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Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

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What are Wild Inventures?

August 17, 2021 3 Comments

I’m so glad you asked!

Let’s say that an ADventure is a quest or mission you go out into, much like Frodo Baggins and his friends do in Lord of the Rings. I like adventures fine, and I’m lucky enough to have been on many in my life.

An INventure is a different kind of quest. It’s about lining up the actions you take with your own deepest truth; living in absolute integrity.

See, often we get turned about by other people: our families, our ethnic communities, our national groups, or our softball league. Any of these groups can be seen as its own culture—and one thing culture wants us all to do is to conform. Our true nature only wants us to be in peace, in alignment with those individual truths that may not be shared by anyone else on earth.

On our podcast, Bewildered, my partner Martha Beck and talk about the culture/nature divide like this. “Culture tells us to come to consensus. But our true nature tells us always to come to our senses.”

When you learn to pay attention to our senses and act accordingly, life truly becomes one wild inventure after another.

How do I start having my own inventures?

There’s an easy method to get yourself on the inventurous path. I think of it like this.

IN + INVENT + VENTURE = INVENTURE

Right now, you’re probably facing some kind of decision. It might be about what to have for lunch. It might be about what college to apply to. It might be about whether or not to leave a relationship. You can embark on an inventure in any moment. Let me show you how.

Step one: IN

Before you do anything else, go inside yourself. All the wisdom you’ve ever wished for is right there waiting for you. Find somewhere quiet, put both feet flat on the floor if possible, and focus on your breathing. Reach inward for silence. This might take some time, especially if you aren’t a regular meditator. It’s worth the wait when you realize that there is an infinite pool of peace  inside you.

The silence you encounter at this point is you coming to your senses. Culture can’t reach you here. If you feel yourself sliding back into language and ideas that begin “I should,” just settle back and return to your breath.

Step two: INVENT

Now that you’ve found your way away from the clamor of culture, it’s time to bring your imagination in. When you sit with the decision you have to make, imagine the absolute best outcome. This should start with the ideal feeling state coming out of this moment.

Now, in your imagination, invent your way forward through this moment to an absolutely wonderful future moment on the other side. You feel great, and are steeped in a prevailing sense of peace.

Let the feelings and images grow as bright and detailed as you like. Dwell in the sensations and images. Keep this moment as a touchstone you can return to.

Step three: VENTURE

This is the moment where you take your inner knowing and invention on the road! This is where you take a step forward—you venture forth—and test the feeling state against the one you found inside you. Does this feel like I’m heading in the direction of peace? Am I venturing towards that ideal outcome I invented?

You will likely venture out in several different directions until you find the one that brings you into the inventure. When it happens, you’ll feel something like a little “click” inside, a sense of ease, a smoothness where before there was a feeling of static or difficulty.

When you hit that point of ease in your venture, you’ve just begun a true inventure. Now do it all over again!

Step four: WILD INVENTURES!

You know where you’re going? Right into your dream life. The more you listen inwards and invent your own life, the more you venture in its direction, the more incredible life becomes.

A word of warning, though: your dream life may well look strange to the culture (and cultures) you belong to. It can be uncomfortable at times. But as a price to pay for freedom, peace and joy, I promise you it’s worth it a thousand times over.

Stick around on the blog to learn more about me and my family working towards a life full of wild inventures!

xR

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article originally appeared on Rowan’s Wild Inventures substack newsletter. To subscribe and get all Rowan’s posts in your inbox, head over to Wild Inventures on substack now. 

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Comments

  1. Em says

    January 16, 2022 at 8:03 pm

    So excited by the concept of Inventures! Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
  2. Orit says

    June 2, 2022 at 6:03 am

    Thank you, Rowan, I love the concept of inventures. I’ve been living like this for a big part of my life. Now I know what I’ve been doing 🙂 Had no idea! Thank you for clarifying this and giving it an aware legitimacy. Good to know we are quite a few to be doing this. the more the merrier, as they say 😉

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Parenting inventures - Rowan Mangan says:
    January 26, 2023 at 7:26 pm

    […] you might already know, “inventure” is my word for a way of living that puts nature before culture. It’s all about living in a way that feels right to you, even […]

    Reply

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"In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro disc "In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro discuss the fear of not getting enough done that permeates our culture—and what we can do about it. 

