The Jump

Last week I jumped out of a plane from 11,000 ft. Amazing rush, buzz, excitement, thrill and all of those great things. But more than all of that, I had an amazing experience.

In my mind there are two ways you can do a skydive. One is to jump for the thrill, maybe get a DVD made where you're waving at the camera and taking a record of the dive, swinging your arms around in the air madly and screaming. Definitely a fun way. You'll have great memory and tell a great story.

A photo I took while freefalling

The other way to skydive is to take it all in while you fall. Look around you,  breathe it in, imbibe it! Not so that you'll have the memory and the story (or the DVD record) when you land, but so that you appreciate the view, the feeling of flying and the sheer beauty of the world from that height right there and then, for the 30 seconds that you freefall and the few minutes that you float to the ground. I guess you could call it 'mindful skydiving'.

But the best thing is, you don't have to be doing a skydive to take 30 seconds to remember how incredible the world is...

...though it definitely helps when you're seeing it from this view.

**I did the parachute jump for The RISE Foundation, who support the families of people affected by addiction. They do some amazing work and if you want to make a contribution to them you can do so at www.therisefoundation.ie **