Stepping Off the Path

Description

Often, we tread the same physical and mental paths in life. Often, adventure and wonder is waiting just off those paths! Here's how to get off our usual paths and enter into discovery.

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Music is "The Woods" by Silent Partner.

Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

[Music]

hello friends hmm we've got all kinds of paths running through the Rewald you campus here and they are beautiful oh my goodness

super pretty and the forest monks that are out here walking down those paths all the time same with us walking on paths all the time the other day we we left the main path it was awesome I mean okay not that we haven't left paths before because I'm sure some of you have seen in other videos as well Kenton doesn't always take people on path sometimes you're trying to figure out where you're going through the woods but it was really nice just to get off the path and just discover some things that we had never seen before I know this I talked about this in a video long long ago where we used to live and I was laying in bed one night and realizing that there was this little pond not too far from our house now I was in my comfortable bed and I realized you know I could get up right now I can go over into that weedy monkeypod naked and swim across it and it would be this super potent experience next thing the the thing is it's just right off my path so when we're talking about getting off the path we're not talking about these paths through the woods all the time but sometimes it can be it you know there's there's mushrooms right over that little Ridge if just we go and look that are delicious but we're not going to see them because we've stayed at the path but there's all these paths we travel in our minds in our lives it might be you know you're the same way to work every day can you stop it the same I don't know where do people what does that coffee place people stop at so you stop at Starbucks and you always get the same vanilla triple chocolate upside-down crap oh yeah yeah that's the same one and so here's this path it's the same thing every single time and we don't remember that it's sort of the day's become a blur and they just pass by but what happens if instead of going to Starbucks we go to that little Indian place down the way and instead of having coffee there we get some kind of tea or something there that maybe we've never had before I think I've tried to eat right now

oh yeah masala tea another story many times my brother almost became it's like because great ideas yeah founder of chai tea yeah okay so you could definitely do this don't go the same way take a different route to work if it's gonna take you two minutes longer maybe you'll see something you never saw before I feel like it can go deeper though mm-hmm I feel like for me especially there's two places where I really get stuck on the pathway and when I do this motion it really is like this motion in here that's getting burned right and some sometimes if you don't want to say it in a pretty way you call it a right but seriously I mean a rut in a road it's a rut in your mind for me it is daily habits things that I do everyday that I maybe don't really need to do and it's actually not just the things I do but the way that I think about the things that I do for example I've got to make the bed and I've got to you know get the kitchen clean and I have to make sure that everything gets reset to the way it was before cleanliness is awesome I'm not saying that it isn't however my recovering perfectionistic side says oh it can't just be like cleaning it has to be everything in its place and then I miss a lot of things because I'm on that same right yeah

no same for me there's all kinds of mental pathways that that I go down and I can you know I think we can all relate to this we can feel we're in one of those rots and often we know that rut is kind of self-destructive it's not good oh we feel ourselves stuck in it and it's it's jumping out of that rut and trying another path dr. al masud right and we mentioned this not too long ago the I'm gonna mess up the quote but the neural paths were pathways that we use are the neural pathways that we cultivate so the more we're taking that route the more we burn it in but as soon as we step off that path and we start to burn another one and the next time it's a little bit easier to go down that new pathway creating those pathways is a little bit like exercising for your mind but that you could actually even grow you can even make the skill of getting off of the path a habit right yeah there's people that we know that we think other life is so exciting they're doing this now and then oh they just did that and they'd be this discovery and they always you know those people and you're like oh they've just taken that secret of getting off the path and that's their that's their pathway that's their a little you know habit that they have is that they do new and different things the path of getting off the path yeah yeah yeah it's this is not that some pathways can't be good you know we can develop positive habits in our life and you know if I have a 20 minute a day meditation habit that's a that's a rut or a groove but it can be a really positive thing you know if I'd go for that daily trail run or whatever it is but a lot of times we know it our pathways are not really serving us and I wanted to bring up them the second place that I personally get stuck and that's with people mmm people and other other creatures because it can happen with animals you know the chickens oh there's no chickens oh my goodness so people is a huge one and it's all about it's really not about them it should be about them but a lot of times it comes back to me and the blinders that I've put on and those putting on those blinders is its own little pathway that I get stuck on mmm and so that's a place where I would encourage people to explore and see how it's getting a little deep how do I get off the pathway with my coworker or my sibling or my spouse or you know a friend of mine how do I just jump the track and try something totally new and try seeing them in a different way or trying gauging when them with them in a different way

yeah yeah anyway so well so I think that's the message can we get I've lipgloss in there no I think I thought you were trying to get this is like a g-rated that was G okay there's so much outside these paths oh it's so cool with the forest marks once they start getting off that that path they start discovering things and there's your takis even even deeper deeper sometimes the path that we travel all the time it is still filled with wonder my friend Brett just the other day took us down a path we walk all the time so fun and he said we I found something really special on this path that thing one of our favorite berries trees and we've walked by it oh yeah right and so that is because when we walk a path physical path it becomes a mental you know what is interesting this kind of fun game to try and it's sort of a tangent I'm gonna just go on a tangent there's this game that we sometimes play as a family when we're hiking someplace and we're hiking on a trail let's say and then we hear other hikers coming we all go hide but you have to hide oh like within five six feet of the trail you know as long as it's not just grass mm-hmm and see if people see you it is remarkable people just gone by there and you can you can see them going by it's not like you're hiding in a log with your eyeball sticking out it's true there are mysteries everywhere even on the paths you travel every single day one of the secrets to life there's amazement around us everywhere on the paths we travel just outside those paths and in developing the habit of forging new paths and you having the habit of getting off the path as much as we can tell us about places in your life where you're stuck in a rut you can't seem to get out and share how you have gotten out of some of these ruts what you've discovered just off the paths that you usually travel thank you friends talk with you [Music]