Happy new year! I love this time of year. In fact, I love the last week of every year. Not only because I’m with family and friends, and we’re celebrating the holidays, but because it’s the last week of the year. I love this time of reflecting back on this year, while imagining what’s possible in the next.
Howdy.
I am a goal-oriented person, and what Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, and most recently, Better Than Before, would call an Upholder. I am self-motivated and am always setting goals and working hard to achieve them. And most of the time, I do achieve them. But not always. For example, one of my goals for 2015 was to become limber and flexible enough that I would be able to touch my nose to my knee in a hurdler stretch. I didn’t achieve this goal. I worked pretty hard at it for 5 months before falling of the stretching wagon, and try as a I might, it’s not going to happen in these remaining 70 minutes of 2015. Darn it anyway.
As is tradition, my husband and I and our three sons sat around the table at dinner tonight, on New Year’s Eve, and reflected on the year before brainstorming our family goals for 2016. (We went around the table and each of us offered up some highlights from the year. One of our sons, and not our oldest, said, “I became a man this year.” He laughed when he said it, and we didn’t ask for specifics! Another son said he was glad he had so many days where he didn’t wear socks or underwear. Another reflected on a year that was the first for him to drive, and to work a paying job. We were grateful we spent some of our spring break with Jerry’s dad, since he fell sick unexpectedly shortly after that and passed away a month later. And there were others, but that’s a sampling. Then, each of us offered up family resolutions for 2016. These include eating more exotic foods, offering to do more service work for our community, going to Europe, and others.
Our family game of Tripoley, which we played while reflecting on 2015 as a family, and looking ahead to the new year.
But I digress. I think the most important question any of us can aim to answer is, “Who do I want to be?”
I feel strongly about this. When we know who it is we want to be – when we can imagine and visualize our Best Self –- then we can orient our whole life, including all of the things we do and all of the ways that we behave, accordingly. Our Best Self is our True North. It’s not a destination. It’s not a place we hope to arrive at. We can be our best version at any moment. Our vision of who we want to be is an orientation, and having this vision of our Best Self keeps us on track to being the person we want to be.
As a coach, I invest a certain amount of time with my clients encouraging them to imagine and articulate who they want to be. I hadn’t done the work myself in a few years, and so earlier today, with the new year dawning, I thought I’d revisit the exercise. What I found is that it is easier for me to imagine who I want to be if I first imagine, and list, HOW I want to be. (I love Annie Dillard’s quote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Amen to the emphasis on HOW we live our lives.)
So I wrote down the following roles I play in my life, starting with my Best Self, and then for wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, coach, community member, and so on, and next to each, described how I want to be in each role. Words describing how I want to be included patient, loving, compassionate, generous, kind, open, etc.
Thinking about and writing down how you want to be in 2016 is an exercise I recommend doing.
Not too long ago, one of our sons was having a problem related to forgetfulness. He was doing his homework but often forgetting to turn it in. After a few occasions of forgetting to turn his work in, he did it again, and at wit’s end, I lost my temper with him. I can tell you, I was not the mother I want to be, and it not only hurt him, it hurt me. While I didn’t regret the value I was taking a stand for (forgetfulness is not a positive habit to develop), I did very much regret the way I was handling it. What I’m grateful for, though, is that I’ve thought a lot about how I want to be as a mother so that when I am about to go off course – or as was the case in the above example, right after I’ve gone off course – I notice and am aware of it. I was able to make it right with my son, and find a different strategy for how to handle this if it were to happen again.
This is just one example of why reflecting on how we want to be in the world is valuable and important.
One of the realizations of 2015 for me is that I’m pretty much a practicer of stoicism. This wasn’t intentional… it’s just that almost everything I’ve learned about Stoicism mostly lines up with how I live my life. Four of the best books I read this year were Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, The Guide to the Good Life, by William Irvine, The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday, and Seneca’s On The Shortness of Life. I am also a fan of Tim Ferriss, and he talks a lot about stoicism in his podcasts.
Seneca, a Stoic, was a proponent of meditating at the end of the day that took on a form of evaluating the day’s events and how he handled each of them, against how he wanted to be, and how he wished he would have behaved. I see tremendous value in this exercise, especially since I’ve done the exercise I mentioned above, where I have thought about and listed HOW I WANT TO BE in each of the roles in my life.
By the way, I did also come up with many new year’s resolutions, which I may write about from time to time in the coming weeks and months. But for now, I guess I’m sharing what I think is a valuable insight, and that is, taking the time to consider how we want to be in our life is probably more important than the goals we set for ourselves.
Happy New Year, and thank you for reading. I really appreciate your stopping by.
Fondly,
Shelli
P.S. How do you want to be in 2016? I have room for a few more clients if you, or someone you know, would benefit from having a coach to dare, encourage, support, and hold you accountable.
I’ve had many ideas in my 47 years, but my idea to lead my oldest son, Wolf, on a “Mother-Son Rite of Passage” wilderness expedition is one of my best, ever.
I am married to Jerry (going on 23 years this Saturday!), and we have three sons: Wolf, 15, Hayden, 13, and Finis (“Fin”), 8. For a while now, I have been brainstorming ways to create a “mother-son rite of passage” experience that I could do for each of our three sons.
Howdy.
I settled on leading each of my sons on a wilderness expedition the summer before each started high school. Of course I wanted this to be an adventure that not only Mom thought was a good idea, but also son, so some months ago, I began discussing this with our oldest son, Wolf, who started high school today. Being the first son, Wolf would be the guinea pig for this idea. 🙂
Here’s what Wolf and I came up with: We’d spend 4 days in our “backyard,” Wyoming’s Wind River Range. We’d backpack in about 8 miles the first day. On Day 2, he’d climb a mountain all by himself. Day 3 would be all about fun – we’d take our packrafts, and day hike to a high mountain lake, and also do some fishing. Day 4, we’d return home.
What follows is a pretty long-form travelogue of our experience. It may take you 20 minutes to read. I hope you’ll hang in there and read it, as I share some pretty personal entries from my journal, and I also hope this might inspire you to do something special with your children. The seed for this mother-son rite of passage idea was randomly planted by someone (Eddie Boyer) I met on a Mt. Whitney expedition 4 years ago. I am grateful for the conversation that planted this seed. After that I read a book recommended by my friend, Sharon Terhune, called Let Them Paddle: Coming of Age on the Water, by Alan Kesselheim. And, I also had conversations about rites of passages for my sons with friend Wendy Gebhart. All of these planted seeds that led to this recent adventure. Perhaps reading this blog post will plant a seed for you that will, like it did for me, blossom into something unforgettable. (NOTE: Wolf read and supported, and approved, of my sharing here.)
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First thing’s first, so on Thursday, Aug. 13, as we headed out of town, we stopped at Lander Bake Shop to get breakfast. Wolf picked out a chocolate chip muffin and a huge (“epic”) brownie. About 18 miles out of town, near Red Canyon, Wolf snarfed his brownie, raving about its deliciousness, and saying, “Mom you get brownie points for this breakfast.” Wolf is famous for his puns…
Upon my request, we listened to an OnBeing podcast for the first 45 miles of our 2-hour drive to the trailhead. I picked Krista Tippett’s interview with Pico Iyer about “inner life” and stillness. It was a good pick! We were both inspired especially by these things Pico Iyer said:
• I got out of my car at this monastery, and the air was pulsing. And it was very silent, but really the silence wasn’t the absence of noise, it was almost the presence of these transparent walls that I think the monks had worked very, very hard to make available to us in the world. And somehow, almost immediately, it was as if a huge heaviness fell away from me, and the lens cap came off my eyes. Really almost instantaneously I felt I’ve stepped into a richer, deeper life, a real life that I’d half forgotten had existed.
• The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or the mountaintop, but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world.
• When I travel, I travel not so much to move, as to be moved.
By the time we reached the rest area, we decided it was time to rock out to some tunes. Wolf managed the Spotify and we listened to a playlist that included Great Summer, One Day, I Can’t Feel My Face, Afraid of the Dark, Dirty Work, Wagon Wheel, Lean on Me, Rocket Man, Ghost Town, Sail Away, Summer Breeze, Wiseman, In My Mind, and about 10 more songs I can’t right now recall.
The trailhead was more packed than I have ever seen it. Cars were parked alongside the road from the trailhead for probably an ⅛ of a mile. Luckily, we found a spot that was a little closer in than that.
We started down the trail with our 60-pound-plus backpacks on at 9:30am, and we arrived at our special best-kept-secret of a campsite by 1:15pm. I’m a NOLS graduate, and I’m ashamed to say it but NOLS would not have wanted to claim me as one of their graduates! Our packs were too heavy; we packed far too many luxuries, and the packs weren’t packed very pretty, either. At one point, Wolf quipped, “I’m a Wolf, not a pack mule. Why I am a pack mule today?” Wolf’s pack had as much dangling from the outside as it had inside. Oops. But at least we wouldn’t go hungry, and we could offer to feed everyone in the wilderness if we decided to.
Wolf said, “I am a Wolf. So why am I a pack mule today?”
Except for a bunch of ravens, magpies, Clark’s nutcrackers, chipmunks and squirrels, it appeared we had this paradise to ourselves. It was miraculous to me that the parking lot could be so full and yet we’d have this secret spot all to ourselves. We are lucky.
After pitching our tent, I gave Wolf a tour of our site, including views from our “kitchen” area. Looking east, we look directly at Mitchell Peak. It’s right there in front of us. We can see, entirely, the two main routes to the summit. I suggested he would probably ascend the mountain from the end of North Lake, via the most direct route, which follows a steep ravine/spring to a bench before heading up to the summit. (I smile as I explain this, recalling fondly climbing Mitchell Peak recently with some of my Epic Women expedition who expected to find a wooden bench on which to rest once we reached “the bench.”)
Wolf, pointing to the mountain he’d climb on Day 2.
To the southeast of our camp are Haystack Mountain, Steeple and East Temple peaks. It’s a glorious view in all directions.
From my Journal, Aug. 13, 2015:
Right now, Wolf is in the tent napping. He worked so hard to get here! My 5-pound preemie, who’s now 5’8”, 130 pounds, carried that wobbly, overstuffed, 5-story-high backpack without complaint. Not only without complaint, but with cheer, often complimenting me: “Good job, Mom.” and “ I’m proud of you Mom.”
How did we get so lucky? How did I get so lucky?
I am so blessed to be a mother to three beautiful and amazing sons.
I’m getting choked up as I write this. I am overcome with feelings of blessings and gratitude. Wolf came 5 weeks early. He had to be delivered by C-section when it was discovered my amniotic fluid was decreasing at a rapid rate, and he was breech. At birth, he weighed only 5 pounds, and had to remain in critical care in the hospital for 13 days. The doctor kept reassuring us that he would be fine – “his lungs just need time.”
