an epic life

Broken Down on the Frontier

April 30th, 2023

“Survival starts before the accident.” –Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

It was 1 p.m. on a Thursday and I was driving to Denver, Colorado. I had decided only the afternoon before, to sign up for a retreat and was about two hours into my 6-hour drive.

Except for gale force wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful Spring day in Wyoming. We’ve had a long winter–six months worth–and this was the first time the roads were clear of snow and ice.

Because this plan had come together unexpectedly less than 24 hours earlier I had been feeling anxious when I hit the road. But there’s nothing like a road trip on Wyoming’s open roads to clear my headspace and I felt sure that the drive would help me relax into what I had signed up for and would be the perfect way to transition from what was a hectic few days into an inspiring and much-needed healing weekend of retreat.

As I drove, I was listening to an audiobook, Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender, by Dr. David R. Hawkins, which was recommended to me as preparation for the retreat. I would only get to listen to half of it given my tight timeline, but I figured it would be better than nothing and a good start.

During his many decades of clinical psychiatric practice, Hawkins’ primary aim was to seek the most effective ways to help his clients relieve their suffering in all of its many forms. According to Hawkins, the inner mechanism of surrender was found to be of great practical benefit. Over the years, thousands of students asked Hawkins for a practical technique by which to remove the inner blocks to happiness, love, joy, success, health and, ultimately, Enlightenment. According to the description for Letting Go, the book would teach me how to let go of such blocks. Sign me up for that, I thought as I downloaded the audiobook last night.

Hawkins instructs readers: When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. To be surrendered means to have no strong emotion about a thing: “It’s okay if it happens, and it’s okay if it doesn’t.”

According to Hawkins, we have three ways of handling our feelings–suppression, expression, and repression. I’ve realized that for much of my life, I’ve suppressed and repressed certain emotions and feelings. This hardly makes me unique, and in fact, most of us have stuffed our difficult emotions and feelings down over the years. Doing so, which is done consciously but also unconsciously, serves as a coping mechanism and at least for the short term, keeps us from having to deal with and/or process the otherwise difficult emotions and feelings.

This isn’t recommended though. It turns out that suppressing and repressing our feelings can lead to anxiety and depression. In addition, keeping these feelings stuffed inside is not a healthy or sustainable strategy. Especially as we get older, these long-buried feelings and/or trauma can wreak havoc in our bodies. (See also The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk, M. D.)

These repressed and suppressed feelings can present as physical ailments. Which is what I’ve been experiencing during the last 24 months. My body has been protesting in the form of back and neck pain, jaw pain, and increased anxiety.

We get to choose our mindset

Earlier in the morning I had led and facilitated a two-hour virtual class over Zoom called We Choose Our Mindset for a group of 18 leaders I’m working with.

There aren’t many things in life that we get to choose, but fortunately, mindset is one of them.

Every day, from the moment we wake up, the mindset we choose to have will affect every experience we have. By mindset, I mean our attitude, our set of beliefs, the way we choose to see the world. I think of mindset as a lens through which we view and experience our life, and the world. We have the opportunity to choose our lens.

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and philosopher who founded Logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for life’s meaning as the central human motivational force.

Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. In 1942, Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. His father died there of starvation and pneumonia. In 1944, Frankl and the surviving members of his family were transported to Auschwitz, where his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers. His wife was taken by the Nazis to the concentration camp and died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen.

Frankl survived three years of brutal concentration camps, about which he wrote in his bestselling book, Man’s Search for Meaning. This book has been one of the most influential books in my life, and I refer to it often in my work with leaders. The sobering and inspiring book shares the story of Frankl’s struggle to hold on to hope during the unspeakable horrors of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps.

Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

One of the things that Frankl wrote that I think of often, is that between stimulus and response, we have within us, the power to choose how we will respond to our circumstances. No matter how bad or uncertain or dire the circumstances, we can choose our response to them.

This isn’t easy work. Especially when our circumstances are challenging, we may have to choose a particular mindset hundreds of times in a day, maybe in a single hour. But each of us has this ability, this opportunity to choose our mindset. And when we choose our mindset, we are choosing our existence.

I shared as much in my mindset class to the leaders this morning. We also discussed reframing, and how we can change our view of a situation or a relationship or a task. I encouraged the group to think of a situation in their life or their leadership that was challenging, that caused them great stress or dread. Everyone reflected on this question and some shared their examples and as a group, we considered different ways the leader could look at the situation.

