A Practical Path to New Possibilities
By challenging yourself to reach goals outside your comfort zone — yet still attainable — you set yourself up to accomplish truly amazing things.
Below you will find a backdrop for and the purpose of Try This On. In short, we share insights and activities that, when practiced (even briefly), help develop our curiosity muscle - a key ingredient for expanding our experience of life! This exploration of curiosity naturally deepens the clarity of your interests, and when followed, develops new experiences innately aligned to your goals/dreams.
Following your interests down a path of discovery, one step at a time, curiosity will, quite literally, open the doorway to new beginnings.
But Try This On is not just about ingesting new insights, it is very much about taking actions in your life! Trying new things, being willing to fail, being willing to learn from each try, and to learn that it’s good to learn, and good to try again. Good news here, you pick what you want to try on! If it works, keep working it, expand on it. If it doesn’t, move on to the next idea - working the path whose ultimate goal most inspires you!
Either way, you will undoubtedly bring value into your life through your regular participation in the simple and adventurous exploration of life.
So here we go!
My name is James Gehring, everyone calls me Jim, and I'm someone who, looking back over 60+ years of circling the sun, has always had an innate drive to better understand the gap between the awe inspiring beauty of life on planet Earth and the chaotic conditions we humans create in relationship with each other and the rest of the planet.
In other words, I am Relentlessly curious about life itself, and here is something I've noticed.
Most people, including myself, limit their lives with systems and beliefs that were adopted, seemingly by chance, through the logistics of our birth - the family, community and culture that surrounded us in our early years. These adopted beliefs and systems have a real impact because as we continue to grow and mature, we rarely pause long enough to inspect what we have inherited, to reflect on the impact these systems and beliefs have on our personal choices and actions.
As such, we are rarely expressing ourselves in the world in a way that consistently touches, moves and inspires us personally. Said differently, it can be quite difficult to experience more joy than stress in your life when using values that were handed down from previous generations, sometimes even previous eras.
Here's what happens: with these adopted systems and beliefs in place, we lack the ability to be authentically self-expressed, to fully share with others the unique qualities of our own values and virtues! It's not a wonder we can feel like something is out of place.
Yet in the midst of these conditions, we still yearn for something different, either openly or quietly to ourselves. Somewhere within there is something telling us that there is more to this, which is a very natural curiosity about our purpose in life.
Unfortunately, with adopted systems and beliefs in place, unconsciously hidden from view, this yearning is suppressed. This is, biologically and mentally, not a good thing. It is the root cause of much of our suffering, depression and stress.
You know the saying… “never raise a problem without offering a path forward”, so what's missing, what's needed?
Something that’s practical, easy to use, allowing you to take simple steps in the exploration of what’s possible. Something that is easy to engage in your daily life. Something that naturally stretches you beyond these built-in limitations, beyond our comfort zone.
Here’s how we make that happen…
The articles shared here are all focused on the exploration of life outside the confines of the hidden rules adopted in our early years. Concepts shared range from easy to digest, passing through the terrain of cognitive science, and resting in the spiritual wisdom that has come to us from all corners of the globe!
The intention is to provide a space where you can ease yourself gracefully into new territory! Where you can come and go at will and move through this at your own pace.
Tip number 1, Be courageous, curious, and vulnerable. Explore one step at a time, giving yourself time to let new ideas sneak past the voice that wants you to interpret these new materials through old filters or lenses.
Tip number 2: To help with step 1, remember, this is called "Try This On!". Think of these ideas and the proposed actions like a new piece of clothing you try on at the store. When you put them on you do NOT have to buy them. You can put it back on the rack right away. But until you have earnestly worn the outfit to properly test drive it, you will limit yourself from the experience of something that can change your entire life!
For me this is a gift that I still (to this day) work to give myself. It takes courage to try on something new when I can more easily stay with what's "comfortable". But comfortable is anything but exceptional and it is a far cry from real joy!
So why am I here?
To feed my own natural curiosity, I have been exploring broader ideas for many decades now - and taking action to engage them in my life! And I am happy to say, there is real potential in what lies outside of the walls of our past, outside of what we inherited, just oustide of our comfort zone. In short, the potential is what we yearn for: a simple joy that exceeds our expectations!
But for me, exploring these things alone is not what makes a difference. Two more critical ingredients are required:
First, you must put new insights into action! Learning alone is not enough.
Second, you must share and engage what you’ve discovered with others - even if it is awkward at first.
In short, when we explore new insights, put them into action, and share them with others, we grow.
What we will be exploring here are insights, accompanied by practical steps, so you can take any area of your life to the next level - which is always, and quite literally, outside the boundaries of what you already know!
This isn’t about changing your entire diet, starting a new exercise program or mindfulness practice. There’s more than enough information out there to get you into those routines if you wish.
These are insights that naturally expand your mind with practical steps to help you begin the process of integrating these concepts into your everyday life.