But it was so hard to not be able to hold him against my breast, and my heart.
We would hold onto his little fingers, and he would squeeze our fingers. I would nuzzle his cheek and face and press myself against him as he laid there all hooked up to monitors. We read Robert Service and Mary Oliver poems to him. (Perhaps it’s no wonder he’s an aspiring poet.) Even then, his disposition was upbeat and cheerful, and he was a determined leader. What a blessing! Our first son. Our Wolf Henry Johnson.
Wow. I am overcome with emotions right now… I am sure these happy tears also have much to do with the fact that I’m out here, in my mountains, the Wind River Range, where I am more in touch with myself, and where I love to be.
But make no mistake, it’s not easy out here, and I’m scared of much: Wolf’s mountain climb tomorrow, and his safety. If he’ll get altitude sickness or suffer from dehydration. The clouds, that are developing and dark, and it’s only 3pm. How high the stakes are out here. What I may or may not learn about myself. Anytime I am raw and exposed and trusting – oh, the list goes on and on and on!
And yet, I like myself out here. I am who I am. I’m reminded of a favorite quote from Cheryl Strayed’s Wild: “Being in the wild gathers me. It astonishes me. It quiets the negative voices inside of me and allows the more constructive ones to talk. It humbles me. It reminds me of how small I am, which has the reverse effect of making me feel gigantic inside.”
Like most people, I have an inner critic. And mine needs no support. I can beat the crap out of myself internally. This makes me sad, that I can be so self critical, and it sometimes makes my life harder than it should be. Being out here in the wilderness opens me up in a way that I am very aware of my inner critic, and yet, as Strayed wrote, being out here quiets the negative voices. It quiets my inner critic. As a result, I like myself a little more than I normally do.
Of course the most important aspect of right now is that I’m here with Wolf. This is our first son, and my first Mother-Son Rite of Passage expedition. What a gift!
When we started down the trail today, I asked Wolf what his goals for our adventure were. He said, “I want to grow, and to return changed in some way. And I want to have fun with you, Mom.”
I shared that I also wanted for him to get the chance to grow, for our relationship to grow, for me to grow as a mom, and that I also wanted us to have a lot of fun.” (And we both added something about having s’mores every night since we brought a full box of graham crackers, a package of chocolate bars and an entire bag of marshmallows – exactly enough for only the two of us!)
As we hiked in earlier today, I kept recalling Wolf’s entry into this world. How he struggled. Sorta similar to how his legs and back were struggling under his terribly-packed, too-big backpack. Yet all the same, his attitude was amazing. He was telling everyone we passed to have a great day, and he was cheering me. Already Wolf is a great leader… In some ways he’s a stronger leader than I am, despite the fact he’s only 15, and I’m 47, and have been working at leadership for some time now.
I am feeling so much right now. Thank you God! Thank you Jerry! I am so grateful to Jerry, and for Hayden and Fin, who are so supportive of Wolf’s and my adventure. (It will be Hayden’s turn next year, and Fin’s in 6 years.) Thank you to my parents, who moved us from Iowa to Wyoming when I was 3. What a gift that has been.
If I do nothing else, God, please help me to BE MY BEST for my boys and for Jerry, and TO BE HERE with them. I mean this literally, of course, but as importantly, I mean this from a mental standpoint. I have a habit of thinking and dreaming about the future. It’s hard for me to stay in the present, as much as I try. Being out in the wilderness for some reason is a help for me. Nowhere is it easier for me to be in the present. At all other times and places, it’s a constant challenge for me to be right here right now. And I’ve read enough to know that the key to making the most of our time is to be in the present, and not thinking about the past or worrying or dreaming about the future. Perhaps I spend so much time in the wilderness because it is a fast-track for helping me to stay in the present.
Seneca said “Life is long enough if you know how to use it.”
I think I know how to use it. If only I can be deliberate and conscious.
I am thinking now of a favorite poem by Jack London, which I know by heart: I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
So I will use my time.
This mother-son rite of passage trip with Wolf is about using my time.
There is nobody I’d rather be with, and nowhere else I’d rather be than with Wolf, right here and right now!
God, please keep us safe. Please keep Jerry, Hayden and Fin (and Buddy) safe. Please keep my parents and sisters and brother and their families safe. Please keep Jerry’s family safe. Keep all of our friends safe.
A short video about the mountain climb:
Our shadows in camp on Day 1.
I love this kid!
From my Journal – Fri., Aug. 14, 2015:
2:30am came early – and yet, heck, if I wasn’t going to sleep, why not get up in the middle of the night??!
Of course I got almost no sleep, despite the fact I took 2 Advil PM, and despite that we went to bed at 6:30pm. (This was Wolf’s idea since we would have an alpine start for his mountain climb. A very wise young man, to be sure.)
I was glad to hear him sleeping well, though. For today is mostly his day, and it’s a big one. He will climb Mitchell Peak! As I tossed and turned at night, I was filled with anxiety. “Am I being reckless encouraging my son to climb a mountain all by himself? What if the clouds develop into a storm and he’s on the summit, or near the summit – how will he know if and when to turn back? Am I crazy to have had this idea?”
With the light of our headlamps, and under a black sky that was brimming with a bazillion stars, I made him some hot chocolate and poptarts, and me, oatmeal and strong coffee. 2 cups. We left camp at 4am. The plan was for me to get him started up the route a bit before we’d part ways and meet up after his mountain climb.
Right after leaving camp, we stopped at the outlet to North Lake to fill and treat some water. To our surprise, two other headlamped hikers passed us and started up the trail a little bit ahead of us. We hit the trail and moved slowly. We had some time to kill because I didn’t want Wolf starting up route-finding in the dark – what with with all of the bears lurking in the brush and all.
So I suggested we stop in the trail, about halfway around the lake and turn our headlamps off. We watched the dark sky that was filled with a bazillion stars. We could see the black ridgelines and peaks around us silhouetted…including Mitchell Peak. As we stood in silence admiring the sky and the stars, we spied four shooting stars. We each made silent wishes for the ones we saw, and then we saw a fifth together and made a wish that Wolf’s mountain climb would go well, and that Mom would survive as well. 🙂 It was a really sweet and unforgettable moment watching the stars and seeing shooting stars with my Wolf on a such a glorious and quiet morning. It felt like we were the only ones in the Universe at that moment, and I won’t ever forget it.
We reached the end of North Lake, and still, it was quite dark. So we sat on a rock, and I encouraged us to finish off the bottle of water we had started drinking earlier. We sat there for a half hour, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. I have really grown to love silence. It is not empty, but full. Until a few years ago I was always filling the quiet that sometimes popped up in conversation. Now, I long for a certain amount of silence, even amidst groups of people, and in conversation. I recall something acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton says. That silence is an endangered species. Hempton defines real quiet as presence – not an absence of sound but an absence of noise. He said in an interview I heard a while back: “Quiet is the think tank of the soul.”
As we sat in silence under the stars, which were starting to disappear with the first light of the day, I wondered what Wolf was thinking about.
We sat for another few minutes and then went to a nearby spring to top off his water bottles for the day.
He asked if I could capture a short video before we parted ways so we took a minute to do that, and then we started up the very bottom of the mountain from the northeast end of North Lake.
Wolf, about to start up the mountain.
After a little bit of navigating and getting him on track up the ravine, we looked back to see a spectacular alpenglow on Warbonnet Peak. The tip of it was on fire with the rising sun. We stopped to admire and photograph the moment before continuing on. This is why I start so early – to witness sights like this one of a peak totally lit up and on fire by the first rays of the sun. With its wonder, came a feeling of reassurance.
Alpenglow on Warbonnet Peak.
We agreed we’d meet to descend the lower half of the mountain together… probably somewhere right below the ridgeline between Mitchell Peak and Big Sandy Mountain.
We hugged, and I looked him in the eyes and told him to have fun, to remember to drink some water and to occasionally take a break to look around at the scenery and to catch his breath and get his bearings. I added, “The views from the top are amazing in all directions and you don’t have to stand on the end of an overhanging rock to reap the rewards. Please don’t get too close to the edge.” “Okay, Mom,” he said.
Wolf and I hugged and I told him, “I love you more than life itself and everything in the world.”
“I love you too Mooma J. You’re the best mom in the Universe,” he said. And with that, he was off.
The sky was shaping up to be clear and blue, and this made me happy. The fewer uncertainties for this occasion, the better!
I headed in the opposite direction and soon found a boulder to sit on, where I proceeded to cry. I spied Wolf marching enthusiastically toward Mitchell, vigorously using his trekking poles, very much on a mission. For a while I spied him through the binoculars, “mountain goating” his way up and through the boulders and tundra, ascending the mountain.
Where was my 5-pound little baby? Or my 3-year-old Wolfie? Or my 6-year-old Wolfie, or my 10 or 11- or 12- or 13- or 14-year-old Wolf for that matter? Who was this 5’8”, energetic, strong, determined young man who was marching up through boulders to a summit all on his own?
“Where has the time gone?” I asked, out loud, to myself, as I sat alone amidst a landscape littered with granite.
Don’t we all always ask this question?
I sat on my rock with the sun warming my back as it rose behind me and the ridge that connects Mitchell Peak and Big Sandy Mountain, and for 10 minutes I meditated on the last 15 years, and then I knew where the 15 years had gone, and what an amazing 15 years it has been!
After my meditation, I spied Wolf again through the binoculars. Once I spotted him crouched down, I think taking photos of flowers. Another time he was sitting on a rock drinking water. (“Good boy!”)
Did I mention that this sitting here while my first son climbs a mountain on his own, is a rite of passage not only for Wolf, but also for his Mom? Perhaps as much a rite of passage for me as it is for Wolf. As I sit here, it is so exciting. AND so very difficult. I worry about Wolf. I worry that I’m being reckless. That he’ll get his leg pinned between two boulders. That he’ll tumble and hit his head on a rock. That once he’s on the summit he’ll get too close to the edge. After all, I won’t be there to remind him not to get too close to the edge, and to be careful, which are things I nag the boys about, probably too often, whenever we’re in the wilderness.
I know these feelings I’m having right now are important. It’s important for me to have this discomfort and to let go and to trust. It’s important for Wolf to climb a mountain all by himself. And yet, every now and again, I ask myself, “Whose idea was this?!”
One of the biggest fears I have is living a conventional life. And along with that, not providing meaningful or unique experiences for my sons. One of my most important goals is to create, and have, meaningful connections with all, but also each, of my sons (and Jerry, too). This Rite of Passage expedition was part of this effort to create meaningful and unforgettable experiences.
