Lately, I’ve been downloading spiritual lessons from the ski slopes.
Let’s begin with confidence and commitment.
First of all, let me give you the backdrop of where I’m coming from. I love to be outside. I love nature. But being good at physical things hasn’t always been easy for me. From a very young age, I built my life around nature—really without even knowing it.
I didn’t go outside because some doctor told me the sun was good for me, because studies said to, or because of any trend.
I was called there. Whether to a tree, a patch of mud, or a longing to lunge into the forest from my window view in the backseat. On the paved levee in high school, I always slipped down to the creek, off trail (often to cry).
In my recollection, I did not have an outdoorsy family. Though they may differ in that opinion, I didn’t know there were real trails that could get you deep into the wilderness until after high school.
Earlier than that, I was awkward in my body. As one of the last picked for any the team games, not even kickball was fun. Rather, it left my nervous system mortified (please, ball, don’t come to me), and I’d disassociate, just like I did at home in the soup of violence, grief, and cancer.
Sports was simply something I wasn’t good at, so I didn’t try. I know I’m not alone in this, so if this is you, I want to remind you that the foundational story here isn’t totally true. I had dexterity in jumprope and hand-clapping games!
It’s just that we tend to get so downtrodden by what we can’t do, we don’t appreciate what we can do. Take this moment to appreciate yourself for what you can do, starting way back when. Re-tell your story.
In my early 20s, I started running. I could do that alone, and eventually with others. I started simply running around the block on the sidewalk. Then running the trails at the office, in nature, on the top of a chaparral hill. Then driving to trails and running big hills. Then getting comments from mountain bikers on those hills that they couldn’t catch me. (This culminated in the SF marathon many years later, known for its hills.)
Mountain biking was next. It wasn’t so much about the features or difficult terrain. Again, I preferred to cover distance, tackling big hills on a bike. Co-workers started inviting me on their road rides at lunch. They had sleek road bikes with skinny tires. They rode faster than me on my mountain bike, but it was great exercise and I grew very cool quad muscles.
There I got comments about my attitude. No matter how big the hill or how long it takes, you are always smiling. I loved it, even though I wasn’t the best or the fastest. I could enjoy it, and I knew I could do it. I was confident that I could get up the hill. And, honestly, if I had to walk, so be it; I’d still make it.
Why am I writing so much about hills? (I’m wondering that too.) We all have our humps, our challenges, the things we’re good at and the things where we have to work more. My life has shown me that endurance is one of my superpowers. Getting good at physical things has often taken me time. Yoga asana, kriya, breathwork, sitting still in meditation: these came easier. I’m a quick study in many areas, deep researcher, and poet—able to see the thread in all things.
So, when I started skiing, after having been a mediocre snowboarder 25 years prior, trepidation and hope resided. Maybe I’ll pick this up fast, but ugh, what if I don’t?
After day 1, my family loved it. It was going to become a thing we did regularly. Meanwhile, I fell my way down the hill most of the time, and that’s just not the funnest.
But I don’t like to be left out (nor left behind). So I’ve kept at it.
Before my third time out this year, I did a clearing to delete and pull up by the root all the stories, trauma, and baggage preventing me from being good at skiing.
It worked.
The ski runs that I stumbled down the last two times, I flew through. I was able to become one with the speed, which I had so feared. Meanwhile, I gained much more control.
The combination of speed and control is needed. Flow state and the slowing down of time: the minute decisions made in the whir of quick, where whatever is done is enough—simply because there is no time for the mind to wander in such minefields: Am I enough? I’m no good at this. Why can’t I be good?
Nope, no time at all. You don’t get to overthink it.
Is it perfect? No. Can I keep clearing? Yes! I’m learning on all the levels.
After skiing the same slope and feeling pretty good, the fam wanted me to try something new. They told me this at the top of the slope I was just gettin good at. Next time, we’ll do the other one, ok Mama? New is exciting, right?
But the stories they had told about it got in my head: The turns are sharp, so you need to have some control.
Stuck in my head, I fell twice running the same slope I’d just ‘mastered,’ completely losing a ski and pole both times. I told my Serkan, I’m so in my head.
He reminded me that when he loses confidence he tends to lean back instead of forward, and that’s when he falters. Lean forward.
Of course. We lose confidence (in anything we do) when we fall out of commitment. To be committed to something is to lean into it. As soon as you hesitate and lean back, that’s when stumbling occurs. That’s when we miss our aim and maybe even wonder what our aim is.
It’s a dance. Grace is showing us where the truth lives. Up the hills and down the hills, we are growing all the time.
Where in your life are you wavering due to lack of commitment. What would happen to your confidence if you committed fully?
***
There’s an article brewing about manifestation. As I express what’s been coming through for me, I thought I’d ask you.
How do you feel about manifesting? (Plain and simple, I know it to be something we are already doing all the time. There is no way to fail. Our life is already our manifestation. But my blatant adherence to “we’re manifesting all the time” has stopped me short from fully inhabiting my dreams. Where are you on your journey?)
What are the current challenges in your life right now?
Where are you struggling and where are you thriving?
Let’s make this the year we deepen embodiment of our dreams. Together.
Hit reply to share what’s alive for you right now.
Love,
Heather