When we are experiencing challenging circumstances, it’s easy to feel like a victim, like we’ve been dealt something undeservedly or unfairly. It’s easy to fall prey to asking the question, “Why is this happening to me?” But, as I shared with the group of leaders, we ought to change this to, “Why is this happening for me?” Because when we make this subtle change/reframe, we can view the situation as something that we can learn, and possibly even benefit from.

Asking Why is this happening for me? inspires a mindset of curiosity and hopefulness rather than a mindset of victim and hopelessness. It gives us agency over how we’ll respond to our circumstances.

Finding my roadtrip groove

I had just stopped to use the restroom at the Split Rock viewing area. Despite the wind’s best efforts to blow me over, I took a few extra minutes to walk around the parking lot and to stretch my legs and back before getting back in the car. I was filled with gratitude that I was able to say Yes to the retreat invitation and was starting to feel less anxious.

I feel like I’m finding my groove. The great expanses of frontier all around me are performing their magic. With every mile, my mind feels more free.

But then, suddenly, my throat starts to feel dry and it hurts, so much so that it’s painful to swallow. My throat is parched and it feels like there’s a hard lump in my throat. What the hell? I feel my high spirits sink. I felt fine–great–just a moment ago.

The next couple of miles I took gulps of water and hoped and prayed I was experiencing just a sudden bout of allergies, and that my throat was just experiencing something that was in the air now that Winter was turning to Spring.

A few minutes later, all of the warning lights on my dashboard lit up. The red exclamation point, the service engine light, and several other lights. A row of 4–5 warning lights blinked at me. The car seemed to be driving fine, but these blinking signals across my dashboard were alarming.

I can feel myself starting to panic. Every warning light that exists is on. I wonder, Will the car just stop working? What if it blows up? I can feel my heart beating faster and I start to feel warm. My throat is throbbing. I’ve never had more than one alarm light display from the dashboard before. I suddenly feel warm and as if my heart is palpitating. I start to panic.

I remember a tool called the “physiological sigh” that I learned from the Andrew Huberman podcast. Huberman is a neuroscientist and professor in the department of neurobiology, psychiatry, and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. According to Huberman, practicing the physiological sigh can shift us from a fight-or-flight, anxious state, to a calm state.

To perform a physiological sigh, you take two inhales through your nose, followed by an extended exhale from your mouth. The first inhale is the main one but it’s important to follow it with another short inhale, before exhaling all the way. (The double inhale ensures that we can offload as much carbon dioxide as possible.) Huberman says doing 2–4 rounds of physiological sighs during times of high stress or panic, can calm us down.

It has helped me before stepping on stage to deliver my keynote presentation, and it has worked to calm me during a lightning storm, so I try it now, and after just a few rounds of physiological sighs, I feel some relief. I feel a little more calm, able to think.

Fortunately, I was just two miles from an intersection, and the only resemblance of civilization for miles, a place called 3 Forks-Muddy Gap Services.

I was raised in Wyoming and given the nature of my work during the last 30 years, I’ve personally traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on these roads. Muddy Gap is basically an old building in the middle of the frontier and people don’t tend to stop there unless they need to, for fuel or a restroom.

Right now, I’m grateful for its existence.

I pulled in, parked, and turned off the car. I had no cell signal, which wasn’t a surprise even if it was a major inconvenience. I was two hours from home and in the middle of Wyoming’s frontier, broken down. I took some deep breaths and located the car’s manual. I looked up each of the warning signs and the message was clear.

Stop the vehicle immediately.

Do not continue your travel.

See a Toyota dealership immediately.

Concerned about how I would get the necessary help, I went into the building, where I found a man sitting low behind the counter. I asked him if they were a service station, if they provided any services for vehicles because I was having car troubles. He said no so I left and went outside again.

Gale force winds blew and it was hard to think, let alone stand upright, so I got back into my car and tried to compose myself so I could figure out how to proceed.

I turned the car back on and still, all of the warning lights were on. I turned the car off and on again a few more times just to see if the alarms would cease but they wouldn’t. I moved the car to a different position to see if I could tell if the car was operating fine. It was. But after checking the manual again, it was clear it wouldn’t be wise to continue on the road even if it seemed like the car was operating fine. I worried about being broken down on the side of the highway, especially given the winds were so ferocious.