This is not to say this is easy. Today is not easy! For example, it would be much easier for me if Wolf was not climbing a mountain by himself right now! I didn’t sleep last night mainly because I was a nervous wreck, and also questioning whether this whole idea of his solo mountain climb was reckless. Of course I knew this was an intentional trip, and I knew it was a great idea, and yet something about night time and not sleeping caused me tremendous anxiety about this idea.
So I had asked Wolf, again, while sitting at the end of North Lake waiting for enough light to start up, “Do you want to do this? Because I want you to want to do this, and to climb the mountain for you, not for me.”
“Yes, I definitely want to climb the mountain,” he said.
I recalled his eloquent feelings about the mountain climb that he shared last night in camp as we looked and plotted possible routes up the mountain. He had said, “I am excited to the climb the mountain, but my biggest fear is about being alone in a place I don’t yet know or understand. But I think I’ll grow from facing my fear.”
Oh, how I love this kid!
The radio came on and it was Wolf, exclaiming that he was over the summit ridge. “I am over the ridge and I can see the Cirque of the Towers, and it’s amazing!” I told him congrats, and that the sky was clear, so he should take some time up there.
Wolf’s self portrait on the top of Mitchell Peak.
Summit cairn with Wolf’s backpack. (Photo by Wolf).
I hiked up a little higher, to the ridge, and for 20-30 minutes I sat on another big rock and meditated. I thought of Wolf, and when he was conceived (in these mountains!), and snapshots went through my mind of our life with him up to the present moment. My mind wandered at least 100 times to the summit and thoughts and concerns about Wolf on the summit, but each time I brought my attention back to my breath – and to MY HEART – and to my thoughts of our Wolf.
W. Wise
O. Original
L. Leader
F. Fun/Funny
A while later, Wolf radioed and asked me to get a photo of the summit because he was standing there with his arms in the air. I couldn’t see him with my naked eyes, but I zoomed in on the summit and snapped a photo.
After an hour or so, he started descending and after a while, we met up. We embraced for an extended time. He was excited and rambling about the sights from the top, and his experience of climbing to the summit, and of being up there all by himself for so long. There were feelings of gratitude, and realizations he had “up there” that he wants do something about upon his return.
My son, Wolf, and I.
The scene as I waited for Wolf to return from his mountain climb. Indian paintbrush, asters and the Cirque of the Towers.
After stopping to share 2 chocolate bars, we continued down the mountain and were back at camp by 1 o’clock.
Tired, we retreated to the the tent for a nap. Wolf laid “in my right wing,” like he used to do. As he slept in my arm, I reflected on the young man that Wolf has become. I couldn’t sleep, but I was content just being horizontal and listening to Wolf’s breathing, up close and near to him, similar to how I did when he was in critical care during his first hours and days in the world.
It was peaceful. And perfect.
BTW, I can also hear more than Wolf’s breathing. In fact, there is so much raucous activity around us it’s a wonder that Wolf is sleeping. I don’t know if the birds that are so unwelcoming in this site are Clark’s nutcrackers or Gray Jays – or both! These birds are perched mostly at the tops of pine trees that are towering over our tent and throughout our camp. They fly from one perch to another, and they make a very loud and raucous call to one another. It is rather unwelcoming, and at least for me, unsettling. When they fly over, the ruffling of their feathers is loud and notable. Yet, Wolf sleeps on like a baby.
When these birds swoop over us from tree to tree, making their loud calls, I feel sorry – at least for a moment – to have intruded. It is so obvious by their behavior and calls that we’re not welcome, and that in fact, we’re intruding. Please forgive our trespassing, I say in a whisper, but I’m also sorry to say that we will not moving our camp, so please, deal with us. I try to tune out their great noise to return my attention to listening to Wolf’s breathing. The camp is so alive and loud it is probably not dissimilar to being under the bridge of a freeway, complete with honking horns and sirens all about. But I’m glad we’re in a lively wilderness and not near a freeway.
At 3pm, we get out of the tent and I set up the stove to make my famous epic buttery-fried, cheesy quesadillas. Wolf eats 4 of them, exclaiming often how yummy they are. For my part, I eat 2. We were both hungry, and these sure hit the spot. (And besides, we need to be lightening our loads!)
We sit there, with Mitchell Peak looming, and expansive views, not saying much. Wolf plays some tunes for us on my phone, and individually we write in our journals. I notice Wolf at turns, staring off into the space, deep in thought, and at turns writing fast and furiously in his journal. At turns, I wonder what he’s writing, and at turns, I’m filling the pages of my journal with reflections of the day.
One time, as we both paused from journaling, I said, “If it’s not too much to handle, I should tell you that you were conceived out here in the wilderness.”
“Really?” he asked. Then he was quiet, as if processing what that meant.
“That’s probably why you’re such a natural in the outdoors,” I added.
“That’s cool,” he said, smiling broadly.
We walked down to the outlet of North Lake, to do dishes and refill our water bottles.
On the back to camp, Wolf offered to carry the huge, 2-gallon water jug up the steep hill.
I told him there’s a Zen saying, Chop Wood, Carry Water that means getting back to the basics. I explained it means doing the work, and doing it well. Being mindful even of the simple and sometimes-mundane tasks we must do, that are important even if mundane and routine. He liked that, and asked me to snap a photo of him “carrying water.”
Chop wood. Carry water.
We’re back at camp and chilling in the kitchen area again. This area of our camp is an overlook – a perch for us. It is pure joy for me right now to be hanging out with my oldest son, Wolf, who is a wonderful human being. It is not work to be with him. We sit here, with his mountain, Mitchell Peak, as a backdrop.
Wolf, reading a pocket book called Zen from our “kitchen” area of camp. That’s Haystack, Steeple and East Temple peaks in the background.
I am here right now, and nowhere else. And this place I’m in is JOY. Pure joy.
Thank you to all who are responsible for this epic life of mine. There are many of you responsible, and I am grateful!
As if things can’t get any better, they do. We eat s’mores. Lots of s’mores.
Then, I move over to sit next to Wolf. It’s the perfect set of rocks because it’s like a recliner and we both fit in it. I ask him if I can share some of what I’ve written in my journal, and he says yes. I read from the pages of my journal, and I lose it. I’m overcome with emotion, and once again, I’m in tears. I’m happy crying again as I read the words and reflections of our time so far. He holds my hand, and we squeeze each other, as I stumble through my tears to get the words out that are in my journal. Wolf holds me and makes sure I’m okay. He’s moved too. He also has tears. We hold each other, much like we did when he was a small boy, only this time son is taking care of mom more than mom is taking care of son…
Then, he turns his head to behind us, to the southeast, and he exclaims, “Mom, there’s a rainbow!” And there, over Haystack, Steeple and East Temple peaks is a rainbow. Unbelievable! Both of us reach for our cameras to try and capture the moment forever. Shooting stars in the morning, young boy climbs a mountain all by himself. Mommy survives the “ordeal” and enjoys a meditation that is like turning through the pages and reliving the last 15 years as a mother to young boy. Mother and son cuddle while son naps in tent amidst a camp that is alive with wild critters. Mom and son share intimate details about their individual experiences and journal reflections. We eat s’mores! Then a perfect rainbow appears. Then a double rainbow.
A perfect ending to a perfect day. At some point words just fall short. Like right now.
Another blessing on Day 2. The day started with shooting stars. Then Wolf climbed a mountain by himself. Then this rainbow happened.
The next day we sleep until we woke up naturally. No 2:30am alarm. Yeehaw to that! Today is all about leisure and fun.
As the sun rose behind Big Sandy Mountain, it backlit Wolf as he talked to me about girls, starting high school, running, playing piano, his friends, his brothers, and a bunch of things. I relished as my oldest son talked so freely, and I was able to learn more about him and his world.
Wolf, backlit by the rising sun on Day 3.
Around 10am, we left camp to hike with our packrafts and fishing rods to the Clear Lake area. But halfway to Clear Lake, we met three women from Seattle who reported Clear Lake being crowded with some large groups. I suggested to Wolf that we hike instead to Deep Lake, one of the most beautiful places I know of. As usual, Wolf was a trooper.
Wolf, on his way up to Deep Lake.
Once at Deep Lake, we inflated our packrafts and set sail on Deep Lake. We floated under massive granite mountains called Haystack, Steeple and East Temple peaks. And, we could see Mitchell Peak and the Cirque of the Towers over yonder.
Wolf, taking the Denali Lllama packraft on its maiden voyage.
Yeehaw! Wolf and I on the water at Deep Lake.
After floating for over an hour, we docked our rafts on a slab of granite on the shore, and got out our journals. (Wolf and I are a lot alike. We both love to read, journal and capture photos, and we both seek out, and enjoy, pockets of solitude)
From my Journal – Sat., Aug. 15, 2015:
While sitting here on the shore of Deep Lake, we had what Wolf fondly referred to as some “Deep Talks.”
Deep Talk #1: Wolf asked me, “When I was conceived here, how did you get me to the hospital?” At this, I laughed out loud. I told him he wasn’t delivered in the wilderness. We conceived him in the wilderness. “You know – you were “made” here. You were formed and created out here.” To this, he gasped, and then laughed. He had misunderstood me the day before when I mentioned he was conceived out here. He thought I meant he was born out here. “Big difference!” I said. “We wouldn’t be so irresponsible as to require a search and rescue helicopter to deliver you. We laughed. The more he processed what conceived meant, the less he wanted to know… 😉
Deep Talk #2: After a little bit of fishing, with no luck, we both returned to our journaling. As he sat there writing, I looked off to Mitchell Peak, and wondered to myself about the coming months and years, and how as Wolf gets older and more independent, I’ll be less able to keep him safe. This gave me an idea for what this rite of passage was really about for me, and if agreed, for us.
I asked Wolf if there were promises we could make to each other as a result of this mother-son rite of passage experience. I suggested that I would like to promise him that “I will trust you more, from this day forward, as you get older and I’m less able to keep you safe. But this will be hard for me,” I said. “It would be easier for me to trust you if you could make me a promise that you won’t be reckless – and that you won’t get too close to the edge.” I told him, using yesterday’s mountain climb as a metaphor, what I mean is that I want to trust and support him to climb tall mountains in his life — to be daring and to do things that are hard but that will generate more aliveness for him, and cause him to become more and better than he was before… but that I need to know that in the process, he won’t be reckless about it, and that he won’t get too close to the edge.
I shared examples of what I would see as examples in real life of being reckless and getting too close to the edge.
So I said, “Wolf, I promise I will trust you more and begin to let go more, from this day forward.” And he responded, “And I promise I will not be reckless or get too close to the edge.”