As Martha points out, if you’re worried about getting things done, and you try to make the fear go away by getting things done, the fear only multiplies.

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The typical “advice” we get from the culture is to always put more on our to-do list than we’ll ever achieve—and always be stressing out about it. 

In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro take a deep dive into the cultural messages that we’re supposed to constantly produce more, more, more and that enough is never enough.

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In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro talk In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro talk about how to balance the extremes in our lives (and if we should even try) and they share some funny stories along the way.

Recently Ro went sneaking into her toddler Lila's bedroom (so dramatically that Martha said she’d never make a good pickpocket) and when she stroked Lila’s hair, it felt a little sticky and coarse.

Did Lila get some food in her hair at dinner? Ro wondered. What food could it be? And wait a minute—what was that horrifying hard bit? 

When she looked over, Ro saw a little plastic eye looking up at her and suddenly realized what had happened: She’d been stroking a stuffed monkey for a good five minutes, thinking it was her Lila.

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It’s another BeWild Files episode of Bewildered, It’s another BeWild Files episode of Bewildered, and Martha and Rowan are answering a question about how to find balance between the extremes in our lives. 

Ro says the idea of appetite is an interesting way to conceptualize the way that our bodies want different things at different times.

For example, Martha recently experienced an all-consuming appetite for painting where she painted all day every day and did little else. And yet after six weeks, she felt “full” and no longer needed to paint at that same level of intensity.

As Rowan says, there is a wisdom to our appetites that is so old and so deep our brains can’t fully understand it. However, if we learn to trust that wisdom, we’ll begin to see how our appetites—even the extreme ones—eventually balance each other out. 

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Assorted Florida moments. Grateful to have been th Assorted Florida moments. Grateful to have been there to farewell a beloved matriarch and see so many dear faces. Thanks to the Gerdes clan for being incredible in every way. All the love.
Join Martha and Ro for episode 50 of Bewildered wh Join Martha and Ro for episode 50 of Bewildered where they team up with special guests Eric Zimmer and Ginny Gay from The One You Feed podcast to talk about the inevitability of constant change and how to proceed without any social scripts to guide us.

The older we get, Eric says, the more the rules keep changing from when we were younger—and if we’re not careful, our ability to adapt will diminish with age. 

Martha suggests that we could see all this change as an opportunity.

Since everything is constantly shifting around us so that we have to improvise everything all the time, what if we start viewing this as a joyful thing that’s helping to keep our brains young? As Ro adds, it may even be a way we can witness our own evolution in our lifetime.

Tune in for this insightful conversation about embracing change and the willingness to adapt, learn, and improvise your way into the life that’s meant for you.

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Do you ever have difficulty trusting your gut? In Do you ever have difficulty trusting your gut?

In this episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro are joined by their friends Eric Zimmer and Ginny Gay from The One You Feed to talk about the intelligence of our bodies and why we have trouble interpreting and acting on our feelings.

Martha shares how our full nervous system can process 11 million bits of information per second, but our cognitive brain can only handle about 40 bits per second. When our feelings have to be filtered through our minds and various social filters, it’s easy to get things wrong!

Join Martha, Ro, Eric, and Ginny for a fun and fascinating conversation about living without social scripts and how to use the intelligence of the body to follow what’s pulling you to become your best self. 

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Are you familiar with the parable of the two wolve Are you familiar with the parable of the two wolves? 

In Episode 50 of Bewildered, Martha and Ro team up with special guests Eric Zimmer and Ginny Gay of The One You Feed podcast to explore the idea of the two “wolves” or forces within us: One wolf is a force that connects, and the other is a force that divides. 

