Adventure: The Gift of Not Knowing

Adventure is when you don’t know what is going to happen next. Life is uncertain, full of surprises, and we never know what’s around the corner.
So, life is one big adventure, right?

Why does it not feel like that all the time?
Why do we sometimes feel that our daily lives are packed with monotonous “to do” lists, obligations, “the same old, same old,” and not enough play? 

And those “adventure-like” surprises aren’t always what we want, are they?

I put pressure on myself quite often and forget to just enjoy the daily ride of life and it’s natural vicissitudes. I have frequently struggled balancing adventure and play with growing up and being responsible (my mother’s voice in my head, telling me to “get a real job”).

I began working in the outdoor leadership and experiential education space twenty-three years ago. While my family didn’t understand the life-changing work I was doing (with individuals and groups from sexual assault and military trauma survivors to senior management and VP’s of Fortune 500 companies), I knew the work was having a positive impact. From stuck to success, angry to inspired, and unhappily married to single and thriving, the life-affirming stories I’ve had the privilege to witness over the past quarter of a century continue to inspire my work today.

The acceptance of life’s uncertainties so positively transformed my life, I wanted to incorporate the therapeutic use of adventure and intentional travel to serve and impact others for good.

My offering (a blend of Adventure Therapy, Personal Discovery Coaching, and Guiding Sacred Vision) is most powerful in the immersion and group setting. As I prepare to lead another wellness adventure retreat this March, I look forward not only to the fun we will have and the laughs we will share, but the sparks that will ignite transformation. The specific goals of the individuals vary, yet the shared vision of our retreats is always some version of experience my authentic self, seek adventure and create a vision for my life in a supportive setting.”

You’ve got to be on board with this vision to play our way! We are equal. We all deserve respect. We all deserve the space to face new beginnings, scary adventures, and evolutionary partnerships. From CEOs, nonprofit leaders, and solo-preneurs; to single ladies, married mamas, single mamas, and everyone in between, our common ground is a love for nature, our selves, each other, and new experiences.

Adventures are opportunities for expansion, growth and self-discovery, specifically if the experience is framed and guided in an empowering way. Being prepared to handle unexpected or unwelcome challenges and struggles is an art form that requires a well and fit mindset.

Cue the adage: attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure. It’s a good thing mindset is something we can cultivate and practice as we navigate life’s uncertainties.

I consider our adventure retreats a really awesome playground for “practicing life,” both a metaphor and blueprint for kicking more ass in our day to day. Not only do we practice yoga and cultivate other skills and strengths, like working out, paddleboarding, swimming with enormous sea creatures (whale sharks and playful seal lion pups!), some will learn to kitesurf or meditate for the first time on our retreats.

The magic of these practices is the meaning we make during and after. Our work is the embodiment of the learning and how we apply new insights to our lives.
Do we stand rigid and hunched over on the paddleboard or will we bend our knees, engage our core and flow with the rhythm of the water below us, and therefore life all around us? Do we freak out when we jump in the cold water and start to hyperventilate and scream, “I can’t breathe, get me out?” Or are we willing to be guided to a different experience? Yes, this happened. One woman had never snorkeled before, and she was skeptical that the little plastic tube bulging at her lips would allow her to suck in air from above. Plus the open bay water was colder than she expected. Already struggling with anxiety and self-doubt, she immediately went to, “this is wrong. I feel bad. This is dangerous. I can’t breathe. Get me OUT!” She wouldn’t even put her face in the water to see the incredible marvel of a twenty-five-foot Whale Shark peacefully drifting below her.

I had seconds to support her embodying a different experience as she splashed and lurched towards the boat’s ladder. I reminded her that indeed, she was still breathing, that her body would forget the cold water once she opened her eyes to the magic below, and that yes, she was floating, held in the community of support, and I’d be right next to her. I wasn’t going to force her, but I was hoping to make a quick and compelling argument for her to stay long enough to be transformed from her limited mindset and transfixed by nature’s gifts.

The physical experience of anxiety and stress can feel identical to excitement and bliss: racing heart, rapid breath, lack of focus. I reminded her that there might be a possibility to be excited by all the newness instead of the fear/flight default mindset triggered by these physical sensations.