I then remembered my brilliant idea to pack my Garmin InReach Explorer. The device is a GPS satellite communicator that I use when hiking in the wilderness or leading Epic Adventures. I pay an annual subscription to a service that allows for 2-way texting, allows my family to track my whereabouts, and if necessary, allows me to trigger an SOS or search and rescue. I often throw my InReach in for road trips in case of emergency and since a reliable cell phone signal is hard to come by throughout much of Wyoming.

Relieved that I had a way to contact Jerry to tell him what was happening, I reached for my phone to connect it to the InReach. I have an app on my iphone, called Earthmate, that allows me to connect to my InReach but use my phone’s keyboard to send messages. It’s a game-changer because without the app, you have to form sentences by manually moving an arrow on the InReach device to locate and enter one single letter at a time, including to add any spaces or punctuation. Without the app, it is painfully time-consuming and laborious to type even just a few words.

But when I go to connect my InReach to the app, I see it’s in the Cloud, and without a cell signal, it will stay in the Cloud. This means I’ll have to type my message to Jerry (and AAA, etc.) one single letter at a time. Damn!

I can feel my frustration settling in, but I remind myself of my good fortune, that I had had the wherewithal to pack my InReach and that at least I have a way to communicate.

It took several minutes, but I composed the following message to Jerry. atmuddygap.cartroubles.everyalarmgaugeflashing.nocellsignal.no1here2helprn

A few minutes goes by and I hear a ding which means the message has been sent. A few minutes later, I get a message from Jerry saying “Oh no. I’m so sorry. Are you ok?” I take another several minutes to write back that my InReach phone app doesn’t work. This takes forever to form into a sentence but I felt it was important so Jerry would know my ability to respond in detail was limited and also in hopes he would be more specific and helpful in his messages back to me. I’m also hoping that given the limitations of my circumstances that Jerry might be able to take some matters into his own hands, such as call our local Toyota dealership to get some tips to share with me, to find out if it’s safe for me to continue driving, or to possibly call AAA and arrange for a tow for me.

It should be stated that Jerry was at work when all of this was happening. He’s an elementary Physical Education teacher so at work meant he was in charge of keeping about 20 energetic kids in line and from getting injured. In other words, it’s not exactly a job he can turn his back on, not even for a moment. So I appreciated, extra, how hard this was for my husband to try to help his wife, who was stranded in the middle of nowhere with no way of seeking assistance. I knew how helpless he must have felt, and yet he was my first line of help.

Jerry texts again, suggesting he called Toyota and they said I should try removing the gas cap and putting it back on.

I’m appreciative of my husband’s effort to help, but not feeling particularly encouraged by this request.

I think to myself, I have a 2005 Prius. The gas cap is not connected to the engine or tied to the electrical system of the car. But I did it anyway. I removed the cap and then put it back on. (I wondered if next they would suggest I stand on my head and rub my stomach.)

I get back in the car and take several deep breaths. I meditate and practice mindfulness daily, often several times a day, and I know that right now, I need to breathe, slowly and steadily, to stay calm.

My trip and my plans to attend the retreat are clearly canceled. Even if I were to get help, this was clearly a sign that the trip wasn’t meant to be. But as I notice my disappointment, I’m reminded of David Hawkins’ earlier instruction to have the mindset, “It’s okay if it happens, and it’s okay if it doesn’t.”

I was bummed that I was no longer going to be able to attend the retreat. I had been invited last minute and the retreat was just what I was needing. And yet, I was in a state of acceptance. (This was noteworthy since typically in a situation like this, there’d be some freaking out. I’d be upset, possibly to the point of tears.)

I remember a line from one of my favorite books, Laurence Gonzales’ Deep Survival: Who Dies, Who Lives, and Why.

Survival starts before the accident.

Could it be that the two hours of teaching and talking about mindset with leaders at the start of the day and how we get to choose our mindset and how we’ll respond to our circumstances, and that when we choose our mindset we choose our existence, had prepared me for this moment? If that weren’t enough, I had spent the last two hours listening to an audiobook about how to surrender and let go of feelings. Had listening to Letting Go further “primed” me for this experience?

It seems indisputable and I find some humor in this realization.

