Taking Risks

Every once in a while we have to take a risk — whether we like it or not! A desire is ignited, a yearning to venture internally or externally where we’ve never dared to go or be. A true risk carries an element of danger as if everything is at stake — our heart, finances, family, career, friends, marriage, identity, soul. We can’t half-step a true risk by keeping one foot in the safety zone and the other on the brink. Full infusion into hazard’s domain, where nothing is for certain and everything warns us to TURN BACK or GO AT YOUR OWN RISK, makes us tremble in our boots as we struggle to journey where the faint-hearted dare not tread.

We’re in the risk zone when anxiety is spiking, stomach is in knots, our animal alertness smells danger as the mind races to meet the shaky moment. We usually shy from danger. Why plunge headlong into precariousness when we can pleasantly remain in the safety zone, snug in parameters of assurance? At some point everyone must consciously choose just the appropriate intentional selection of stress to evolve. If we’ve been upset by people we love who’ve hurt themselves with foolish risks, we may hunker down, determined to be the sensible ones — careful and prudent — which locks us in to an ever shrinking reality.

What risks are appropriate versus being downright crazy? Risks are individually tailored. They can range from climbing Mt. Everest, taking a high ropes course, investing every last penny into a hit-or-miss opportunity, opening to love again after a failed marriage, changing careers late in life, returning to college as an elder, speaking our truth at all times regardless of who’s listening, going on extended retreat and renouncing all external stimulation, looking in the mirror to see ourselves unveiled, entering therapy to discover/heal wounds, standing up in front of a group to introduce unpopular cutting edge concepts, confronting our family, etc.

Life itself is one big risk! Awakening in the morning to face a day full of mystery feels inherently chancy. We dupe ourselves into believing that we live in a risk-free zone — insisting that life is fully under control with no need to engage evolutionary danger. But the soul knows no caution when it’s time to jump into the transformational fire.

Loving the IDEA of risk, I daydream about daring to explore dangerous territory to enliven my life, reach for the stars, respond to the call of the wild. My soul craves new horizons — compelling me to jeopardize entrenched security — to hazard a vivid but frightening new reality. Yet when I consider taking the actual risk so richly fantasized, I stop short — not willing to rock the "security boat." As I round the bend into my 60’s the frontier of risks becomes a distant temptation - something not to be considered at this stage of life — as if there’s a particular age when appropriate risk-taking is no longer necessary for transformation. We must question why we halt a risk. Is it laziness, fear, appropriate caution/conservatism, maturity, complacency, stuckness, intelligence, wisdom?

Convinced of invulnerability as a young woman, I took many stupid risks that exhausted my adrenal glands and squandered the bulk of my "cosmic protection account." Recklessness was my definition of freedom. But this devil-may-care attitude took me to a dangerous edge that periled what little grounding I’d established. This "fun" left me empty, drained, stressed as it destabilized a tender root system struggling to take hold.

We must find the middle road between impetuously destructive risks and stultifying restraint from significant ventures. With meaningful risks, if we shy from going the distance the alchemical heat needed to melt away pockets of dullness is forfeited. Immediately we may regret taking a risk when overwhelmed by its daring uncertainty. But oh how we lament the mistake of avoiding the appropriate risks required to expel us from the quagmire of excessive security. Self-disparagement abounds when we chicken out at important junctures where a particular risk may have been liberating.

What ARE we really risking? If self-examination reveals that we’re only jeopardizing the assurance of a status quo devoid of evolutionary juice, then it’s the right risk. We’re only endangering the obsolete — dead parts of self no longer able to be enlivened. If we never took a risk life would be spiritless, unanimated, pale and inhibited. We must face the new and untested to forestall such a sad destiny.

