This post was originally going to be called “Passion, Paneer and the Mayfair Plate Teleporter.”

It was going to be about the trip that Adam and I just took to London during which we ate at what is ranked as London’s best Indian eateries  – Benares Restaurant. Chef, Atul Kochhar, was the first ever Indian chef to receive a Michelin Star and Benares Restaurant received its own Michelin star in January 2007.

I have been VERY excited about going there.

I have been even more excited about tasting the food and allowing it to transport me to a realm of imagination after which I could visually deconstruct each dish (a little like the review I once did for Thompsons)

However, the above post will not be written.

It was not meant to be.

Instead, I want to blow some sparkling dust of Adventure In Your Face and explain why Adventure is a key component in making your gorgeous dreams for life come true.

As children adventure comes as second nature.

During this stage of life we are (hopefully) cared for. We have our needs met. We are beautifully in touch with our inner playfulness. Imagination is rife and with abundant time, there is savannah sized space available for mucking about.

During these periods of spontaneous play, things happened.

Do you remember?

Ideas would occur and magical memories would be made.

We’d laugh so hard that our bellies would ache.

We’d get into scrapes and get out of them by the skin of our teeth.

We’d explode back into our houses, wide eyed and gulping back the truth of what had occurred before our parents noticed anything was amiss.

As kids, adventure is as natural as sunlight and blood in our veins.

Then something happens to change all of that.

And we get all stiff.

Stiff in our responsibilities, wedged between convention and mortgages, jammed in the treadmill and bewildered by the rat race.

Before we know it, there is no time to do anything else, bar collapse in front of the telly and watch someone else’s adventure written by someone else’s pen.

We can barely contemplate taking a day off to potter in the garden, let alone making space in our life for some Indiana Jones shenanigans.

For those of us who are still vaguely conscious that there IS another way of life that could be ours, we squeeze out some goals for change, set some intentions for transformation, join a class or try to find five minutes to visualise on a regular basis in the hope that this will bring the shifts we desire.

But nothing really seems to shift.

And that is because ….

There is no space for the new gorgeousness to come in.

However.

Making time for adventures creates that space.

Adventure is the acid that dissolves the barriers in our calcified living so we can step into an experience of pure possibility.

I am calling these spaces in our lives, our Adventure Pools.

The moment we step into our Adventure Pool, nothing is casual and Anything can happen. The overheard conversation, the strange man who sits by you on the train, the book you see, the café you find … it’s all part of the fabric of magical living. And in this space, you get to explore and observe, like Alice after she’s toppled down the rabbit hole and enjoy the delights that life can offer when we aren’t tied to an outcome, a chore or any responsibility.

When we step into our Adventure Pool, this (and more) can happen:

We then return to our stiff lives as more flexible beings. There’s a sense of space in our soul. There’s fresh veg in the fridge, new ideas in our heads, new ways of seeing the world. (I’m not sure why I wrote fresh veg in the fridge, but it seems to sum up the feeling).

Here are some examples of my own intentional Adventure Pooling:

A spontaneous trip to Amsterdam, was upgraded to First Class and sat next to a business man who offered me a job travelling the world sourcing textiles for his fashion business.

Being very poor and going out on an Adventure Pool walk to see if I could find some treasure (like I did as a child). Within half an hour finding a pile of money under a tree, as well as some golden nail scissors.

Adventure Pooling in a local town, but stepping back and exploring the Old Part Of That Town. Finding streets I never knew, history that’s been suppressed, symbolism in Church imagery that triggered a whole discovery and massive perception shift of the town itself. 

Multiple adventures with my friend, Naughty Nordbruch in which people were met, dreadful naughtiness occurred and epic blogs were written.

Visiting London – in particular Blackheath and Greenwich – to see my sister of the soul and city goddess, Kerry. In her company, my lid gets blown off and the most impossible things become possible. Books have been inspired, wishes have been made and happened.

During these times, there is no agenda.

We become carefree and FREE again.

This creates space between the vertebra of our existence and in those pockets of lights, transformation occurs.

If you don’t believe me – try it.

Here’s how:

Adventure Pooling is based upon your intention.

Start by knowing (loosely)  WHERE your Adventure Pool is going to take place.

For example, now that life is a little more fluid, I am going to treat my self to a full days adventure. I haven’t set a date yet, but the plan is to go to Freshwater on the Isle of Wight and sniff out some of the Victorian mysteries around Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron, the Freshwater Circle and Lewis Carrol. I have a loose plan, but nothing is set in stone and one I’ve started the adventure I will be following my nose (and possibly a white rabbit).

The entry point of this adventure will be when I park my car in Freshwater.

The exit point will be when I get back into my car and drive home.

Once you’ve experienced the magic of an Adventure Pool, you won’t be the same person you were on entry. So, even though you set an exit point, you take the essence of your adventure with you.

Once you have set up your Adventure Pool and are ready to go, you need to now LET go of any expectations, hopes, firmly held outcome desires.

Adventure Pooling is the difference between

a. going to the swimming pool with the plan of swimming sixty lengths doing front crawl, in 1 hour

OR

b) going to the pool to skull, meander, dip down and pretend to be a mermaid.

B . is about trusting, letting go of control and relishing the experience.

That’s where the magic envelopes you.

At the start of this post, I said that Adam and I went to London and I’d had the plan of reviewing the food at Benares Restaurant. However, I also was open to the trip as being a beautiful Adventure Pool. What happened was that the meal itself was pretty unsensational, but the hotel we stayed in put me into a state of creative, inspirational mush. AND then I got a message from my lovely friend Emma, who JUST SO HAPPENED to be in London (she lives in a hill in France) and spent the afternoon drinking Malbec and talking about things that lit me up inside and confirmed a whole load of stuff that had been playing on my mind.

Emma and The Montcalm Royal House Hotel were the treasure of the trip.

There’s nothing like diving into an Adventure Pool with a beloved friend who you GET and who GETS you.

In fact, let’s face it. You may have read this entire post and thought on countless occasions, “this woman is off her nut. What is she even TALKING about?”

OR, you may have read the post and thought, “That sounds like fun and I’m up for experimenting with this Adventure Pooling lark.”

When choosing a friend to join you – you need someone who is up for the experiment. You are looking for someone who is open hearted, open minded and up for a meander and a potter. You are looking for someone who has an afternoon to spare and isn’t in a hurry to get some humungous chore done on the same afternoon.

Then, simply get together.

Choose your entry points, choose your exit points and remember …have no expectation of what sort of treasure you’ll both find or what sort of rabbit hole you’ll end up down. Because the magic is in the trust and as you lean into the unknown, the Unknown will lean back and THEN the crazy dance will begin.

Enjoy!

If you have any Grown Up Adventure Stories that have happened, I would absolutely love to hear them! If you decide to experiment with Adventure Pooling and want to share your experiences, I’d LOVE to hear them too. Finally, if you have any questions … just ask. There’s a nice welcoming Comments Area below. xxx