I shift into problem solving mode. I texted Jerry back that I would wait a bit longer to see if someone would arrive who I could ask for help. If not, then I’d have him call AAA and arrange a tow truck to meet me and take me and my car back to Lander.

In the keynote presentation organizations hire me to deliver to their leaders, I share that I love that only half a million people live in Wyoming. I tell them I love the people who live in Wyoming, even though there aren’t many of them.

Right now I’d love to see any of them!

Some 30 minutes passed before a vehicle drove into Muddy Gap. A young man in a Subaru stopped at the pump and filled his tank. When he finished, and got back in his car, I walked over and he rolled down his window. I introduced myself. His name was Justin and he was about the age of my two oldest sons, in his early 20s. I told him I was having car troubles and I wondered if he might be willing to help me.

He said he was headed to Casper, which was not in the direction I was going, but I told him that 20 miles from here he’d pass the Independence Rock Rest Area and that I knew from experience that there’s a reliable cell signal at the rest area. I knew it was a lot to ask but I wondered if he’d be willing to call AAA, give them my account number and communicate about my car troubles at Muddy Gap and request a tow truck for me.

He was kind and mentioned that he had a cell signal and I could borrow his phone. Due to the high winds, I asked if I could borrow his phone while sitting inside my car and he said no problem. The young man remained at Muddy Gap for 60 minutes while I placed several calls to my husband, to Toyota, and to AAA. In the end, after much deliberation and many different conversations, I requested a tow back to Lander from AAA. I was informed it could be a 3-hour wait but that a tow truck would be on its way and would tow me back to Lander.

I wasn’t thrilled about waiting three hours for a tow truck, but felt grateful that help was on the way, and that I had a plan.

I returned the phone to Justin and offered him some cash to show my appreciation. He refused and said he was happy to help. I insisted though, telling him how much I appreciated his generosity and act of kindness. He accepted the gesture with appreciation and continued on his way.

A few minutes after hatching my plan and beginning to settle in for the duration, a truck pulls in and a man gets out to fill his truck. When he goes inside to get a snack, I follow him in and use the restroom that’s in the back of the building. Afterward, as I was going back outside, the man was behind me and he asked, “Is everything okay?”

I responded, with a short laugh, “Well, not really. I’m having car troubles and need to wait three hours for a tow truck to arrive, but other than that, things are great.”

He told me he’s an environmental scientist with the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and that he is on his way to Lander. He offered to follow me to Lander and if my car acted up or if at any time I felt like it wasn’t safe to drive it, he’d use his dispatch radio to call for help for me. And not only that, he had a cell signal and I could borrow his phone to cancel the AAA and to update my husband about my new plan. Which I did.

I thanked him profusely, but he blew it off, saying “This is how we do it in Wyoming.” I agreed, but still, his remark and kindness moved me almost to tears.

I started my car back up and lo and behold, the warning lights and alarms were no longer displaying, and the car drove fine. During my return trip, I reflected on all of the blessings I’d just experienced, the two good samaritans and what a difference they made to my situation.

In my family we have a name for such helpful strangers. We call them “trail angels” and they are strangers who show up, as if magically, in a time of need, and are generous and helpful in critical ways. We’ve met and encountered so many of these trail angels in our travels, throughout Wyoming, the U. S., and particularly during our international travels.

As divided as our country seems to be these days, I really believe that people are mostly good.

My drive back to Lander is wonderful because it’s filled with thoughts of gratitude for how this all turned out. How such a bleak situation had turned positive.

Psychologists have a term, “bright spots” that describes the act of looking for the positive, the things that are going right, when everything seems to be going wrong. I had experienced some frustration and feelings of helplessness, but all told, I was out only about 90 minutes, and during that time, I met two different strangers who were wonderful, kind, generous, and helpful.

I think about the retreat I’m now going to miss and how right it had felt just hours earlier. Given the positive developments and the fact I’ll be home soon, much sooner than I would have been had I waited for the tow truck, I start to wonder about the possibility of booking a flight for the next day to Denver from nearby Riverton or Casper, and still making the retreat.

A few miles before arriving in Lander, I pulled the car over so I could personally thank the BLM environmental scientist for his kind and generous act. I didn’t want him to go on his way without properly thanking him.

