The places around you shape who you are. Are you going to new places regularly? Or is your life on the work-home-errands carousel?
If you want a telling statistic, make an inventory of the actual places you visit in a given week. Typical entries might be home, commute, office or work-share space, the place you usually have lunch, gym or routes where you run or exercise, grocery store, laundry room, library, friend’s place, favorite coffee shop.
Then make an inventory of the NEW places you visit in a given week. (New bars or restaurants doesn’t count. We’re talking a much higher bar than that.) How many? Any?
If you don’t get past the usual places and spaces of your daily life, you’re merely shaping a routine you, not a limitless one. “We make our buildings and afterwards they make us. They regulate the course of our lives,” said William Churchill. Too true! The same is true of the places you visit in the average week. You shape your routine, your places to go to, and then they run on autopilot, framing your thoughts and directing your concerns and behavioral patterns into typical forms, functions, pathways and limitations.
Your typical places become outward representations that repeatedly and continuously reflect back to you the primary things to be concerned about (whether those are productive, expansive - or not). So if your typical life is a carousel of the same places in rotation, home-office-commute-home, grocery-chores-entertainment-home, week after week, realize that these are impacting you. These reflect and shape who you are through triggering what you think about, what you feel, and what you believe is possible or likely in a typical day in your typical life.
As a note regarding the internet - Sure, you can potentially be surfing the internet and have unlimited images of distant places to view. But nothing you experience online (which, it should be noted, you are likely consuming surrounded by a typical space - home, coffee shop, etc.) can match the expansion of actually experiencing a new space, directly feeling its energy in your mind, body and spirit, and the limitlessness this inspires in you. Standing directly in the center tiles of the magnificent rotunda of a monument, dome lofting high above you, gilded and filled with turn-of-the-century murals and mosaics, transmits its place-energy and presence-energy to you in a way an online image never can.
To be limitless, step beyond your typical life. To do that, cultivate a habit of regularly seeking out spaces that are new to you to receive inspiration and expansion. Make it a practice to build Adventure Days into your calendar.
To be limitless, step beyond your typical life. To do that, cultivate a habit of regularly seeking out spaces that are new to you to receive inspiration and expansion.
Adventure Day places are everywhere. To get you started, museums, universities, zoos, and historic cemeteries are all places to find expansion and exploration. As a note, go solo, or pick travel companions who really want to pause and travel the byways, so that you can take your time.
Museums
Museums are limitless! Make it a goal to experience every museum in your town at least once. Certainly, at a most basic level, just go and wander through and absorb. But you can take a more active stance as well:
Look at exhibits and evaluate how they are designed. Which techniques work and which don’t?
Look at the people as they visit, observe, interact with the exhibits. What are their patterns, what do you see in common, what do you think they’re appreciating or absorbing?
Look at exhibits, compare those from the turn of the century, and modern multimedia presentations. Reflect on the value of both kinds of presentation, old and new.
Which exhibits are being updated, and why? What teaching methods are being used?
What’s your museum’s history - what real people founded it, and why? Realize deeply that the institution has behind it so many founders, scientists, contributors, researchers, collaborators, curators, down through the many decades of its existence, that create the museum you know today as their legacy.
In terms of place: Look at the use of space. If in a large museum, vaulting ceilings, great pillars and arches, boundedness, early-1900s architecture, sculptural detail, all the aspects that make a museum resonate with the idea of enlightenment, tradition, history and authority. Feel how those spatial energies enliven you. Imagine yourself presenting or contributing to the museum’s field of study - how does that feel?
Universities
Visit your own alma mater, or a key university in your area. Walk the grounds, have coffee at the Student Center. Feel out the energy of studenthood in this day and age. What are their concerns? What are their hopes and ambitions? What would yours be, if you were a student again?
In terms of place: Walk the grounds and feel the history. Stroll among the old buildings that represent tradition, and the modern additions that keep the school fresh and alive. What feelings and thoughts do they inspire in you? If you were going to contribute to design a building that would bear your name, what would you want it to look like?
Zoos
Zoos are a fascinating subset of place management. They combine creating natural environments for the animal residents, with creating a workable flow of direction for humans to walk through the grounds and observe. Take time to visit your local zoo and let the space inspire you.
What does it feel like to realize there are so many different mini-environments representing different parts of the globe - so different from your usual locale or climate-controlled office?
How does it feel to be a curious observer among the animals, rather than busy with the typical concerns of everyday life? How does this give you reflective space for thought?
Do some people-watching - what does the behavior of people at the zoo show you about modern life?
In terms of place: Feel out the many habitats and realize how vast the range is, compared to the typical things you see on your daily commute. Imagine yourself in these various locations. Feel out the zoo itself, its energies of daily operation, how it manages to handle all those crowds, the behaviors of the people.
Historic Cemeteries
Find a historic cemetery in your area, and spend an afternoon wandering among the monuments. Read up on the historic names in advance, then find their tombs. As you stand before them, feel the lineage of their contribution to the life you live today. You may even find great names you’ve seen on college buildings, museums, institutions, streets, and more.
Realize these were real people, living real lives, making these contributions. How can you emulate them?
Feel how these monuments represent people who were once alive and vital as you are now, living their lives as you are now. What will YOUR story be?
How can you make the most of life? What will you leave as your legacy?
In terms of place: Look at the green grass and the views, take in the monuments, feel out whether it's peaceful in a grand or small way. A cemetery can feel like a huge, calm park of stories that are part of the past. Experience the energy. What thoughts does it inspire?
How can you add to this list of places? What power of space and place can you use to connect with bigger dreams?
Visit a few new places in the next few weeks and feel the results. (Note: If you’ve been to a place before but not for a while, go, it still counts!) Wander, enjoy, reflect, have fun, and come back that much more LIMITLESS from your experience. Bonus points if you make notes on your experience and how it expanded your awareness of all you are and can be. What insights came up? What inspired you the most?
To be limitless, DO limitless. Cultivate a habit of exploring that gets you out of your daily routine.
What new places will you plan to visit today?
Keep Growing,
Katherine Lieber coaches and trains on self-leadership, limitlessness, energy health, inner power, and healing the wounded professional to recover core vision, joy, and high-powered performance in the workplace. She is the founder of TitaniumBlue Leadership. Be limitless - be the hero in a world that needs you.
© 2019 Katherine R. Lieber & TitaniumBlue Leadership
#limitlessmonth #limitlessness #transformation #historicplaces #titaniumblueleadership #katherinelieber
The internet is limitless, and so is its capacity for sharing! Share this post using the links below.
