Climbing A Mountain Part 4: Courage Under Fire

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

Back at the trailhead we had each shared our biggest fear about the climb. His was a fear of heights. Not an insignificant thing on or off a mountain. A few hours into it, he hadn’t had to stare that fear in the face. Now he did, as our next steps would include a short but steep climb, a traverse across a narrow trail with steep slopes on either side, and finally, another steep pitch bordered by a crevasse.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

We had stopped at an outcrop to put on our crampons. He turned his face away from the slope and gripped the sides of a boulder. We all silently went about gearing up, sensing that for the moment, all we could do was give him a safe space in which to be afraid. Not try to talk him out of it, or tell him what to do or how to do it. Fear doesn’t need fixing.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

Looking up from my boots, he was sitting on a rock, his wife kneeling at his feet, carefully attaching his crampons to his boots. It was like watching Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, showing them what love does in the face of fear.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

And then he did. He stepped out onto the slope and headed straight up. Like climbing a ladder that is leaning up against the side of a house, but with nothing to hold on to. One step ahead of him, his cousin told him to fix his focus on her feet rather than the steep slope on either side. Behind him another cousin told him to simply take five more steps. The one in front was terrified too, but by focusing on him she momentarily forgot that she was afraid too. The one behind him called upon her experience as a Cross-fit coach to help him simply take the next right step. Step-by-terrifying-step, he made his way to the other side of the thing he thought he couldn’t do. He did it himself, but he didn’t have to do it alone.

When did we decide that being vulnerable is an act of weakness? From what I saw up on that mountain, it is one of the most courageous things we can ever do.

Two days later, we passed that same steep stretch on our way back down.

“I can do that,” he said.

What A Mess

We’re all a mess. Some of us may be better at hiding it than others, but trust me on this one, even the most buttoned up of us is a mess. Some days we’re a little less of a mess, and on others, a full-blown, all out, will-I-ever-get-my-shit-together mess.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Being a mess is hard enough as it is without making things even worse by wishing I was, it/we/they/life/things were different.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

What we need, more than anything, is to be able to be a mess without someone try to fix us, coax us out of it, convince us that we’re not, or point out the silver lining.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

I’m not saying that we should wallow in it, hang on to it, or blame someone else for it. But let’s not pretend that we’re not a mess when we actually are. Come to think of it, we shouldn’t be too surprised at the messiness of it all. I mean, it started out that way when we were born, what with the labor pains, pushing, gushing, bloody, gooey mess and all. We forget that before the doctor or midwife or nurse or whoever wrapped us up in a clean blanket and put a cute little beanie on our pointy little head, we were a slippery little mess. A miraculous one to be sure, but a mess nonetheless. In other words, life is messy. Always has been, always will be. So maybe, just maybe, to be a mess is simply another way of saying that we are alive.

So let’s get over it. We’re a mess. So be it.

Day 5 without a shower in the Wallowa Mountains

This Not That

Some mornings we start our days with steel cut oats topped with fruit, almond milk, some nuts, and a little butter and brown sugar for good measure. Each ingredient adds to the whole, but can stand alone on its own. Even the butter. It’s delicious and we both love it. Tom however, chooses to ruin his by stirring it all up together into something I call “glop”. I love oatmeal. I hate glop. It is hard to distinguish one flavor from the other, and it’s not much to look at either.

Stick with me here, but a bowl of glop is a lot like how we can handle interpersonal challenges, especially in our long term relationships. We stir everything up together until it is almost impossible to tell one situation or issue from other ones.

Stirring everything together sounds something like this: You always… You never… This is just like when you… All the ingredients of the current issue get glopped together with a bunch of other ones, until every bite tastes the same, and it is nearly impossible to tell this from that.

Not stirring everything together sounds like this:This morning when you___ I felt… When you didn’t follow through on your commitment, this is how it impacted me. I want to talk to you about something that happened recently. Each issue or situation stands on its own.

Learning to take our issues one at a time and separate one from the other is one of the ways we grow up into the people we are meant to be (a lifelong process). It’s hard work. It means we have to take things as they come, deal with them as they come, and stay in the conversation about them. Some conversations are a one-and-done deal. Others come around again, and again, and again, each time an opportunity to show up more fully and with more personal accountability and ownership for our part of the bargain. And there is always a part of the bargain that is ours.

In my unhealthier moments, I can take a current issue, conflict, or challenging situation, and stir it up with a whole bunch of other ones from the past. Or take one thing and make it about everything. But as I choose to stop, sift through the emotions and particulars of the situation, I am learning to separate this from that, and bring this to the conversation, and leave that out.