He told me his name is Anthony, and he’s from Atlanta, GA, but that he’s been living in Wyoming for two years. “I’ve wanted to live out West all my life,” he said. “This is my dream job. I feel so fortunate to live the life I have.”

He told me he landed a job with the BLM in Rock Springs as a Natural Resource Specialist/Physical Scientist and he and his wife signed a lease on an apartment, sight unseen, from Atlanta. They now own a home.

“I love it here,” he said. “The sense of community is not something I’ve ever experienced before. People helped us unload our stuff and they helped us move when we bought a house. They have given me fresh fish, elk, pronghorn, and duck. In two years, I can count on one hand the number of sirens I’ve heard. No traffic. No crime. The people are great. I’ve spoken to many locals who can’t understand why I chose to live here over Atlanta. I tell them, Try living in a big city.”

Anthony said he and his wife love taking drives throughout Wyoming. They have discovered so many beautiful places that are unspoiled, and love that there is so much public land here, something that doesn’t exist back East.

“I try to live up to Wyoming. I stop when I see people on the side of the road and ask them if they are alright. I talk to my neighbors. I wave at people on the road (instead of honking like people do in the cities). And, I tell people back East how terrible it is here and not to come.”

I had met a kindred spirit.

Back in Lander, upon walking into my house, I received a text from the retreat’s organizer. (Jerry had informed him of my car troubles and that as a result of my situation I would regretfully not be able to attend the retreat.) He said he hoped I was okay and that he was sorry about my car troubles. He said some of the others who signed up for the retreat wouldn’t be arriving until the next day and that I wouldn’t miss anything significant if I’d still like to attend and arrive the next day.

There were no flights out of Riverton on such short notice, but I was able to book a morning flight out of Casper. Jerry was supportive, saying, “As long as you feel like you can get in the right headspace, after the frustrations and events of today, then I say go for it!”

I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with my husband and our 16-year-old son, enjoyed a good night’s rest, and the next morning, drove in our other vehicle to Casper to catch my mid-morning flight.

After the two-hour drive, as I was turning left off the highway onto the road to the Casper airport, a bald eagle swooped low and flew right in front of my windshield.

I have had many animal encounters in my lifetime and so often they occur at times of struggle or deep contemplation. After such an occasion, I’m always quick to research its possible meaning. What does it mean when you see a fox, when you find a feather, when an eagle flies in front of your path?

So moments after the eagle sighting, as I waited to board my flight, I researched what it means when a bald eagle flies in your path.

From the internet: “When Eagle appears to you, it means that you are being put on notice. Eagle totems appear to inspire (push) you to reach higher and become more than you think you are capable of. They tell you to be courageous and really stretch your limits and see what you can do.”

And from an article about bald eagles and their spiritual meaning, written by Kells McPhillips: In Native American cultures, Christianity, and Celtic lore, the eagle is considered a close link with god or gods. In some Native tribes, the eagle is considered to be a messenger between the heavens and the sky.

Spotting an eagle may be your sign to go for it. Because eagles spend so much time in the air, they are widely considered an invitation to go after your biggest dreams and to challenge yourself.

A few hours later I was at the retreat, which ended up being one of the most profound experiences of my life. (I’ll write separately about the retreat at a later time, but suffice it to say I was courageous and stretched my limits.)

Laurence Gonzales’ words, Survival starts before the accident, have taken on new meaning for me. Our ability to survive, or in my case, to keep my wits about me so I could overcome a difficult challenge, is greatly improved when we take steps in advance that serve to prepare us for when things don’t go as planned.

Packing my InReach device, teaching and discussing mindset with a group of leaders for two hours in the morning, and then listening to an audiobook about how to not get caught up in our negative emotions and feelings, enabled me to overcome my car troubles in remote Wyoming with remarkable ease and a wonderful outcome.

Had I not been primed by all the reflection and attention on choosing one’s mindset, and not being overwhelmed by our feelings, I likely would have been too upset to be effective. I may not have been open to noticing, let alone, asking Justin or Anthony for their help.

And finally, I was once again reminded of why I love Wyoming and its people so much.

(Note: Turned out, my Prius needed a new inverter cooling pump, and it has since been repaired.)

• Categories: Adventure, Family, Life and Leadership, Travel
• Tags: car troubles, frontier, good samaratins, kindness, roadtrips, trail angels, wyoming
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