My Journey of Adventure Counseling: The Past, Present and Future

Time files and the course of Adventure Based Counseling has come to an end. It’s probably one of my favorite courses I have ever taken in this 2.5-year university life. The course allows me to have real changes, most of which are different. How come changes seem to be different? What does it mean? How does it affect me? Too many things happened. To me it is necessary to figure it out altogether again, just after this period is being over. The course is over, whereas I personally have been ever first push myself onto such a challenging status in mind, representing another milestone appearing in my life.

Relationships of the past, present and future helps in understanding my significant self, including my motivation, feeling, and self-esteem, in order to better give and receive changing in healthy ways. What did I do? What am I doing? What will I do? All these are the question people have to ask themselves. I view the things I did in the past as a contrast to what I have done during adventure. What about beyond adventure? What’s next? The future outcome will always turn out to be the most valuable issue. It is advisable the participants equip themselves for gripping such a precious opportunity to bring themselves one step closer to the dignitarial life, as a result of valuable adventure. So writing this essay has its merit and I think that’s why we are told to do so. I personally interpret this essay as a personal written account, which is more of a mean of expanding and corroborating my individual growth than just a source of data in myself [2]. Writing what I feel allows me to figure out and reveal a greater depth of understanding about my own response to a specific context and to the whole experience.

So what exactly is experience to me? I have been told tens of various definitions. After interpretation I would like to state it as which create, provide and invent knowledge for the future. Why do we long for so-called valuable experience? The valuable experience is viewed as such because it is distinguished from traditional knowledge, which sometimes is attainable by reason alone. It is merely a kind of priori knowledge, whilst knowledge based upon experience is called a posteriori knowledge [3]. The learning from valuable experience could be a bit ideal and it still would be fine. After that I learn what I want, what I need, and what actually I am insisting on. That’s what I could come up with at present. But of course the issues are not just that simple. Experiential learning offers adversity. The appearance of adversity usually turns out to be an expansion of comfort zone, allowing me to rearrange the belief of life and its preference, mending some of my unconstructive habitats, leaving meaningless boundary and persistence, and even making a brand new choice of direction of life and focus. In the past, the faith on my religion was not that tough. The situation had not been changed regardless of how much related books read. I was tired of figuring it out, just because I lacked one single element in my concept i.e. the faith, which is able to solidify my religionary knowledge, concepts, ideas. I emphasize it as the high peak experience in this short journey of adventure based counseling.

Debriefing the experience is to shift an experience beyond just learning by doing. The major reason of debriefing is to allow participants the opportunity to integrate their learning. I have a sense of closure or completeness of my experience. In order for myself to take what I have experienced and use it effectively in own present daily life, I have to think about it and interpret its meaning, significance for myself [1]. I gradually learn how to expand the learning potential via the reflection and some application steps taught. The results of each challenge come to life every time when I could ask myself appropriate questions to initialize thinking and even mediation. I found this part significantly crucial since it helps me explore the activities from my own perspectives, generalizing to my own life and see how to apply what I have learned in the future, which help reach the goal we set at present; otherwise, things turn out to be meaningless and much of the benefits would be lost. Let’s keep asking ourselves “How can I apply the life skill that you practiced in the near future?”

So I think it is a good chance to answer this question here. However, first, at present, let’s have my future goal set, at the time when the trust has been built and becomes accessible. Well, I don’t know goal setting will give me long-term vision or merely short-term motivation. I at least, however, know precisely what I want to achieve and what I have to concentrate on and improve. I fail to recall any of my dreams I had when I was a kid. But I know how many I have accomplished. None of them. Whatever, I am looking forward to those coming. Well, partnership seemed not to be significant to me in the past. I built up most of the ideas and decisions on self-centered basic, seldom concerning other people’s aid, in terms no matter of games or works. Actually I didn’t know partnership is not that simple. Neither did I try to step out of my comfort zone. I was always confining myself inside a groan zone and struggling. Although it is likely to enhance my capability of rivalry, I lost many, which I found turned out not to be worth. I am confident that I don’t lack of personal competence while now I need more belongingness in the community, in the partnership and among the buddies. I will raise more concern and awareness on people who are fighting for the same things, sharing the same views and the same exact belief. During adventure based counseling, teammates which are working together to overcome tasks and even risks research their common goal and target. The existence of small teams provides me with safe environment, supportive atmosphere as well as positive model when facing challenges and risks. Partnership is a power anyway.

After a few times of challenging activities beforehand, I was inspired with the hope of insisting on faith. As stressed in the last two reflection papers, faith is now the most critical element in my spirit. Faith can enhance courage and confidence, as well as breaking down my boundary, which is in turn built by fragility of faith. Adventures in life are of various types. In normal life we are facing adventures, and then there must be mental pressure and the pressure of risks. From now onwards, my mentation become different, and I will keep trying to obtain my peak experience by my somewhat equipped senses.

The present is still my wallow in my lovely nature. Humankind in fact belongs to the nature. The nature is our mother and calling us to return, and enjoy her space, her nurture and healing, enabling us to become gentle and mild again and to recalling our amaze and respect to lives.

Challenge by choice! This is just to remind me that I am not going to indoctrinate other people, forcing or urging them into any situation. I am also reminded that it is my own choice. Challenge in the future depends. I can’t tell any. But why do I have to concern with the future at this moment? It is because although challenge is real, the real doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a rather long time. That is the reason why the real is not often beneficial to people who break easily, or who have to be kept carefully. But 50 years later, at the time when I get loose joints, I eyes become out of focus, and my hair drop off, I shall not think it’s a big deal because once you are handsome you can’t be ugly, except to the stupid who don’t understand. (1350 words)