Meditate Awake

Our bodies are capable of more than we think. Extreme action specialist Elizabeth Streb has had a lifelong mission to figure out how to fly. Obsessed with flying from a young age, she set out to defy gravity and enhance her body’s natural capabilities so that she could spread her arms and soar. Through her many unsuccessful attempts, she realised that the reason humans don’t fly might be because we’re afraid of the landing. We don’t want to get hurt. She says that humans can fly — we do fly. It’s just that the duration of our flight is much less than the duration of, say, a butterfly’s flight. So we have to prepare ourselves to land sooner and more often. She learnt to relish the impact in order to enjoy those seconds of flight. And by learning to relish the impact, she changed her perspective so that falling was no longer falling. It was flying. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there for all of us.