The interesting thing is, Rowan points out, if you're looking at a force that connects, it automatically includes the force that divides.

Martha adds that if we “feed the right wolf,” we can create a shift in consciousness toward a better way of being. We don’t have to overthrow anything. Simply by changing our consciousness, we can “embrace dissonance and include it to death.”

For more insights on how to shift our consciousness in a constantly changing world, and how to create your ideal life by making it up as you go along, be sure to listen to the full conversation!

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Martha and Ro are bringing you another episode of Martha and Ro are bringing you another episode of Bewildered called “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” and it’s all about work, money, and how to follow your dreams with integrity.

You’ll also get to hear them joke about how bad they are at fighting—so bad that they can’t usually remember what their fights were about!

When they do remember, they acknowledge that their fights are about things that are true: Ro mocks Martha for saying she’s a visual person (she is), and Martha ridicules Ro for always needing to have an orderly desk (she does). 

As Martha points out, “Both of those were right. There's no argument we can give.”

The entire episode is full of wisdom with a generous dash of wit, so don’t miss it!

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Martha and Rowan are back with another episode of Martha and Rowan are back with another episode of Bewildered!

This one’s called How to Get Started, and in it they’re talking about dealing with “transitional tantrums”—that strong resistance we may feel whenever we need to stop what we’re doing to move on to a new task (even if that new thing is good for us).

It turns out there’s a lot to be learned from toddlers on this issue, and Martha and Ro share some hilarious stories about their daughter Lila—including one about a mishap Ro experienced in front of the new babysitter.

Picture it: Both of Ro’s hands were full, she had Lila clinging to one leg, and she was wearing drawstring pajama pants. You can probably draw your own conclusion…

Martha and Ro say that this story will never be spoken of again (ever, by anyone), so be sure to catch the full episode!

Listen at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.

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Spring break in the big smoke. Spring break in the big smoke.
Have you ever struggled to transition from one thi Have you ever struggled to transition from one thing to the next?

Martha and Ro have, and that’s what they’re talking about on this episode of Bewildered: How to Get Started.
 
Listener Josephine asked for advice on how to deal with the resistance that can happen when we need to make these transitions, and Martha and Ro say the key is to recognize the part of yourself that doesn’t want to do the new thing—even if it’s something good for you.

When we have to switch from one self to another self, there is a natural inertia within us that wants us to stay with what we're doing. It’s very difficult to overcome, yet the culture expects us to punish ourselves when we can’t.

Martha and Ro share a kinder, more effective approach, so be sure to listen to the full conversation to find out more!

You can listen to the full episode here, https://marthabeck.com/episodes/how-to-get-started/ or on your favorite podcasting app.

Listen at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.

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This episode of Bewildered is about the cultural “drift patterns” we can get stuck in whether they’re right for us or not.

Rowan says that a big part of how the culture controls us is based on appearances—our fear of not fitting in. And Martha adds that there's a part of us that likes it when other people give us cultural patterns to follow because it means we don't have to make scary choices. 

Drifting along on the culture’s currents can give you a feeling of safety because you’re doing what countless other people have done before you. But, as Ro points out, at what cost to your soul? 

To find out more about drift patterns and how to swim out of one toward your true self, don’t miss the full conversation!

Listen at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.

@themarthabeck 
@bewilderedpodcast 
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Doing dangerous things carefully is how children—and all of us—learn anything important. By the same token, Martha says, we grow emotionally when we do painful things with courage and integrity. 

In this BeWild Files episode of Bewildered, Martha and Ro talk about how to navigate the difficult yet necessary situations life throws our way.

Accepting that it’s not going to be easy helps you stay in your integrity, so you can work through your feelings and get to a place of peace. 

To learn more, tune in for the full conversation!

Listen at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.

@bewilderedpodcast 
@themarthabeck 
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#bewildered #bewilderedpodcast #podcast #podcastersofinstagram #wayfinder #wayfinderlifecoach #rowanmangan #marthabeck #naturenotculture #funny #funnypodcast #funnypodcasts

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