With the support of two of us beside her, she stayed in the water longer than anyone else. She got back on the boat with a smile from ear-to-ear and nonstop giggling, bubbly joy, and open-hearted conversation the rest of the day.

This is more than a motivational moment. It’s an embodied experience. She perceived fear, but choose to move through it, with the intention of growth and expansion.
The next step was connecting the dots of her powerful choice in this moment… to committing to a broader, more expanded version of herself and what is possible for her life. From swimming in open water, to yoga on a paddleboard, to intimate sharing in front of a group, this woman experienced many firsts on that journey. Most importantly, she experienced the willingness to be led by others to a greatness she didn’t know she possessed.

This power of adventure and sisterhood, of experiencing ourselves in new ways, through challenging activities and different landscapes, allows us to clear the pathway for humble self-discovery and new possibilities.

We will never go back to small, safe, and business-as-usual.

I hope you’ll join us if you want an immediate and powerfully positive (and lasting) impact on your life.

Yes, you are going to have a meaningful, empowering and super fun experience.

Yes, you will also be challenged emotionally and physically.

AND…absolutely, you will go home with clarity, vision and a plan to implement change and consistent, restorative retreat and wild adventure in your daily life.

Join Wellfit Women’s upcoming retreat:
La Ventana, Baja California Sur, Mexico
March 1-6, 2018
EMERGING WOMEN receive $200 OFF
OR Customize* your group adventure to one of our locations in Costa Rica, Baja, Mexico, Peru, Croatia and Greece
*Custom groups can include families and all genders

Is there Magic in the Mess?

Dear Emerging Women,

It’s been almost 6 months since our annual Emerging Women Live event, and a lot has transpired since then. A LOT. There is a deep political and social disharmony being felt in our country right now. There is a dis-ease being felt in the world. And women worldwide are at the front lines of creating a new world order.

One thing I know for sure, when we are creating a new paradigm, there is no blueprint. And it can get messy. But today, I am cultivating gratitude for the mess. Here’s why:

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” – Carl Jung

Chaos puts us in touch with our desires

I’m not saying that mess is the end-game. I dream of – I yearn for and actively work toward – equality, justice, peace, civility. And on a micro level, it’s nice to have things run smoothly: to have a perfect business model, to have people on your team that are high performers and super easy to work with, to have clarity of vision and heart. But in order to get to those exalted, beautiful, non-messy things, we have to work through some serious chaos to get clear on what we want to see in our lives, and in the world.

“NOOO!” is my knee-jerk reaction to chaos. If feels unsafe and scary. But when there is chaos around us it gives us permission to stop trying to make sense of everything and just feel. When darkness descends, there is no way to move forward unless we feel our way, one touch at a time, from heartbeat to heartbeat. And it is through this feeling state that we can know our true desires. What do we want this new world to look like? What kind of life do we want to live?

Chaos connects us to our deepest, truest selves

When we are in the unknown, our usual landmarks are disrupted and we have nothing else to rely on but the ground of our beingness. Sounds True founder Tami Simon named “spending time in a place with no reference points” as one of her 5 Principles of Being True at Emerging Women Power Night. So it’s okay to feel off the map, out of your depth, messy. The key to resilience lies in having a close, intimate relationship with ourselves. This becomes our most trusted and constant reference point in times of uncertainty. From this place we can start to align with what feels true for us in the outer world.

Disorder brings people together

I think what I fear the most is an environment that does not allow for mess, that does not allow for exploration outside of the box. So let’s not do that thing that we women seem to do so often: strive for perfection. I vote for real conversations and fumbling with words over getting it right. I vote for epic failures in the name of change over risk avoidance and playing small. We need to organize and work together, we need to grow into our feminine humanity, and we need to let others to do the same – at their own pace and via their own path. So let’s give ourselves a wide berth, margin for error, and the benefit of the doubt that She knows what she is doing. After all, we are not doing this alone – we cannot do this alone – so what choice do we have but to come together with the best of intentions and drop the “shoulds?”

