Today (Oct 1) is my blog’s 15th birthday. I wrote my first post on Oct 1, 2004, starting with WordPress 1.0.

Tomorrow (Oct 2) is the 10-year anniversary of our first 3-day workshop (the original Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas). That’s also the day my wife Rachelle and I first met. Since then we’ve done 16 3-day workshops on a variety of different themes.

I’ve really enjoyed this past decade. I’m especially glad I leaned into taking more trips, which comprise some of my fondest memories during this time period. Before 2009 I’d never traveled outside the USA. Now I do so pretty regularly and have been to around 15 countries so far. I’ll add a few more (Panama, Northern Ireland, Scotland) within the next year and Japan in 2021.

So much of what I appreciate in life seems to come from inviting and embracing what feels uncomfortable or uncertain. The challenge is not to do this a few times and then settle into an expanded comfort zone but rather to accept the long-term path of continually finding the edges and stretching beyond them. No matter how big your comfort zone gets, there’s always more to explore beyond it, and that’s where a lot of growth is to be found.

Next month my stretch experience will be to try ayahuasca for the first time (4x in a week actually) with a group of friends in Costa Rica. I’m curious to see what effect it has. I’ve heard the experience can be impossible to put into words, but I think it would be worthwhile to at least try to share what the experience is like.