What do spiritual gurus and mud wrestlers have in common?

What do spiritual gurus and mud wrestlers have in common?

Ready for it?

They both make people feel alive.

What makes me feel alive and what makes you feel alive might very well be something different, but we all want to wake up and feel alive.

What do I mean by feeling alive? John Campbell described it as finding your bliss. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called it flow. Some spiritual belief systems refer to it as being in the moment, being present, or getting centered. Others call it getting into the zone or going beast mode.

The opposite is a feeling of detachment, of being fuzzed out, of being out of it.

Regardless of what you call it, when does it happen for you: When do you feel most alive?

For me, it’s when I’m running (at least on good days!). Or reading a good book (bad storytelling, on the other hand, rips me out of the zone). Or planting a garden, hiking a just-steep-enough trail, or writing (at least on good days! My own bad plot lines also throw me off-center).

For others, it’s listening to the enthusiastic teachings of a life coach. Or knitting. Or combative rolling around in the mud.

Creating the right goals for you – goals with heart – means taking the time to figure out what makes you feel alive, and then setting goals that help you achieve that alive feeling.

A goal with heart can mean finding a career path or at least a job that gives you that connected feeling, but at other times it can mean figuring out how to get that feeling within circumstances that you can’t easily change. Meaning: You can’t leave your job right now, so how can you get in the flow right here, right now?

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Please note that a happy vibe alone isn’t enough; the goals part is key. We can’t just hang out and read novels all day while eating chocolates and sipping wine (unfortunate, no?). The idea is to learn to recognize when we’re present, and then set goals that create that sensation while we’re achieving them. By teaching yourself recognize when you’re feeling alive, you can then learn to create other circumstances where you have that same feeling.

When do you feel most alive? Tell us about it below.