'It Took A Rock Climbing Trip To Remind Me That Bravery Doesn't Have To Be Grand'
If anything, I was mildly embarrassed that, at 40, I’d never gone rock climbing outside. This may explain why I jumped at the chance to scale some boulders at the aptly named Boulders Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, when I attended a conference there last year. It was high time to check this particular box.
“You’re going to feel like there’s nowhere to grip. You’re going to want to claw at the wall, but you just need to find the next spot. It’ll get easier after that,” my seasoned guide, Rico, told me.
That all sounded fine while I stood rooted to the earth. It was a different story once I was harnessed in, and attempts to scale the boulder proved fruitless. Drenched in sweat and cursing, I felt sheepish about my initial bravado.
This was turning out to be impossible.
I used to be the kind of person who backpacked solo through South America, and now, I couldn’t even finish a moderate rock climb?
Granted, it had been over a decade since my bold trip led me to Brazil on a one-way ticket simply because I felt unfulfilled in my role in textbook publishing. Lately, when I thought about that trip and who I was then, I wondered if that person was gone forever.
Happily married, I still enjoy independent travel. I value the time away from my husband and hound dog even as I miss them fiercely each time, but I rarely feel challenged by my current travels. Maybe I was looking for the climb to remind me of my past bravery.
It was humiliating, and I wanted to quit, but I didn’t; I gritted my teeth and found the next step. And the next. Until eventually, I heard applause from below and felt a rush of euphoria and elation as I realized I’d made it to the end of the surprisingly arduous journey. It was adrenaline, yes. But something else too.
I’d left my secure position and the reward was grand.
Kinga Philipps, a TV journalist and writer, knows about leaving the comfort zone in search of adventure; after all, the name of her new show is Finding Adventure With Kinga Philipps.
“There is this little, you know, kick in the gut that we feel when we try something new,” says Philipps, who is known, among other things, for diving with tiger sharks, no doubt a terrifying concept for most, but a thrilling ride for the adventure seeker who built a career on explorations. And the unfamiliar activity that powerfully tickles the gut “also stimulates the brain,” Philipps says.
Philipps links that brain stimulation with “awe” moments, a subject she’s studied. “Awe helps you see things more clearly, then you ultimately crave more of that feeling,” she says. And comfort zones are “individual to each person.”
She believes everyday changes can feel exciting. In other words, you don’t need to swim with a shark to inject adventure and awe into your life.
“Just switch up your routine,” she says.
In Scottsdale, for me, that meant shelving the regular run in favor of a new activity. For someone who drives to work, it might be as simple as biking instead. The result is seeing things in a “completely different way,” and the effect is that scintillating sensation. “It doesn’t have to be on a grand scale either,” says Philipps.
Although I felt a sense of wonder on a fairly grand scale in Arizona when I made it to the top, I also felt it recently in New York when I stood in front of 35 people and read something I wrote.
I’m glad no one in the room could see the sweat beads on the back of my neck—physical signs of the glorious rush of energy coursing through my body.
Standing there in front of strangers was similar to the boulders climb (and countless moments in South America) in that it required an inner recitation: You can do this. Bravery, found—again.
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