.
The greatest risk isn’t failing or getting hurt.
It’s never fully living.
Life Is Information
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that life is information.
Every experience gives us information. Success does. Failure does. Heartbreak does. Adventure does. Every mistake, every relationship, every unexpected detour teaches us something if we’re willing to pay attention.
Nothing is wasted.
The more experiences we allow ourselves to have, the clearer we become about who we are, what we want, what we value, and what truly sets our soul on fire.
That’s the beautiful thing about self-discovery. It doesn’t happen while sitting on the couch wondering who you are. Instead, it happens while you’re living.
Sometimes, you don’t think your way into clarity.
You experience your way into it.
Looping the Kite
Years ago, I decided to learn one of the most intimidating tricks in kiteboarding: looping the kite while on a jump.
If you’ve never seen one, it’s exactly what it sounds like. While you’re in the air, you send the kite in a full loop, creating a powerful pull that can either end in an incredible landing or a spectacular crash.
The first time I really committed to it, I crashed hard. I landed on my neck, leaving me in pain for several days with whiplash. For many years after that, I couldn’t bring myself to try again.
Fear had quietly taken over.
This season, I decided it was time.
I jumped and looped the kite again.
I crashed again.
It wasn’t pretty. It hurt.
But something inside me had changed.
I didn’t want fear to decide how many more years would pass before I tried again.
So I got up on my board again, took a deep breath, and a few minutes later… I sent the kite again.
I still didn’t land it, but it didn’t hurt as badly as the first attempt.
But that wasn’t the victory.
The victory was that fear no longer got to decide what I was capable of.
Sometimes courage isn’t landing the trick.
Sometimes courage is simply trying again after you’ve already been hurt.
Building Something New
Starting a business feels surprisingly similar.
No one hands you a guarantee that your idea will succeed.
You invest your time.
Your money.
Your energy.
Even your confidence.
You make mistakes, question yourself.
You wonder if you’re good enough.
Every entrepreneur does.
Recently, I opened my own LLC.
It was something I had thought about for a long time, and signing those papers felt equal parts exciting and terrifying. There is no guarantee it will work but there is one guarantee if I never try: I will always wonder what could have been.
I don’t know exactly where the journey will lead, and honestly, that’s part of the adventure.
What I do know is that every challenge, every mistake, every unexpected turn is teaching me something I couldn’t have learned by standing still.
Success isn’t built by avoiding failure.
It’s built by learning from it.
Mistakes become information.
Life lessons make us a little wiser.
Risk shapes the person we’re becoming.
Love Is No Different
Loving again has taught me that protecting our hearts can become so automatic that we don’t even realize fear is making our decisions.
Yes, opening our hearts means risking heartbreak.
We risk discovering that someone isn’t meant for us.
But closing our hearts comes with a risk, too. We risk missing something beautiful.
Connection.
Laughter.
Growth.
Companionship.
The kind of moments that remind us what it feels like to truly be alive.
Every relationship—even the ones that don’t last forever—teaches us something about ourselves.
They help us understand what we need.
What we value.
What we’re willing to accept.
And what we’re no longer willing to compromise.
Little by little, life helps us become clearer.
Not because we stayed safe.
But because we were willing to experience it.
The Life I’m Choosing
I’m 46 years old, and I’m not getting any younger. That makes me want to live even more fully. As I write this, I’m getting ready for a two-month road trip around the United States.
I’ll be whitewater rafting rivers I’ve never seen.
Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon.
Hiking through Zion.
Learning wing foiling in Hood River.
Chasing wind and kiteboarding in new places.
Meeting new people.
Collecting experiences that will shape me in ways I can’t yet imagine.
None of it comes with guarantees.
Neither does building a business.
Neither does falling in love.
Neither does trying a new kiteboarding trick.
But I’ve realized something.
I’m no longer interested in building my life around avoiding fear.
I’m interested in building a life around experiencing it fully.
The hardest part is often discovering what sets your soul on fire—and then giving yourself permission to go after it.
And the only way to find it is to…
Live.
Try.
Fail.
Love.
Travel.
Create.
Begin again.
I don’t want to reach the end of my life wishing I had been braver.
I’d rather have scars than regrets.
I’d rather have stories than “what ifs.”
Because a life well lived isn’t measured by how perfectly we played it.
It’s measured by how fully we experienced it.
So if life keeps asking me,
“Will you take the risk?”
My answer will keep being the same.
Yes. Let’s go!
Journal Prompt
Fear often disguises itself as practicality, timing, or uncertainty. What is fear telling you right now? What would your heart say instead?
If journaling is part of your own healing and growth journey, my Reiki-infused guided journals were created to help you slow down, reflect, and reconnect with yourself.
→ Explore my journals here ✨
Start Your Own Alignment Journey
Subscribe for free and receive a FREE GIFT:
→ Subscribe Here 🎁