These promises to each other, as mother and son, mark the “rite of passage” part of our adventure.
I let this sink in for both of us.
As I did, I recalled in my mind, Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children” from The Prophet: Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Then, Wolf laughed, again remarking at how great it was to have these “deep talks” at Deep Lake. We both agreed we would not forget this conversation.
On our way down from Deep Lake on Day 3.
We noticed big clouds developing above us behind Temple Peak. So we quickly deflated and packed our rafts and our bags and starting descending toward Clear Lake. It thundered behind us and we moved quickly to get lower and into the forest. We had wanted to cast a line in Clear Lake – to catch that fish for Pa-Grandpa – but with the thunder and wind, we hiked briskly past the lake and started descending toward Big Sandy Lake.
Once at Big Sandy Lake, the clouds gave way to blue sky, but only above Big Sandy. We could see dark developing clouds over our camp above, so Wolf suggested we try fishing at Big Sandy Lake. “It’s blue sky over us now. It’s a sign. We should at least try,” he said.
We fished for 10 minutes, to no avail. We didn’t spot a single fish and the water was a little rough. Still, it was a nice, sunny break, and if nothing else, we had tried.
We loaded our packs on again and started the 500-foot-vertical-feet-grunt back to our camp.
Once at camp, I made “Mommy’s famous Epic pancakes” for dinner. Tons of them. Wolf snarfed several of them enthusiastically, and I was right there with him, snarfing epic pancakes.
Making “Mommy’s Famous Epic Pancakes” for dinner on Day 3.
Then, we walked down to the watering hole to do dishes and refill our water bottles. We were spying small brook trout every time we refilled, so Wolf asked to bring his rod and try one more time to catch a fish in honor of Pa-Grandpa’s birthday. Lo and behold, after about 10 minutes of teasing the fish with a fly, he caught one! We snapped a quick photo, sent out a salute to Pa-Grandpa, and then let it loose.
Wolf caught a fish on Day 3, in honor of his late Pa-Grandpa’s birthday.
Back at camp, I shared the poem, IF, by Rudyard Kipling. As I hoped would happen, Wolf loved it. It really resonated for him. So much so that he asked me to video capture him reading it with Mitchell Peak in the background. I video’d him reading IF, and listening to him recite the poem, in our camp, was dream-like. (If you’re interested, the video is at the end of this post)
Then, we each did some writing in our journals. A few minutes into it, Wolf started crying. I asked him if he was okay, and he walked over to me and embraced me, and said, “Thanks Mom. I am just so happy. Thank you for everything.”
I told him it is an honor and a privilege to be his mother, and I thanked him for being him. I remarked at how I can still remember, so vividly, the first time I met him, “and now look at you. And look at us!”
We made a small fire and finished off our s’mores. How else can we wrap up our last night of the expedition?!
Timer shot by our fire.
I think to myself: It doesn’t get any better than this.
Throughout this adventure, whenever I have complimented Wolf on his hiking, or what a great young man or leader he is, he has often responded by saying, “Thank you. I get it from my great parents.” Or, “I get it from my epic mom.”
Here’s what I know right now: The part of me that is the best version of me as a Mother… I get that from Wolf, (and also from Hayden and Fin.)
So at the end of today’s hike, when I complimented him on another great day, and he responded by saying, “Thanks, I get it from my great parents,” I responded by saying, “Wolf, I get a lot from you, too.”
I thought back to the goals we shared as we started down the trail, and felt good, like we got what we came for. Wolf grew. I grew. We grew. And we had a lot of fun, too. I will never forget our adventure.
When we entered the tent for our last night at camp, Wolf fell asleep almost immediately. I, on the other hand, had a mind that wouldn’t turn off.
One of the biggest struggles I have, on an almost daily basis, is wondering if I’m a good mom, and worrying about whether I’m a good enough mom. This isn’t unique to me. I know from all of the women in my life, personal and professional, that we struggle with whether we’re good enough. Men, also, have these struggles. I know because I work with men and women who struggle often with their inner critic(s), often times in the context of their role as a parent.
As I lay there with Wolf sleeping in my right wing, in our tight quarters of a tent, I feel something I don’t often feel – proud of myself. Not only proud of myself, but proud of myself as a mom.
I have had lots of ideas in my life, and many of them have been good ones. But this mother-son Rite of Passage expedition was one of my best ideas, ever.
Thank you so much for reading and sharing in this particular journey with me.
Whew! We made it to the other side. If you read my last post, my family and I embarked on what I am calling a 7-Day Epic Wellness Challenge. (Read the pre-challenge post and see the pre-challenge video interviews.)
Hi there!
In short, we agreed to give up a lot. We basically gave up technology, auto transportation, and processed foods for a week. (At the outset, a friend suggested we were going Amish, and that description would be pretty apt.)
I’m excited to report here about both the challenges and the takeaways from our experience.This blog post is lengthy, and I apologize for that. But it was a long week, after all! (We also recorded a video with post-challenge insights from each of us, which you’ll find at the end of this post. I hope you’ll watch it, but I also hope you’ll read this post because there are more insights that we discovered after we recorded the video, and they’re significant, and unfortunately, not included in the video.)
Hi. We are the Johnsons.
Many have asked me what inspired this challenge. That’s a good question. Four things inspired it: 1–I’m a health enthusiast and wellness coach and presenter. I am always experimenting with ways of eating, ways of exercising, and most importantly, ways of living. I’m a huge fan of the Blue Zones work being done by Dan Buettner. I love my life and I want to live as long as I can, as vitally as I can. I know that life expectancy for me is 78.7 years. I also know that the many healthy habits I’ve adopted over the course of the last six years increase my expectancy to 91. Barring cancer or other disease or tragedy, that’s 32 years more years of life if I live the typical American woman’s life, or 44 years if I continue to make some sacrifices and live a more disciplined life. If I’m lucky and I do live to be 91, that’s only 16,000 days I have left. And, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not enough. So, I’m fascinated by aging in a way that extends and improves my life. It just so happens that my family is the most important thing in my life, so their health is even more important than mine. I wanted to see if our giving up technology, auto transportation and processed foods for a week would translate into more vitality.
2–I love challenges. I like committing to things that are difficult – so difficult that the outcome is uncertain. This week of deprivations fit the bill for being difficult. I know – my poor family! Friends and colleagues have asked me, “How did you get your family to go along with this?” Here’s how: I asked them, while explaining how much I wanted to do it, and they said Yes. (I know how lucky I am to have them willing to get on board – and how unlucky they were!)
3–My curiosity. I love to learn and discover new things. I was curious about how embarking on a challenge like this together might affect our family. I was inspired to make new discoveries with the people I love the most.
4–My desire for us to return to the ways of my childhood, if even only for most of the time and not all of the time. When I was a kid, I biked everywhere, with friends, and to friends’ houses. I played outside all of the time, and in creative ways. Jerry has the same memories of his childhood. He remembers being turned loose and playing ‘til the sun went down. Ours are fond memories and reflective of a healthy life, and we want our boys to experience similar times, especially during the summer when school is out and the weather is nice.
LIMITED TECHNOLOGY:
During the 7-day period, we gave up all television, movies, video games, and even listening to music and podcasts on devices. We gave up all social media, including Facebook, Instagram, etc. Our two oldest sons gave up their cell phones. Jerry used his only for family correspondence, and I used mine only on weekdays and only for coaching and other work-related calls. I gave up my cell phone completely for the weekend. In fact, to ensure I wouldn’t goof up, I turned my phone off and locked it in the trunk of my car Friday evening.
Here’s what happened: We played a lot together. We played many games – a different game every evening. One night we had a pool tournament followed by a ping pong tournament. The next night we had a heated game of Aggravation. The next night we played Life. Another night we played Apples to Apples. I loved games before, and we’re a game-playing family. One of the reasons I love playing games with my family, or with anyone for that matter, is it is FUN. Most games generate spontaneous interaction, and “play” happens. Our connections with each other are deepened. Or, in more personal games, where there are just two of you, conversation is facilitated that just wouldn’t occur if you were watching a movie together.
Playing the game, Life.
We went on family hikes. We saw my parents more. We biked a lot. We biked all over town and to parks and playgrounds. Once we biked to a playground, where we played basketball and messed around on the monkey bars and swings.
A hike with my mom, the boys' "Mommom."
Our two oldest sons and our dog Buddy, joined me for a sunrise hike.
Fin, swinging on monkey bars during one of our many bike rides to various playgrounds.
What what hard about it: I would be lying if I didn’t say the lack of technology was challenging for each and all of us. Every night during dinner we’d each share what was most difficult about the day. For example, my husband, Jerry, missed watching the news on television every morning. He gets up early every day and catching the news on TV while drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper are a morning ritual for him. He missed this.
I missed Facebook. I love Facebook and missed checking in on a regular basis to see what friends and colleagues and relatives were up to. I have a dear friend who is traveling with her family in Africa right now, and I missed being able to see their photos and posts. One night I wanted Kimchi, and I wondered where in our small town I could find that. Normally I would post a quick question to Facebook, and within minutes would have 10 responses from local friends. Another time, I talked our two oldest sons into getting up before sunrise and hiking with me. I captured a wonderful photo of them with our dog in flowers with the sun rising in the background. I would have loved to have shared that photo in real time, (and hopefully inspire others to get up and hike our trails at sunrise.)
Wolf, 15, and Hayden, 13, most missed their cell phones and the quick access to their friends. Our youngest son, Fin, 8, missed morning cartoons. All three of our sons missed having what we call “privileges” on Friday and Saturday nights – a chance to play some video games and watch a rented movie together.
Not texting was hard for me, too, and I goofed early on. One of our son’s friends left a note on our door asking if he could get his work gloves back, which he had left in my car the previous day. I quickly (automatically) texted his mom and indicated we put them in our mailbox for them to fetch the next day. And there was one other similar goof-up by me on this front. They were not intentional, and I am reporting that I quickly course-corrected myself.
We all missed listening to music. That was hard during trips to the trailhead, on my work trip to and from Dubois, for the boys when playing in the Lego Room, and for all of us during times when we were just hanging out at home or in the backyard, which was often! However I have a vivid memory of Day 3 when Jerry and Fin were playing ping pong out back and I was shooting hoops with Hayden, and beautiful piano music was being played by Wolf and filling our back yard through the screen door. That was an amazing memory!