Take it from me. It tastes really good.

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

Being Brave

As I write this today at Rancho La Puerta, our first workshop has finished and I am once again reminded of the courage we are asking people to find in order to answer the questions we pose. Anytime we choose to listen to our inner wisdom, we are entering territory that is both sacred and scary, standing on ground that feels both holy and shaky. As Brene Brown reminds us, any act of courage can only happen when we are also willing to be vulnerable. That is what I witnessed again today as those in our workshop listened generously to themselves, trusted what they heard, and found their way to possible next right steps. While bringing the time together to a close, I shared a story from  my last trip here this past July when my 33 year old daughter Lauren joined me.

During the week she not only enjoyed the beauty of this place and some wonderful spa treatments, she also attended my workshops. It was obvious watching her, that she had decided to show up fully for herself and go all in. She listened to her voice and captured what she heard. The night after that first workshop, I returned to our villa to find her happily reading in bed. Mom, you have my journal from the workshop in your pack pack, right? Wrong. Digging through everything in there, twice, there was no journal to be found. Standing in her doorway, I watched as her face crumpled into tears as she realized that the words she had bravely written, but that were for her eyes only, had been lost somewhere in the Ranch. She felt exposed and betrayed, as she pulled the covers over her head and said, I get brave and choose to write about really fragile and private things that I’ve been too afraid to think about till now, and look what happens. 

It was suddenly clear to me what we needed to do. I firmly told her to get up, get dressed, and come with me. Resistant for a minute, she chose to trust me and we were soon walking through the darkness back to the room where the workshop had been held. A Ranch employee was cleaning up the room, and I asked if we could look through the box of unused journals that had been picked up after my session. Lauren began to sort through the stack, pretty certain hers wouldn’t be there. And then her hands landed on the one that was hers. Gripping it to her heart, we started back to our room, and walked in silence for awhile, as her relief settled in.

Remember, I said, whenever we are brave enough to take action on our own behalf, to do the hard work of becoming our most authentic self, and to step more fully into our own lives, we are supported by unseen forces. And when you find yourself afraid in the future, and you will, you will always have the memory of tonight to remind you that you are not alone.

Onward.

Together. 

Todays post shared with gratitude for the permission to tell her story, and her courage to always show up.

Begetting

This morning I woke up to messages from two dear friends, each of whom had done something  incredibly courageous.

As a result, I am inspired to be more courageous.

Courage begets courage

Yesterday I had the sacred privilege of witnessing, up close and personal, two acts of vulnerability.

As a result, I am inspired to be more vulnerable.

Vulnerability begets vulnerability.

This past weekend I was able to provide a safe space for a group of women, many of whom did not know one another, to risk connection and truth telling.

As a result, I am inspired to seek more connection, and speak more truth.

Connection and truth beget connection and truth.

This morning I had the opportunity to see what grace under fire looks like as someone moves forward with love and integrity, in spite of the odds.

As a result, I am inspired to act with more grace, love, and integrity, no matter the odds.

Grace, love, and integrity beget grace, love ,and integrity.

Onward.

Together.

I'll Show You Mine

“Every person has a story with the power to crack you wide open.”

Oprah

We are story tellers at heart, and we see ourselves in one another’s stories.

Why is it then, that we are so reluctant to actually tell our stories? The real ones. The messy ones. The ones that don’t have happy endings. The ones where we still haven’t figured it all out yet. I’m not talking about blurting everything out behind the cyber curtain on some social media platform, but in real life conversations, with real people, in appropriate settings.

When I was writing BLUSH: Women & Wine, it took me a long time to talk openly about my love, and my misuse, of wine. This was partly because I knew that I had my own hard work to do to figure it all out. But it was also because there was some shame connected to the reliance I had on my nightly wine to cope with the stress and painful parts of my life, and fear of what others would think if they knew. Shame and fear keep our stories under our carefully crafted wraps.

One day, in the midst of a catch-up phone conversation with a friend, she asked me what I’d been up to. Without thinking, I blurted out my story of the book I was writing about my relationship with wine, and my use of it as a very classy looking coping mechanism. There was a long, awkward silence on the other end of the phone, and I immediately regretted my impulsive vulnerability. But then she said, “You’re talking about me. But I would have been too embarrassed to talk about it if you hadn’t said something first.”

When it comes to our very human stories that connect us with all the other human stories, why wait?

Let’s be the ones to go first.