The Feminine thrives in chaos

“In chaos, there is fertility.” – Anaïs Nin

Life is messy when we are navigating uncharted waters, and yet somebody has to lead the way. Collectively, women are rising up to take their place as leaders in a world that is both thirsty for and resistant to this change. We are at the beginning of a new era in the women’s movement, and this time we are doing it with the cosmic feminine on our side.

Today’s world of disparaging views and conflict is the perfect environment for the feminine to rise, and She is rising like She has never risen before. I want to know what the world looks like, what business, politics, and an economy looks like, under a paradigm for society where the feminine is fully expressed. We know what the world looks like under a masculine paradigm (boy does that feel like it’s run it’s course) – and it’s going to take some dismantling to make room for new growth.

The patriarchy hates mess. It relies on order, logic, adherence. So in these times of seeming madness, I say let things break. Because the feminine will grow through the cracks.

“Chaos is what we’ve lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.” – Terence McKenna

The strive for order seems to be the goal of the ego, but let’s make a pledge to surrender that ego, embrace the mess, and listen to our desires, trusting that they will lead us in our work to make the world a better place for all.

Chantal Pierrat Big Love,
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Chantal Pierrat | Founder, Emerging Women

The Feminine Superpower of Receiving

Dear Emerging Women,

If you’re like me, you might find it a little challenging to trust the “feminine superpower” of receiving. For the past several years, I have been challenged to stop relying on the perpetural doing-mode that has served me so well in the past and to start opening up to more abundant resources to achieve my goals.

When we learn to receive, we learn to truly communicate with our lives – noticing feedback from the world, feeling more deeply into our bodies, and finding solutions to challenges we never thought of before. It’s not easy! And it takes trust.

But, when I practice this simple concept, it feels like pure magic because I didn’t have to DO much to make things happen. How foreign! For years I led with my masculine side – workin’ it like a dude – because that is how I was taught to achieve success. And I was successful, but it took a lot of energy and a lot of pushing, and I was finding it exhausting and completely unsustainable.

When I am in conscious receiving mode, things seem to fall into place more perfectly than anything I could have planned or strategized – plus I have more energy to draw on for the next leap. Finding our way back to our feminine superpowers is the only way to access the unique strengths that will sustain us as we work to make real and lasting change in the world. The momentum is there, ladies – we just need to open our hearts to it and bravely ride the wave! I am going for it – you?

Big love,

Chantal Pierrat
Founder, Emerging Women

“Finding our way back to our feminine superpowers is the only way to access the unique strengths that will sustain us as we work to make real and lasting change in the world.”twitter

Need a little more inspiration to help you cultivate that trust? Join my conversation with the Superwomen of Receiving in this week’s podcast: The Power of Receiving with Christine Arylo and Kris Carlson.

Power Practice #08: Listening to Your Body Wisdom

Looking for more intuitive ways to make everyday choices?

Could you use some trust-building exercises with yourself to help you navigate the path to your inner truth? Then Power Practice #08: Listening to Your Body Wisdom is for you.

Get to know your unique “embodied yes” and “embodied no” in this centering, feminine practice from relationship expert LiYana Silver, and get ready to let your body lead you towards more satisfying and fulfilling choices.

Play the Power Practice:

“Just knowing your ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ is such a powerful step towards reuniting with your power, your knowing and your truth.”

LiYana Silver has been called a Relationship Revolutionary, Relationship Expert, Master Coach and advocate for switched-on women world-wide.

With help from the letters after her name (MaNLP, CHC, RYT), she mentors world-rocking, thought-leading women and men, by honing in on their existing excellence and grafting it on to their relationship lives. She speaks nationally on stages grande and petite, has appeared on dozens of radio and TV shows and is a contributing vlog and blog expert for the likes of Huff Post, Forbes and YourTango.com.

She’s got an abundance of bold, fresh guidance for women and their partners, who want to step out of painful patterns and relationship ruts and into partnerships that are strong, sexy, sane and built to withstand the pressures of the 21st Century. Bringing over 10 years of powerful expertise and eclectic experience, she helps make the complex actionable. She helps restore hope, joy, respect and delight into relationships.

Like what you’re hearing? Then you must check out “Should vs. Must,” our Emerging Women podcast with the fabulous Elle Luna: