Doing Hard Things.

Finding our way to getting unstuck.

            I have gotten stuck on top of a ladder before.

            I mean stuck. Paralyzed.

            My leg wouldn’t move. My hand wouldn’t move. My mouth moved only enough to say “I’m stuck.”

            It’s impossible to explain to someone what the body does when it refuses. It just, well, refuses. Freezes. Re-freezes. Of course there are people who understand this bodily response, plenty of folks experience these things in their lives without a ladder in sight. And plenty of folks have sought help for these things as well. I can reasonably live my life without climbing onto tall things, but if your body freezes, at say, the threshold of your home so that it’s difficult to go outside, that’s more complicated.

            The mind can say, “the ladder is safe, you are safe, just put one foot down on the next step,” and the body says, “I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere.”

            When I have gotten myself into these situations over the years, I have sat down and scooted to a place where I felt safe, or yelled for someone to help me, or cried, or all of the above.

            Somewhat surprisingly, I love hiking, especially when hills and mountains are involved. Their sturdiness gives me a sense of security and connection, I think. But I’m not the hiker who looks over edges and I only occasionally get myself into a situation where the climb is too steep for me to get down with confidence.

            This fear of mine (well, it’s not actually a fear, it’s a condition), has kept me from experiencing some things that other people experience freely and with great joy. So in that sense, it’s quite sad. Sometimes it keeps me from doing very basic things, and then it’s quite frustrating.

            Last week I went on a hike in the mountains that overlooks part of the Salish Sea. As I stood with the trees and bushes and birds looking out over the water at the Olympic Mountain Range in the distance, I saw some people walking along the edge of a small beach.

            A beach! I thought, and nearly jumped.

            Then I headed down the trail in the direction of the beach.

            When I arrived, however, the only way to get to that beautiful stretch of land was to cross a very tall steel structure. The ramp didn’t look too bad, it was solid and eased upward, but the section that went over the railroad tracks was not solid and you could see the ground beneath you.

            The ground was really, really far away.

            On the other side of the open section were the steps – again open – that gradually led you down to the ground. Just looking at it made my stomach churn.

            But I wanted to get to that beach.

            I walked very slowly up the ramp, doing some deep belly breathing on my way.

            Yes, people were around me. Yes, I’m sure they were a bit alarmed by me. No, I didn’t care.

            Then came the open section.

            Right hand on the railing, left hand out of my jacket pocket and stretching down next to my leg, I nearly scooted my feet along, inches at a time.

            Occasionally I stopped and smiled.

            Smiling, by the way, really does change what becomes possible.

            Then I scooched my feet along. All. The. Way. Across. The. Top.

            Then I paused and took some good, intentional breaths.

            Following your breath through your body really does change your nervous system. It is healing…healing in difficult moments and healing for all kinds of things like injuries, stomach aches, headaches, sadness, anger.

            Those breaths got me settled again, but there I was facing the steps.

            I couldn’t do it.

            The steps are secure. Look at the people using them. You are safe.

            My mind was doing its job, giving my body positive encouragement and all. But I couldn’t put my foot down onto the first step.

            I was stuck.

            Like most days, I was hiking alone, so there was no one to help.

            Inch by inch I made my way back across the bridge and down the ramp.

            I didn’t get to the beach.

            Fast forward a little more than a week and I’m hiking in those same woods, standing at the overlook, and I see a couple people walking on that driftwood-dotted land. One person had taken off their shirt and long pants and was wading into the water.

            I’m wearing a winter hat and gloves and don’t want to wade in the water.

            So I start the hike down from the bluff, along the tall fence between me and the railroad tracks, and then stand at the foot of the steel ramp and take a gentle but long inhale through my nose.

            I can do this.

            I won’t bore you with the very long and detailed story about how I made my way up the ramp, across the open floor bridge, and down the open flights of stairs (and back again), but there was a lot of good, strong, powerful breathing involved and some humming (yes, humming – you didn’t know that humming and chanting can calm your nervous system and help you reset? Try it now…it’s one of the many miraculous things our body can do).

I made it to the beach.

            And it was glorious.

            If you have ever squatted down at the edge of a giant body of water, you know what I mean when I say that the water drifted in with a gentle power. Sometimes you can see a wave starting way out in the deep and by the time it finishes, like really finishes, on land, it’s just a tiny little sliver of water stretching one more inch to tickle the rocks before it recedes.

            That tiny little tickling of the rocks is mesmerizing.

            The rocks themselves were beautiful.

            How does the earth create these rocks, I wonder, not wanting the scientific explanation we can all look up, but rather than metaphysical one that doesn’t exist.

            Their colors spanned beyond what seems possible outside of an artist’s palette. Their sizes ranged from grains of sand to those that were as large as my fist. Striped rocks sat next to dotted ones, solid ones, and many-colored ones. One rock held an image that looked like a seahawk and I wondered how this was possible, that a rock on a tiny beach across a scary steel structure at the edge of Seattle could have within it an image of a seahawk.

            My hands pushed through the clear water and turned red as they got colder and colder.

            It feels so good, I thought, no wonder someone would feel called to swim.

            Ducks dipped their heads beneath the surface then swam closer to one another in a big group.

            Clouds hung low, making the reflection of the sky in the water a stunning gradation of blues to grays.

            I sat with a giant part of a tree that had been carried by the water to this spot.

            I couldn’t have known this from the overlook, I said to myself.

I couldn’t have known the softness of the bark, the salty taste of the water on my hands, the piercing sounds of the train passing, the subtle colors reflected in the water, the extraordinary rocks sitting side by side, the way a blue jay hovered then dove under for a snack, how the large steel pipe drained into the deep side of the island allowing the salmon to make their way back to the sea at a different time during the year, and how the large rocks push up against my gymshoes as I walked and the small ones crunched together under my weight.

Thank you, I said to myself, thank you.

Hard things are just really hard to do.

Sometimes it’s really hard to speak your truth, or to get out of bed, or to try a new kind of food, or to kiss someone, or to say you’re sorry, or to ride a bike, or to make the phone call, or to try a new activity, or to take the bus, or to write that letter, or to apply for a new job, or to climb a tree, or to meditate each morning, or to swim in a lake, or to push yourself the extra mile you know it will take to reach a goal you have.  

It is hard. And you can scooch your way one inch at a time, belly breathe, hum, chant, not do it and then try again for the dozenth time, sing to yourself, practice in your head, make yourself take the step, look up when it’s scary, pause when it’s too much, and then keep going.

You can’t know what it is until you’ve done it, and it’s not what you imagined because we can’t imagine how our body will feel on the other side. And more important than all that, finally, you are unstuck.