Takeaways:
–Without our gadgets and various technology privileges, we were together more. There’s just no other way to explain it. Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together is a book I recommend. I read it a couple of years ago but was reminded of it during this challenge. In the book, Turkle examines the current landscape – one where we all have our gadgets and instant connection to our friends and networks that are in another physical place. Being together more often meant being together-together rather than alone-together. We had to work harder to be together. There was definitely more arguing and nagging than normal, which was at times frustrating for all of us, and certainly required effort. We had to work harder at co-existing.
–The upside to being together more, and even to arguing more as a result, is that we bonded at a deeper level over the 7 days. I can say that by the end of each day, I had had numerous meaningful conversations with each of our sons, and with my husband. This is significant, because my best (epic) life is one where I have meaningful connections on a regular basis with my loved ones.
–For the weekend, I locked my phone in the car. And it’s a good thing I did because I counted 30 times that I passed by the area where my phone is usually plugged in, to “check” my phone. This was telling, if not surprising. I’m a little too tethered to my cell phone. I will likely go many weekends from here on out with my phone locked in the car. 🙂 I actually go unplugged often. All of my wilderness expeditions are unplugged, and often when on a road trip in Wyoming there is no reliable cell signal. As much as I love my technology, I LOVE being free from it. But despite knowing I love to be untethered when it comes to my cell phone, I also love to be tethered. I will continue to work on this and be more conscious about the time I invest using technology.
(BTW, if you want to break a habit, or stop doing something, I highly recommend you “remove” it from your environment. Ask yourself, are you practicing saying No to something, or are you practicing living a better way that does not include that thing? They are not the same thing, and I can tell you the former is more difficult. You have a better chance at success by removing the thing from your environment.)
–There are tricks to help make restrictions easier. Since I was still using my cell phone for work on week days, it was even harder to ignore Facebook and Instagram because the apps were right there at my fingertips. Anticipating that ignoring social media would be hard, I moved these apps from my home screen to a screen at the very back, making it unlikely for me to stumble upon them. I also turned off notifications for Facebook, Instagram, and Messaging. This is a tip I often promote in presentations and in my leadership development work. But before this challenge, I wasn’t following my own advice. Doing this was a brilliant way to not be alerted by comments or posts or messages in my social network. (This helped tremendously, especially when you consider that when I finally checked Facebook this morning, after 7 days away from it, I had 92 notifications, 11 new friend requests and 8 unread Facebook messages!) Not having the little red circle with the number of new notifications next to the Facebook app on my home screen helped me achieve my goal.
–The boys biked or walked to friends’ houses. What a concept, right?! This is how Jerry and I did it when we were our sons’ ages, but boy, how times have changed. This rarely happens – especially without prior arrangements made via a cell phone.
–I saved the most significant takeaway for this category for last: Without our technological gadgets and distractions, time passed more slowly. Our family talked about this at dinner on Night 7, and everyone agreed that during the seven days, the days were longer, and that this was a positive.
My husband put it this way: “We had to be there, in real time, together, and somehow that made time pass more slowly. We weren’t zoning out watching a movie or looking at our phone and then suddenly wondering where the time went.”
Seneca said “Life is long enough if you know how to use it.” We have learned that our time is longer without gadgets, or at least with some strictly-enforced rules and boundaries around gadgets.”
NO CARS:
For the 7-day period, we were not allowed to use our cars for any transportation, except to travel to a trailhead, or for my half-day work trip to Dubois, WY, on Tuesday. We had to bike and walk everywhere.
Here’s what happened: We are already an active family. For months now, I’ve been deliberately walking to places more often, and during the summer it’s typical for us to have our kids biking and walking to places. But still, this was harder than anticipated.
We walked, and biked A LOT. My FitBit reports I walked 175,000 steps (about 70 miles!) in 7 days. That does include a training hike and a family hike, but still, that’s a lot of steps, and the stat is reflective of our family walking so many places. BTW, I gained some useful information: I now know that it’s 3,000 steps, roundtrip, to our local grocery market. It’s 2,000 steps roundtrip to my parents’ house. It’s 5,000 roundtrip steps to the Oxbow, where Rotary meets on Wednesdays. It’s 2,000 pedal revolutions (if you ride a coaster bike and take the out-of-the way, scenic route, to the print shop to ship my package via UPS. It’s 3,000 roundtrip steps to the elementary school playground. And so on.)
Fin and I. Notice I have a backpack on for groceries we were about to fetch, and a package we would deliver to UPS.
A particularly special positive: our boys rode their bikes to my parents’ (their mommom and poppop’s) house more frequently. We spend a lot of time with my parents, but our boys spending more time over there on their own was neat, and it was a highlight for them.
Did I mention I love Lander, Wyoming? Ours is an awesome community that is a small town where one can walk or bike everywhere.
Jerry and Wolf returning from the grocery store.
As far as I know, there isn’t a study that reports that sitting is inspiring or that sitting makes us more creative or healthy. There are, however, countless studies that indicate walking is inspiring and makes us more creative and energized. As Americans, we sit an average of 9.3 hours a day. And when we sit this much, we’re more likely to get particular diseases and cancers, and it’s no wonder we’re not feeling more inspired. (BTW, gym rats are not off the hook. You can be fit but not healthy. I think not too long ago I was a case in point. Even though I hike 1,000 miles a year, and train hard 3-4 times a week, I was quite sedentary each day. I bought a FitBit 18 months ago. Now I average 10,000-20,000 steps a day. This increased mobility throughout my day is just about 100% due to my FitBit and the fact it makes me more conscious about my level of activity each day.)
“Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them.” – Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking.
What was hard about it: Sometimes we were just tired of moving.. (On one day of our challenge, we walked three times to the market, in addition to going on a family hike in the mountains)
One day – the same day I had gone on a hard training hike – I walked to the grocery store, to the hardware store, and then remembered I had a package to ship. Normally it would take about 8 minutes, total, to drive the package to UPS and return. It took me almost 30 minutes on my bike to run the same errand. I was tired that day from my time on my feet and it was hard to muster the motivation to bike that package up and not wait for Thursday to come when I could drive it!
One night we had dinner on the table and realized we were missing a key condiment. Was it worth walking or biking to the market? We voted No. But if we could have driven there, we would have definitely opted to go and get it.
On Night 7, Wolf had to get to a haircut, and walked in pouring rain and thunder with an umbrella and rain jacket on to and from. Normally we’d give him a ride.
Takeaways:
–Here’s our biggest takeaway for this category: When we don’t use cars, we sleep better at night. By the end of each day, we were tired! We were already an active family. But take away the cars completely, and we reached a new level of active. (My FitBit also tracks my sleep, and except for one night when someone, who I will not name, did some unusually raucous snoring, my FitBit indicates my sleeping was improved for the week.)
Before you start yawning… Sleeping better is kind of a big deal. Hopefully you’ve been reading the latest news about sleep science. Some of the smartest, healthiest people I know are now calling sleep the #1 health habit. Poor sleep and sleep deprivation wreak havoc on our health. Poor sleep can lead to depression, anxiety, obesity and diabetes, just to provide a small sampling of what poor sleep can lead to. I’m pretty sure it was our increased activity levels that caused us all to sleep better, but I also have a feeling that the lack of screens in the evening also helped. (One of the best ways to improve sleep is to remove use of all screens, including TV, computer, iPad and cell phones at least 2 hours before closing in.)
–Another positive is that Jerry and I were no longer chauffeurs! Yeehaw to that, right?!
–Add to that, the boys had much more freedom. As long as they were willing to bike or walk, and we they weren’t at the mercy of our schedules and availability for driving them or picking them up, they could do almost anything.
–And finally, errands became experiences rather than errands. When walking to the grocery store for 10 items takes 45 minutes total, you’re walking more than you’re grocery shopping. These trips became as much about our walking or biking as they were about fetching something we needed. This opportunity for meaningful conversation isn’t as likely to happen while in the car for 1-5 minutes when running an errand.
NO PROCESSED FOODS:
We agreed to not eat any packaged or processed foods except for the occasional gluten-free energy bar. We would shop only the perimeter of the grocery store and eat real food. Now, as I mentioned in the pre-challenge video and blog post, we have done lots of work on our eating already. For example, there are no processed foods consumed in our home from Monday through Thursday. However, the boys are allowed to have cereal on Friday mornings, frozen pizzas on Friday evening, donuts occasionally on Saturday mornings, and soda pop with their popcorn on Saturday nights. Still, this would be hard because our 7 days included a weekend, and also, it’s summer and there are more sugary sweet treats available (ice cream, slushees, s’mores, etc.)
The boys, making healthy choices at the local grocery store.
Here’s what happened: Not much “happened,” other than feeling a little deprived on the weekend. The boys definitely missed having their weekly soda pop with our traditional Saturday night popcorn. And Wolf, who is famous for his carefully placed “donut request” poems and notes on a paper plate, missed getting donuts for he and his brothers on Saturday morning. And, there were no “Mommy’s famous epic pancakes” on Sunday.
On Night 7, during dinner, we all agreed that giving up processed foods was hard, but was the least difficult of the three categories.
Takeaways:
–“Treats” taste even better when you’ve gone without them for a while. Well-practiced at giving up things for long periods of time, I can say that it’s worth giving things up just for the benefit of how awesome they taste when you do surrender.
–Watermelons are heavy when you have to carry them a mile.
–We were forced to get more creative with our food and vegetables, and the boys’ lunches. (Hayden was working as a junior counselor for a camp for young kids, and Wolf was enrolled in Driver’s Ed and started his first job.) And I’m here to report the obvious: Food can be tasty even if it’s not processed. (Sorry to be a buzzkill here, but did you know that Americans consume 22 teaspoons of refined sugar a day, and 100-150 pounds of refined sugar a year? Sugar is 8x more addictive than cocaine. And before you think you’re off the hook because you don’t eat donuts and you only eat cake on birthdays, consider that 80% of the refined sugars we eat are in packaged and processed foods that most people generally don’t think are unhealthy.Examples include many yogurts, breakfast cereals that claim to be healthy, tomato sauce, ketchup, lunch meat, etc.)
Conclusion:
In summary, we embarked on this challenge to see if we could accomplish something hard, and also to get healthier in the process. We accomplished both of those goals.
While hopefully the above provides insights to benefits that each of us enjoyed, I want to share my biggest personal realization: I am better when distractions are removed. I was more present in my life and my family’s life. I’m pretty certain I was a better wife, a better mother – a better everything. Time passed slower and I felt more alive.
I am so inspired by the results that I’m feeling compelled to do this on a semi-regular basis. I’m also interested in working to inspire other individuals and families to consider embarking on similar challenges. For example, I think it would be pretty darned awesome if any of you would agree to give up cars for a week. Or if families would consider giving up cell phones and technology for a week, or a weekend. Or if people would consider going 7 days – or 30 days – without eating processed foods.
