On the Verge. Cara Bradley

       CHAPTER SIX: Open Heart

       Gut Check: How Do You Shut Down?

       Gut Check: When Do You Open Up and Embrace Life?

       Primer Practice: Box Breathing

       Part III: Verge Practices

       CHAPTER SEVEN: Awake and Fully Alive — On Purpose

       CHAPTER EIGHT: Notice This Moment

       Primer Practice: Counting Breath

       CHAPTER NINE: Move My Body

       Gut Check: How Do You Move Your Body?

       CHAPTER TEN: Meet My Mind

       Meditation Practice: Focused Deep Breathing

       CHAPTER ELEVEN: Notes to Self

       Gut Check: Choosing Your Notes to Self

       Part IV: Verge Strategies

       CHAPTER TWELVE: Be in Sync

       Gut Check: Outer Silence in Your Life

       Gut Check: Outer Stillness in Your Life

       Gut Check: Feel Your Rhythm

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Be Kind

       Gut Check: Choose Your Phrase

       Gut Check: How Do You Lighten Up?

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Let It Go, Let It Be

       Gut Check: Your Tendencies to Force, Fix, and Flee

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Be Aware

       Part V: Show Up and Shine

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Coming Home

       Primer Practice: Coming Home

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Leaning into Ripe Opportunities

       Gut Check: How Do You Show Up and Shine?

       Gut Check: Your Ripe Opportunities

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Trusting Intelligence

       Primer Practice: Body Scan

       CHAPTER NINETEEN: Welcoming Peace

       Gut Check: Your Experience of Peace

       CHAPTER TWENTY: Experiencing Fearlessness

       Conclusion

       Acknowledgments

       Online Practice Support

       About the Author

Introduction

      I was nineteen years old when I stepped up to the starting line for my last college track race, with no clue that my life would be forever changed. On that auspicious day, I managed to settle down, show up, and — with surprising grace — sail across the finish line in record time. In two minutes and change, I went from ordinary runner to elite athlete. In a flash, I experienced a surge of strength that didn’t come from merely trying harder but, instead, seemed to emerge from a place where I felt clear, powerful, and fully alive.

      Prior to that race, I rarely took the time to properly prepare for competition and often crawled to the starting line crippled with prerace jitters. Since it was my last race, I felt I owed it to myself to go out on top and to try my hardest to beat my long-standing personal record. And so, on this day of my last college race, I went for a warm-up jog by myself during which I repeated out loud, “Personal best, personal best.”

      During my track career, my fastest race was mildly respectable, but by no means exceptional. I trained hard, but not super-hard. I was competitive, but not that competitive. I was, at best, an average runner. But I knew I had more in me. My strength was there. Somewhere. What I didn’t know was how to access and use it.

      I stepped up to the starting line that day unusually calm. I focused on the track ahead, waiting for the starting gun. Bang. I took off. On my first lap, I felt completely awake — sort of as if the lights in every cell in my body had suddenly turned on. I felt supercharged with energy. On my second lap, my mind cleared, time slowed, and I became conscious of every step and breath. I passed our top mid-distance runner, forgetting that I was supposed to be average.

      As I crossed the finish line, my teammates jumped on me. I had no idea why. What just happened? Personal record? What, six seconds off my record? Hold on…What did I just do? My first reaction was “Wow! I did it! A new personal best for me!” But in the very next moment, a surge of “Are you kidding me?” took over my entire body.

      Although I felt proud of my race, I also felt disappointed that it had taken me my entire track career to find my inner strength and break my long-standing record. When the rush of excitement settled, the big questions began to mount.

      Why had I doubted my ability for so many years? Why hadn’t I ever felt that strong in prior races? Where did that incredible charge of energy and sense of aliveness come from? And, most important, how do I find it again?

      Deep down I felt certain that breaking my personal record was related to my prerace jog. Repeating “Personal best” had settled me. I’d shifted into a relaxed yet alert state where I had no doubt and no fear. In this state, beyond thinking, I soared and I shined. Immediately, I wanted to understand what exactly I’d done to feel that awake and alive. I had to find a system or discipline to help me feel that clear and confident — all the time. I knew one thing for certain: I wanted more.

      After my extraordinary experience on the track, I knew my life would never be the same. During that race, I encountered who I was capable of becoming, and I refused to settle for less by falling back asleep. I became hungry for answers, sparking a lifelong curiosity about my own potential and human potential in general.

      Years later my husband, Brian, spent a few weeks in the Amazon jungle working with an indigenous community, during which he explored rivers and tributaries in the most vibrant ecosystem on earth. He traveled throughout its vast river system, often stopping at specific places where two rivers merged into one. These places are revered in the river basin as sacred, because it is at these junctures that plants and wildlife thrive more than in any other area on the river. This special place is called “the verge.”

      As a human-potential junkie, I was ecstatic to learn that a place like the verge actually existed. Imagine the feeling of living on a verge in the Amazon. It made me wonder if, like the plants and wildlife, the people who live on the verge thrive there too. It made me wonder if there was a verge closer to home, and if such a place or state existed, how I could get there and live there.

      I started experimenting with techniques and practices that could help me thrive as if I were living on the verge. I took thousands of yoga classes, sat in meditation for hundreds of hours, spent days in silence, chanted, prayed in sweat lodges, had my chakras cleared, read countless self-help and spiritual books, studied the great world religions, bungee-jumped, zip-lined, and walked on hot coals. I searched for a place like the verge where I could feel as awake and fully alive as I did when I was nineteen.

      Intrigued ever since, I’ve discovered you don’t have to go deep into the rain forest to find the verge. It is, in fact, available to you in every moment. It’s at your fingertips all the time, because this moment is the verge.

      In this exact moment there’s a gap, a split second of time, when you’re not quite in the past and not quite in the future. In this moment you are on a threshold, you are on the verge. Do you feel it?

      If you’re distracted or busy, you’ll miss it. You may speed right by it. Poof! Just like that, this gap in time will be gone forever. The verge, by nature, is fleeting