However, senseless blind risks, ego-based, imbalance and hurl us into asinine emergencies that jar the soul. Like reckless driving these hazards are often compensations for not taking relevant evolutionary risks. We’re not necessarily untethered from stagnancy just because we do something terrifying. Empty gambles, in search of ego thrills, rely on the luck of the draw, the roll of the dice. Wise risks spring from examining how our soul needs to agitate advancement. Intuitive wisdom guides the decision to put everything on the line in these cosmically calculated ventures.

How do we WILLINGLY place ourselves in the danger zone? If the psyche is suffocating from boring security, we’re forced to reach for something just beyond our grasp. It’s typical to regret the risk the moment we set sail into adventure, longingly looking back to safety’s fading shore. Filling with uncertainty about the wisdom that would convince us to take such a chance, every cell yearns to turn back before its too late. Undefended, we must unconditionally brave the mystery. Willingness springs from internal pressure, a restless discontent and aching to stretch into a larger context (previously taboo due to false beliefs of limitation) that more fully reflects our magnitude. The soul bids us to release control — unlock the safety belt — and get ready to be flung from our seat. With everything on the line, only full surrender to the Divine Plan enables us to jump off the cliff at just the right time to discover the ecstatic release that comes from letting go into ...... wonder.

Having grown immeasurably, gratitude abounds for my adventuresome spirit coupled with the cosmic push to venture into new terrain. I’ve gladly released the old recklessness that ironically prevented me from even beginning to step on the path. Risks are carefully chosen with deep regard for all that secures my soul in this lifetime — only unsettling the obsolete by surgically pinpointing pockets of stagnation while safeguarding precious shelter zones of healing. This discernment enables my inner dare devil to cut loose — wildly engaging me to go for it — casting my fate to the wind and trusting in the best!

The Tibetan, sparkling in response, teaches:

‘"One risks everything when choosing to embody his/her truth. The road to that truth is laden with periodic mandates to defy the known which puts the ego at peril. People fear taking meaningful risks because they don’t trust the process that unfolds their Divinity. They assume that the required risks that imperil their paradigm are actually dangerous. But ironically, this risky business of revealing the soul is the safest pathway. Real danger lies in one’s unwillingness to take a soul-based risk at the appropriate time.

"When is risk an impulse to evolve versus self-sabotage? Often when the ego senses the soul’s need to face a transformational challenge, it subverts the process by hazarding dangerous, but irrelevant actions to avoid the real soul pass required. Empty ego-created bouts of peril undermine inner well being and the soul’s unfoldment.

"Wise risk-taking reflects true mastery. Recklessness is a sign of immaturity. Foolhardiness indicates an ego need to excite growth, control the pace of evolution, force an experience not yet ripened in the soul — a unfortunate display of impatience, disregard for the sanctity of the body/mind/emotions and an unwillingness to collaborate with the Divine Plan. The ego craves the false ‘high’ — electrical charge — of being on the edge. Fearful of facing self’s deeper truth, this diversion from the real bravery required to be a true ambassador of the soul is inconsequential to one’s karmic contract — an act of disturbance that only retards the process of evolution. Ego risk’s little dramas, based in glamor, hold no interest for the soul.

"True evolutionary risks represent the internal thrust of the soul to emerge by defying the status quo and venturing forth into new parameters of consciousness. Wise risks spring from an innate knowing that self has reached a dead end and must rock the boat, leave the comfort zone and open to the new. This unavoidable juncture persistently prods self to out-dare all the false beliefs currently choking the soul.

"Beyond the collective denial of the need to take soul-based risks, today’s accelerated energies require everyone to DARE to be more — to risk venturing into previously unacceptable states of being — to confront the internal statues that betray the soul. Bravely chosen wise risks place self right in the moment with heightened awareness, sharpened vision, increased sensitivity to energy. Filled with a Divine Excitement that heralds the escalation and broadening of self’s dimensionality, a profound satisfaction saturated with self-esteem/respect rewards a risk well-taken. The Masters are ever-ready to safeguard the student through these evolutionary precipices as we rejoice in the shared exhilaration of full exposure to All That Is!"