As far as I can tell, any of these is a small price to pay in exchange for longer-lasting and more meaningful days.
And, last, but not least… here is a video with comments from each member of my family. (Note: We recorded this yesterday – the final day of our challenge)
I just returned from giving a keynote presentation at a Wellness conference, so wellness is on my mind more than usual. In addition to being a life, leadership, health and wellness coach, I’m a health enthusiast. Some would even call me a health nut. I track food intake, steps, sleep, and heart rate variability, among other things.
I am excited to report that my family is on board with me for embarking on a 7-day challenge that starts tomorrow (June 4) and will last for a week. We’re giving up a lot in the interest of deepening our connections, being more active and mobile, being less distracted and more in tune with each other and our surroundings, and in reaping the benefits of feeding our bodies healthy foods.
We are giving up all television, movies, video games, social networking. We’re giving up cars and transportation, with 3 very limited exceptions (see below image of our family’s signed “contract” for details), and we’re giving up processed foods. We’ll shop only the perimeter of the grocery market to ensure we’re buying and consuming healthy, real foods. We’ll walk and bike everywhere. We’ll spend our free time together biking, hiking, fishing, walking, playing board games and visiting our community’s playgrounds.
Disclaimer: As a matter of fact, we are already an extremely active family, and we’re quite health-conscious. We hike and play outside a lot, and from Monday through Thursday there are no processed foods consumed at our house, and we watch no television or video games from Monday through Thursday. We made all of these changes about 12 months ago. But there is more we can do. We often drive places that are only blocks away. The wheels come off to an unhealthy extent when it comes to “treats” and foods the kids eat on weekends, and we’re all a little too distracted by our screens. So there is much room for improvement, and this challenge will not be easy.
Here is a video that includes bits from me, my husband, and each of our three sons, as we get ready to embark on this 7-day Epic Health Challenge:
Our family’s signed “contract:”
In addition to being a health enthusiast, I’m a voracious reader. Many of the books and articles I read are related to health and wellness. I am very much inspired by Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones work and research. In fact, I highly recommend his latest book, The Blue Zones Solution, Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People. The Blue Zones are the five places in the world where people live the longest, with the least disease and the most vitality. In researching these areas, and in interviewing centenarians, Buettner and his team of experts came up with 9 common denominators – otherwise known as “The Power 9” – that are common in areas where people live the longest, healthiest lives.
The Power 9 are: Move naturally (live in or set up an environment that nudges you to move naturally throughout the day) Purpose (people in the Blue Zones have something to live for beyond their work), Downshift (do things to remove/release stress), 80 percent rule (eat ’til you’re 80% full), Plant Slant (eat mostly plant foods), Wine @ 5 (people in the Blue Zones often drink wine in late afternoon), Right Tribe (the world’s longest-lived people choose social circles with healthy behaviors), Community (research shows that faith-based services are a common facet in Blue Zones communities), and Loved Ones First (successful centenarians put their families first.)
This 7-day Epic Health Challenge we’re embarking upon aims to bring some of the Blue Zones ways to the Johnson household. I will be blogging here about the experiment once it ends, and also for a blog at Barlean’s. I hope you’ll check back to see what we learned from the experiment!
As usual, thank you for your time, and for reading this. I really appreciate it.
I just returned from giving a keynote presentation at the Wyoming Worksite Wellness Conference.
The content for my presentation comes from what I have learned in my mere 46.916 years of various experiences, and in my work, which includes coaching about 100 women and men in some capacity during the last 4-5 years. I have some 30 “life lessons,” but, due to time and our limited attention spans, I usually only feature the top 8-10 in a presentation. One that never makes the final cut is Pack The Right Stuff. And yet I think it’s one of the most important.
When I lead or participate in a wilderness expedition, I always struggle with keeping my load light. I’m an over-packer and this is too bad, since I’m sold on the benefits of packing light, and because I’m always challenging my clients to lighten their loads.
As we organize our loads for an expedition, we go through this exercise where we consider each item and ask, “Will this unnecessarily weigh me down, or will it add to my experience?” This is an effort to inspire people to dare to “strip down” and get to the bare minimum of what they’ll need. Doing so significantly affects the amount of effort it will take to hike uphill and off-trail, at altitude, on rugged trails, with a load on your back.
But the exercise is also worthwhile because it causes us to be intentional about what we decide to carry. And, anything that causes us to be more intentional is a good thing.
My big backpack, with me and a mountain in the background. 🙂
For example, I’ll carry an extra five pounds in chocolate and coffee, but will lose an extra pair of socks or shorts or pants. That’s a reasonable exchange as far as I’m concerned. One of clients may opt to have more fresh clothes and fewer luxurious food items. Recently one of my Epic Women asked about packing a solar shower. 🙂 My husband, bless his heart, will often pack not one knife, but 3. Three knives, you ask?! I guess one to defend against a wild animal, one to clean a trout with and one to slice the cheese?
But this blog is not about removing a knife, or an extra pair of shorts from your load, but rather to consider what you carry every day in your life, and how intentional you are about what you’re carrying. Consider for a moment, what might you shed that is unnecessarily weighing you down or holding you back? What might you add that could enrich your experience?
For example, one item I’m working to shed from my everyday life is self criticism. In its place, I’m adding self compassion. Two months ago, I removed judgment, and added in its place The Beginner’s Mind. And so on… Because changes are hard, and adjusting our load requires attention and consideration, I recommend evaluating one item at a time, and giving each one some time to fit into your load. Maybe consider “sizing up” and adjusting your load on a monthly basis. Think depth not breadth. (BTW, check out this bit on “making smaller circles” by chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, at his The Art of Learning Project. It is fascinating!)
This work of consciously choosing what we’ll carry and what we’ll leave behind is not easy, and yet it’s vital if we are to live our best, most epic life.
Thanks for reading, and I’d love it if you’d share your thoughts on what you’d like to shed from your life, and what you’d like to add.
I am very active. I’m pretty fit. I hike a ton, and I lift heavy things every once in a while.
What I am not, is flexible. So as a new year’s resolution, one of my goals is to be able to touch my nose to my knee (in a hurdlers stretch). Every weekday for 5-10 minutes, I stretch and work at it. I’m not there yet. I’m closer, but not very much closer.
This is a great metaphor for living our best (epic) life. To live an extraordinary life takes stretching and practice. Despite my practice, some days it seems I’ve gone backwards. Like yesterday. My nose was about a foot away, and I couldn’t get it any closer. A week before, I got to within 3 inches. This morning (as proven in this photo), I was within 12 inches, but far from where I was a week ago. Tomorrow could be my best stretch yet. Or not.
Doing my stretching before I go on my morning hike. As you can see, I'm not very flexible.
Even if progress is slow and not linear, it’s happening. But it’s only happening as a result of practice and commitment and a little bit of discomfort. (However, in looking at the photo from today and considering I’ve been trying to reach my nose to my knees for 4 months now and still haven’t done it, I’m realizing I need to practice more than I am!)
Of course I’m stretching in my life in more significant ways. Many more significant ways. (Including but not limited to being a better wife, a better mother, a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend, a better coach, developing another side business, improving my juggling, getting more speaking gigs, creating an online course, submitting stories to get published, trying to be still more, and the list goes on)
But this particular stretch — stretching to become more physically flexible – is one of my most important if for no other reason than it is a daily reminder of what I need to do in order to become more capable and to live my epic life.
Last Monday night, we received the devastating news that Jerry’s dad was not feeling well, and tests indicated his body is full of cancer. The next morning, Jerry got on a plane and has been with him ever since.
Jerry, with his brothers and sisters, and Dad.
It was soon after I met Jerry, late in 1990, that it was obvious to me that his Dad was a hero to him. And, as soon as I met and got to know Harlan, I could see why. Harlan is one of the most generous and noble men I know. I often thank him, in my mind and heart, for the man he raised in Jerry. I have been married to Jerry going on 23 years, and he is my best half. He is the best husband I could ever dream of having, and he’s the most wonderful father to our three sons. While Jerry obviously deserves so much credit for his wonderfulness, there is no doubt that the way his dad raised him has a lot to do with the man I have for a partner and who is the amazing father of our three wonderful sons.
Not knowing how much time we have left with Harlan (he is in hospice care and the cancer is aggressive), I wanted to thank Harlan for Jerry, and for being such a kind, generous and amazing father-in-law to me, Dad to Jerry, and “Pa-Grandpa” to our three sons.
I called Jerry Tuesday night and after talking to him, I got the chance to talk to Harlan and thank him and tell him I love him. It was painful and hard. And it was wonderful that I got to do so.
Our sons, sending a message in real time to their Pa-Grandpa.
I have been talking to Jerry daily, sometimes twice daily for updates and to see how his Dad, and he, and his siblings, are all holding up. Jerry shared that thanks to technology, his dad was able to Facetime with his only brother, Gilbert, back in Omaha. That conversation was heartbreaking – and special and important.
From Omaha, Harlan “winters” in San Diego, with Jerry’s sister, Lisa, and her family. Harlan is a “worker” so while in California during the winter and early spring, he spends his days outside working on projects and putzing around. Because he is not able to do that now, Jerry said that Thursday they moved his dad outside in his wheelchair so Harlan could “supervise” and Jerry and his brothers and sisters could do the work their dad would normally enjoy doing. Afterward, the boys and their dad “passed out” in their respective recliners and proceeded to snore in unison. Another evening, Jerry texted me a photo of he and his Dad drinking beers together.
Jerry and his Dad, drinking beers last night.
Jerry said his dad’s cousin, Betty, stopped by for a visit. They hadn’t seen or talked to each other for a long time. The two reminisced, and Jerry heard stories about his Dad, and his Dad’s youth, that he had never heard before.
When someone we love falls ill, or approaches the end of his or her life, it sure puts things in perspective real quick, doesn’t it? Suddenly, we are absolutely certain of who and what are important.
By the way, during our spring break, we visited Jerry’s Dad – just 3 weeks ago – and all was well. At least we thought it was. Now, especially, we are so very grateful for having made that trip.
We spent a few days of our recent Spring Break in the San Diego area so we could visit Jerry's sister, Lisa, and her family – and to get some time with Jerry's dad, who winters there. We are extra glad that we did that!
Some of my favorite memories of Harlan are the trips he’d make to visit us in Wyoming. We’d take him into our mountains, and we’d fish with him. He, and his brother, our “Uncle Gilbert,” built a treehouse for the boys, and made furniture for us. We also love our annual trips to Omaha because we get to go fishing with him, eat carp with him at Joe Tess’s, go to the Henry Doorly Zoo with he and Gilbert, and other family members. I will also always remember fondly the simple pleasure of sitting with him on the patio in his big and wonderful back yard, under the big trees he takes such good care of, and our boys, and their cousins playing yard games and swinging on his famous tire swing.
