Over the years, I’ve heard people give many reasons for deciding to undertake a Wilderness Quest.
Personally, I can think of a million. But I guess when you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail.
I think Quest is an appropriate response to pretty much every troubling situation. But that’s just me.
The following are reasons I’ve heard from other people as we’ve sat in circle and they’ve shared what prompted them to invest their time, energy, and financial resources in this type of spiritual growth.
- Retirement: I can finally do all the things I never had the chance to do before.
- I want to stop self-harming and I need an intervention like this to go cold turkey.
- I’ve been single for 25 years and want to figure out why.
- I’m recently divorced, the kids have moved out, and I’m not sure who I am or what my role is as a father anymore.
- This is my eighth Quest – I’m trying to do one every year.
- My mother died last year and I can’t seem to let her go.
- I’m sick of suffering from anxiety and depression and I want to face my fears.
- I’m struggling with how to handle my family’s response to my coming out and am considering whether my path is to build bridges or set boundaries and break off all relationship.
- I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been angry with my father all these years even though my mother’s the alcoholic who never makes me a priority.
- My best friend died and I can’t stop grieving but I feel like it’s time I should become my own person.
- I’ve reached a peak of success and am wondering if this is all there is; it feels to early to peak.
- I don’t know what my gifts are or what I want to do with my life; I want clarity.
- I feel uninitiated. I don’t have any mentors, elders, or conscious adults in my life to notice that I’m failing to “launch”.
- I think I might want to incorporate overnight Quests into my work with youth but I’ve actually never been on one myself so I thought I’d check it out.
- I’m on track to have the life I’ve been working so hard for all these years, but I kind of want to press “pause” and check in – is this what I really want?
- I have a well-established career but something inside me says it might be time to wrap it up and do something else, I just don’t know what. I need some time to reflect.
- I need to forgive my father.
- I had a near-death experience; I need some time and space to integrate what it all means.
- I’ve been estranged from my parents since I emigrated to America for high school. Now I’m in my forties, in the midst of a divorce, single parenting, and my parents are dying. I don’t recognize my life anymore. I have a lot of suppressed emotion I can’t deal with.
- I have been languishing in my parents’ basement since the end of high school and it’s time for me to “become a man”.
- I feel as though I’ve lost connection to my inner sense of power and want to tap into it again.
- I have an urge to lay myself at the foot of the universe and just give thanks and praise.
- I’m outraged at the insanity and injustice of the world and feel a need to reconnect more deeply with the planet in order to maintain my own sanity and ground myself.
- I’m preparing for a major life and career change and want to check in and make sure it’s the right move for me and my family.
- I like to go on Quest every couple of years as a way to re-centre myself and re-align my life with my values and evolving priorities.
- I’ve always wanted to go on a Quest just to see what it’s like and find out how I would handle myself alone in the wilderness.
A lot of these sound like something I would say and are almost exactly the same reasons I’ve gone on Quests. There do seem to be some near-universal reasons for wanting to go into the wilderness to think.
I often say,
