Life & Therapy

I have only gone rock-climbing once in my life, and that was enough for me.  My siblings adore this activity, so they introduced it to me one year at Joshua Tree.  When I reached the top of my first wall and it was time to come back down, I felt completely stuck.  I was roped in, and my brother was belaying me and encouraging me to start my descent by bouncing my feet against the wall on the way down.  I believe his words were something like, “C’mon now Elyn, hoppy, hoppy, hoppy!”  As non-threatening as his description was of my task at hand, I was terrified.  I clung to the wall, hoping that I could magically find myself back down on the flat earth, without having to do the letting-go part.  Of course, there was no alternative- cling as I might, I had to let go at some point, or I would never come down off that wall.  My legs were willing to do the “hoppy” part, but my hands just did not want to trust the rope, or my legs, or my brother.  They gripped the rock as if my life depended on it.  Eventually, I forced myself to unclench my fearful hands, and allowed my trusting self to relax into my harness. This was an exhilarating moment for me- a triumph of trust over fear.

There are times in our lives when we are faced with a similar choice: remain stuck by clinging fearfully to what we know, or move forward into the unfamiliar and scary unknown.  The price of being stuck eventually becomes so high that we are willing to take the risk of making a change.  It could be that we have been working at a job that we know how to do in our sleep, but which is mind-numbingly boring.  We might be afraid that if we pursue our passion, we will fail and become demoralized.  At some point, though, we may become so incredibly tired of the stuck feeling that it is worth it to us to take that risk and foray into the unfamiliar.  Suddenly, there is movement where we never imagined, and the joy of our triumph over fear is reward enough.