You know, for a long time now, I’ve been fascinated by what people who are approaching the end of their life have to say, and to teach us. Near the end of their life, they are in a unique position, and I would guess they place a higher value on each of their days than the rest of us do. In my research, these people always – 100% of the time – reflect most fondly on the people in their lives, on their family and friends. They don’t wish they would have worked harder, and most of their time is not spent reflecting on their work or accomplishments, but rather on their people, and the memories they have shared with them.
While I’m heartbroken for Harlan, and for my husband, and his siblings, and for all of us who love Harlan, I can’t help but be grateful that Jerry, and his siblings, and all of us who love him, have the opportunity to say what we want to say to such a wonderful and generous man. I love you so much, Harlan! And, I thank you! Your wonderful ways continue to live on and be of great influence to, and in, my husband. I see you in Jerry on a daily basis. The way Jerry starts each morning watching and reading the news, the way he makes pancakes for the boys on Saturday morning, the way he can fix things, his work ethic, integrity, loyalty and bravery, and his level of respect for others – and the list goes on.
Jerry, his Dad, and our boys, on the Loop Road about five years ago.
Two years ago, I read the book, Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life. It had a profound effect on me. The author, Eugene O’Kelly, had learned he had terminal brain cancer, and he wrote about his journey from diagnosis to the day he passed and couldn’t write anymore. One of the things that struck me most was his “unwinding” of relationships while he was still alive. He would thank people who meant a lot to him, and he would reflect on shared memories with them. I remember then thinking that it would be good for all of us – not only those with a terminal illness diagnosis, but those of us who are living as if not terminal – to be more conscious about our relationships and the people in our life.
The devastating and heartbreaking call we received last Monday has reinforced my belief that we should not wait to say what we want to say to those who mean so much to us, regardless of the circumstances. We ought to get right on that. Right now. What are we waiting for? We may not get a call.
For now, I hope we get some more Skype calls with Harlan… but just in case we don’t, I say this to him: I love you Harlan Johnson. I will forever be grateful to you, and I – and we – will try to honor you every day. I will remember you for your love of family, your adventurous spirit, your honor, integrity, generosity and humility. I will also continue to love and take care of the wonderful man you raised in Jerry!
Think of the people you love the most. If you could say one last goodbye to them, what would you say? And, when will you say it?…
Another question to ponder, that is worth any amount of time, is are there people you want, or need, to make more room for in your life? And if so, what are you waiting for?
About three weeks ago, I was driving my Prius to a trailhead about 10 miles from town when the “maintenance required” alert came on. It’s still on because I still haven’t taken the car in for its service, or to have it looked at for anything that may need repaired.
Howdy.
Seeing this alert always reminds me of what it feels like when I’m not honoring a value, or when I’m ignoring or avoiding something or someone yearning for my attention.
In my work with others, and in my own life, I emphasize and value the importance of having clarity about who and what are most important, and knowing what our values are. Having this awareness is critical to our well being. The more self awareness and clarity we have, the more we feel it when we ignore these people or things that matter so much to us, or when we fail to honor our values. It’s as if our own “service engine soon”, or “maintenance required” alert comes on.
Is this happening for you right now?
I’m not talking about feelings of guilt, necessarily, but those can also provide constructive signals. I view feelings of guilt as being those twinges (or feelings similar to heavy bricks weighting us down) that we experience when we’re not delivering on others’ expectations of us. Guilt, by the way, isn’t always a negative thing, despite the inconvenience it often causes us.
Brené Brown said it best in a post called Shame v. Guilt: I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort.
I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.
I have grown to sense when I’m not fulfilling a value or relationship in the way I would like to. Some examples: I want to have meaningful connections with each of my three sons on a regular basis – several times each day. I want the same with my husband. I want to carve out time to spend with my mom and my dad, my closest friends, and so on. When I’m not honoring any of these wishes, I sense it. It’s like a signal or an alert. Sometimes it can be many signals going off at once. Usually, for me, these “signals” come in the form of waking in the night and realizing what is out of check.
Another example is writing. I want to write more frequently. This is an important goal of mine. And yet I haven’t been honoring it. (My last post here was March 16!)
Like the “maintenance required” alert that is currently on (and has been for 3 weeks!), when I drive my Prius, when we ignore or fail to honor a relationship or value that’s important to us, we can probably continue to ignore it for a while without major consequence. But sooner or later, if it goes unchecked, it’s also possible that we’ll find ourselves a little (or a lot) broken down on the side of the road.
Thankfully, tending to our people, values and goals – our best, most Epic life – is something we have control over.
I dare you to take a minute – or 5 minutes – right now. Reflect on signals you’re receiving/feeling but ignoring. Address one or more of them TODAY. I think that you’ll find that your life will almost suddenly feel more at ease. You will immediately be happier.
As for me, I wrote this post. I’m also going to reach out to some people I haven’t been making a high enough priority. And, I think I’ll schedule an appointment for my Prius this week – if for no other reason than to get the alert to go away. 🙂
Thank you so much for reading. I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to share about your own “alerts” or anything you’d like to contribute to this topic and post.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”–Joseph Campbell
Hi there.
If you want to be uncomfortable and exhilarated all at once, enter a deep, dark cave.
I hope you’ll read this post to the end. In it, I’ll cover 3 things: 1) I’ll share about an exciting local caving adventure; 2) I’ll share why I think it’s scary – and important – for us to enter caves; and, 3) I will share thoughts from a blind person that provided discoveries for me that will hopefully serve as insights for you.
GOING CAVING
I live in Lander, Wyoming. Nearby Sinks Canyon State Park is home to many caves. The one I am most familiar with is the Boulder Choke Cave. My family has embarked on the adventure, and I have taken a group of women I was coaching into the cave. Most recently, I’ve been taking turns going with my sons’ classes when they explore the cave as part of their science curriculum. About a month ago, I went along as a helper with our 7th grader son, Hayden, and his classmates and teachers.
To start the caving adventure, we hike from an area called The Rise to what is an unassuming hillside. It is here, in between a few small boulders, that we’ll enter the cave. One by one, we carefully maneuver down through the tight “entrance” of the cave – a series of boulders that are by nature, stacked randomly and vertically. Entering the Boulder Choke Cave is a psychological experience. After all, you go from being above ground, out in the open, illuminated by bright sunshine, to deep underneath it after only a few strategic moves. If not for our headlamps, we’d be in total darkness almost immediately.
Crawling deeper into the cave.
Once in the cave, we start on all fours, crawling for a stretch before we can stand up and walk and examine the cave all around us. A highlight is a section where we swing on a big rope to get down a small chute. Otherwise, this crawling-then-walking-then-crawling continues for most of the one-hour exploration.
For this year’s tour, though, there was new side trip added, which meant not only a belly crawl, but a belly crawl in a very tight tunnel that goes for about 25 yards to a little pool where we were fortunate enough to spy and watch a cave fish. This little side trip was such a tight tunnel that I had to remove my thin backpack or I would have gotten stuck.
As I crawled, my face smashed against the dank dirt of the tunnel’s floor, I imagined I was an inchworm. I used all of my body to scooch myself forward and slightly uphill as I followed a student in front of me, whose feet were pretty much in my face. During this stretch, my breath kept hitching, meaning I kept making little gasps. Aware of my anxiety, I stopped and took some deep breaths and coached myself to calm down. I won’t lie – I was looking forward to getting this part over with. Two things made it even worse: Finding out during this crawl that this was an out-and-back side trip that meant doing this not once but twice, and also, realizing that no matter how uncomfortable this was, I had nowhere to go to get out of it. To make matter worse, I imagined what it would be like if someone above ground decided to lock the cave’s entrance gate, locking us in. Good times…
Why do most of us avoid and fear caves and otherwise tight, dark places? I think it’s because we can’t see, which means there is a lot of unknown territory when we enter a cave. Not only can we not see anything, but the darkness that causes us to not be able to see our surroundings is scary in its own right. We often think of dragons and snakes and bats and spiders and other sneaky, nocturnal creatures. There is also a feeling of not knowing if you’ll be able to find your way out, or even if there is a way out.
When Joseph Campbell said “The cave we fear to enter holds the treasure,” he meant we ought to dare to explore the dark, scary places of our lives. The corners and edges of our beings. And that in doing so, in exchange for our being uncomfortable and brave, we will make a discovery and in fact even be rewarded with a treasure – “the treasure you seek.”
A fan of Joseph Campbell’s work – particularly the Hero’s Journey, which I use as a template for my Epic programs – I often dare the people I coach, who are feeling “stuck,” to identify the caves in their lives. These caves can be a particular relationship or past event, a bad habit, a way of being or coping, a place of pain and heartbreak – anything that would require us to be vulnerable and to enter the unknown for purposes of exploring it and trying to release its hold (and limitations) on our life.
Campbell argued the trips into our caves are worthwhile ones. “The goal of the hero trip down to the jewel point is to find those levels in the psyche that open, open, open, and finally open to the mystery of your Self.” He said, “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life…. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.”
Still, exploring our caves is a tall order. When we enter a cave, sometimes we have to belly crawl through passages to see where they lead. Sometimes we have to slay dragons. But often, it’s just a matter of entering the cave and sitting – being – in its darkness for some time, learning, before exiting and using the experience for the journey ahead that is your life.
Right now, take a minute and try to identify a “cave” in your life. I wouldn’t ask you to do something I’m not willing to do, so I’m thinking about my cave(s) too… Entering our caves is terrifying, but if we really value our life, it’s important that we do the work.
TOTAL DARKNESS
But back to my real life caving field trip. Alas, that little exciting side trip did eventually end, and after returning and regrouping at the “lunchroom” section of the cave, David Lloyd, the 7th grade science teacher, instructed us to turn off our headlamps and to sit in silence.
My favorite part of the caving adventure is this brief moment when we sit in silence and total darkness. Even as a mother of three energetic sons, I am fortunate to experience silence often. But total darkness? If not for these caving adventures, never.
Sitting in total silence and darkness is an experience I can’t find words to describe. All I can say is in this total darkness you cannot even see your hand in front of your face. Your eyes don’t adjust like they do when you’re at home at night and “in the dark.”
After one minute of silence and total darkness, we were instructed to turn our lights back on. After we did this, I could hear Mr. Lloyd and some students talking about the total darkness we had just experienced, and Mr. Lloyd asked, “I wonder if it is like that all of the time for people who are blind?” or something to that effect. It was a great question, and I wondered about it, too. Curious, I made a mental note to reach out to my social networks later in the day to try to connect with someone who is blind in order to ask them that question.
Upon my return from the caving field trip, I logged into Twitter and asked my followers if any of them could connect me with a blind person. Within an hour, a contact from eTourism Summit (Laurie Farr), replied saying she would introduce me to her sister, Wendy Poth, who has been without sight for 52 years.
After an email introduction from Laurie, Wendy and I scheduled a phone call. Once on the phone, I asked Wendy, “As a blind person, do you live in total darkness?”
Her responses to this question, and others, were surprising and fascinating.
“I am without sight, totally blind. I can’t see a bloody thing,” explained Wendy, who is 60. When she was almost eight, a genetic defect that causes others to become near-sighted, caused Wendy to lose her sight.
But just because she can’t see a bloody thing, doesn’t mean she can’t see. Wendy explained, “My camera is broken, but there’s nothing wrong with the film. My visual tape is constantly running. Seeing is really a brain activity. It’s not a virtue of the camera – the eyes – at all. What I cannot do is see nothing. Because my visual cortex is active and alive and firing… I’ve constantly got a picture in my head.”
Wendy added that a person without sight not only does not live in total darkness, he/she will have a harder time experiencing total darkness than those of us who have our sight. Wendy explained that when she walks into an unfamiliar place, “I can hear that the room is tall and long and not that wide, and I hear people standing around talking, and I hear sound bouncing off a chandelier or I can hear people talking at a lower level so I assume they’re sitting down, if there’s three, they’re on a couch… I constantly ‘fill in.'”
Because she’s used to filling in empty spaces, Wendy said she’d have a hard time imagining total darkness. If she were in a cave, she’d be filling in information she senses. “I struggle to see nothing,” she said. “When I want to allow myself to do that drifting… I have trouble giving up my visual cortex.”
Wendy’s generosity and sharing with me provided an insight into people who have no sight – people we refer to as blind. For one, it might be better to refer to people who have no sight as people who have no sight, rather than blind people.
It wasn’t easy for me to reach out and talk for the first time to someone who cannot see, and to dare to ask questions that would fulfill my selfish curiosities. But the treasure of going into that cave was learning, gaining new understanding, and making a new friend.
Near the end of our phone call, Wendy said something that really struck me: “Black is something. If you think about the color spectrum… black is the opposite of what people would intuit. Black is not the absence of all.”
Perhaps this is why when we enter a cave, be it a literal one or one of the emotional caves we fear to enter, we can’t see anything, and yet we can feel that something is there…
Thank you for reading my blog. As usual, I’d love to hear from you below in the comments. Share an experience or ask a question – whatever. I’m just happy to be connected to you. Thanks again.
I don’t know whose words these are, but I love them. How often do we go through events or struggles that frustrate us and make no sense at the time, but then later make all the sense?
I wrote here last time that one of my resolutions for 2015 is to write more frequently. To help me do this, I challenged our two older sons, who also want to write or create more regularly, to join me in a game where we draw a card from our Reverse Charades game every week and whatever word or phrase is on the card is what we have to write about. (The last card/topic was bald eagle.)
This week’s card is basketball. Drawing this card is requiring me to write about something that has been in my “mental queue” for several months now, waiting to be shared.
A short detour first, though. Around the same time I first heard “the years tell us what the days cannot” quote, I was in conversation with the Missoula YMCA to facilitate some leadership development for its leaders. I love Missoula, and it will always be a particularly special place for me. After all, I came of age in Missoula. I received my college degree there, started my first career job there, and I got married there.
But I left Missoula 22 years ago, and I hadn’t thought too much about the town, or my years there. That was, until I heard the “the years tell us what the days cannot” quote and was faced with the prospects of returning to Missoula for some work. These two things caused me to look back and connect the dots of my past in a way I hadn’t previously done. In doing so, I made all kinds of significant realizations, most of which are the result of what was probably my most spectacular failure, which is 100% related the subject of the card we drew for this week, basketball.
As most of you know, I’m an outdoor enthusiast. I hike. A lot. As in, 1,000 miles a year. But during my youth I wasn’t much into the outdoors. Rather, my passion was basketball, and I was pretty good at it. In fact, I received a full ride Division I basketball scholarship to University of Montana in 1986. If you aren’t aware, the University of Montana Lady Griz basketball team is legendary. The Lady Griz coach is also legendary. Robin Selvig is in his 33rd year as coach of the Lady Griz, and has led 22 of his winning teams to the NCAA Division I playoffs. The Lady Griz inspire awe and almost always win. If my research is correct, Lady Griz teams win about 80% of the games they play.
But back to me. So there I was in Fall of 1986, a Lady Griz. Let me try to describe what that was like… For starters, most of the my teammates were very tall, as in 6 feet tall and up. Tall is not a word anyone ever used to describe me. If I round up, I’m 5′ 5″. Every single player was phenomenal, and better than any player I had ever played or practiced with. In the world of basketball, I had arrived. Despite the amazing talent surrounding me, and feeling a little out of my league, I was eager and excited to level up, and to be a part of such a dynasty. I worked really hard, and was optimistic.
Unfortunately, about a month in, I blew my right knee (ACL) out in practice. I was redshirted, and began recovering from ACL reconstructive surgery and rehabilitating my knee. The injury was a setback, but I followed the doctor’s orders, worked as hard as I could, and was determined to make a comeback.
In the end, I didn’t come back fast enough. During my rehab, other point guards were recruited, and the truth of the matter is my ship had sailed. In year 3, Coach Selvig and I had a meeting. I’ll never forget that meeting because it marked the first difficult conversation I had ever had with an adult other than my parents. In that meeting, coach Selvig more or less informed me that there was another player who had walked on, who was performing better than I was, and as such, was more deserving of the scholarship. These were hard words for me to accept. Still, Coach was kind, and encouraged me to stay on the team.
I left the office and never returned to the team. I quit.
I’ll be honest, when I first looked back over all of this, it seemed trivial. I mean, losing a basketball scholarship, in the big picture of life, is not a huge deal. To be sure, things could have been much worse. But I was 20 years old, a long way from home, feeling humiliated and alone, not to mention the path I had been on – the only one I had a map for – was no longer my path.
Remember – the years tell us what the days cannot. During my recent look back at all of this, I realized the things I did in the months following my aforementioned failure not only made a significant difference in my life during that time, but continue to inform my life, and my work. Let me share a little about what those things were/are:
HIKING “In every walk with nature, one receives more than he seeks.” (John Muir)
One of the first things I did once I didn’t have basketball was I started hiking. I hiked to the “M”, located right on the edge of the UM campus. Soon after, I was hiking past the M, and all the way to the top of Mt. Sentinel, sometimes every day of the week. It was the combination of moving under my own power, feeling my heart pumping, letting my mind wander, and the feeling of fresh air and sun on my face that caused me to fall in love with hiking. Add to that, I always felt inspired following my hikes.
Today, one of my biggest passions is long distance day hiking. I view my time walking in nature as one of my competitive advantages – one of the secrets to my happiness and physical and mental health. Hiking is also a significant part of my family’s life, and my work. In November, I returned to Missoula for work with the YMCA, and I got up before sunrise to hike to the top of Mt. Sentinel. What an amazing experience that was, having come as far as I have, and given so much of my epic life started on that very trail 26 years ago. I don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t have hiking, and the fact is, I did not really start hiking until I no longer played basketball.
SOLITUDE “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” (Joseph Campbell)
After I lost my scholarship, I remained friends with the Lady Griz players. But the fact was my world was now different from theirs, and I needed to find my new way. At first, this meant spending a significant amount of time alone. Spending time alone, and in solitude, was a completely new experience for my then-social self. Previously, I had thought of solitude as an activity for the lonely. Wow – how naive and wrong I was.
During time alone, we are available only to our self, and we are able to listen to our thoughts, including the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a time to take stock, to reflect, to solve problems, to experience our feelings, and to imagine our dreams.
Socrates said “Know thyself.” In my humble opinion, self awareness is our most important pursuit, if we are to be our best, and live our best life. I believe that solitude is the medium for self realization, and that’s why I challenge everyone I work with to incorporate some of it into their life. Until losing my basketball scholarship, I had never invested much time in solitude. It was 26 years ago that I discovered the value of solitude, and I can’t imagine my life without it.
BOOKS “Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” (Viktor Frankl)
Until the months after losing my scholarship and quitting basketball, I wasn’t much of a reader. Sure, I read books that were assigned in school, but that was about it. I just didn’t love reading. That all changed when one of my journalism school professors, who knew I was having a little bit of a hard time, shared a copy of Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl. I was so inspired by Frankl’s story of surviving the Holocaust, and an Auschwitz concentration camp. Frankl’s belief that we get to choose our existence helped me to realize it was up to me how I would respond to my circumstances, and that I had the ability to create meaning in my life. Reading the book also put my struggles in perspective real fast!
Reading Frankl’s work not only provided wisdom and inspiration during a time when I needed it, it also marked the start of my love affair with books, and reading. Today I am a voracious reader. I read 50+ books a year, and find them to be a tremendous source of inspiration and knowledge. I can’t imagine a life without books and a lot of time spent reading.
LEVELING UP “We cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves.” (Todd Skinner)
People who know me and work with me hear me say, frequently: We can go farther than we think we can. I believe this so much that it could be my personal slogan. Marcus Aurelius, the great emperor of Rome from 161-180, and known for his Meditations on Stoic philosophy, said “We know that deep down we learn and benefit from failure and adversity.” And Benjamin Franklin said “The things which hurt, instruct.”
Playing on the Lady Griz basketball team was one of my first opportunities to level up. Not having what it took caused me to reinvent myself and create a new path for myself at a relatively early age. It caused me to turn trial into triumph. Perhaps, then, it’s no coincidence that my mission is to inspire others to explore their edges, to “sign up for” and try things that are so challenging that the outcome is uncertain – to dare to fail.
There is one more thing I want to mention before writing the conclusion to this post. I am grateful for my time on the Lady Griz team. It was an amazing experience, and I made many good friends who I am still in touch with. It was truly an honor and a privilege to play for coach Selvig, and to be a member of such a great program.
Finally, upon making all of these realizations, I have come to the biggest realization of all, and that is that my spectacular failure was not a failure at all, but rather an opportunity to learn and become more than I was before.
Thank you for reading this blog post. My hope is that it will inspire you to look back on your own life and connect the dots to recall particular struggles and to see the difference they may have made, or continue to make, in your life, and to help you trust that somehow things you’re challenged by in your current life will connect to your future and make sense one day.
And, of course, I’d love it if you’d consider sharing a story in the comments. Thanks again!
Books I recommend that are related to all of the above:
