 @jhonkasalo on unsplash "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Albert Einstein Many moons ago, I would awake early in the morning and head to school. Our gym teacher would get us to run sprints, or do longer runs a mile or two in length. It was all part of the training as a cross country team participant. As my mind moves back to those days, I cannot remember much about who else was on the team or even many of our competitions. I do remember one thing very distinctly, I remember the day the gym teacher walked beside a very unhappy young girl and told her she was pretty good at running and should try out for the cross country team. The young girl was me. The feeling of being acknowledged as strong and capable by an adult was inspiring. That simple comment led to running in high school and continuing my own running throughout my adult life. More importantly, it led to my discovery that moving my body really helps me reduce anxiety and stress and improves my mental health. "When you give away what you long for the most, you heal a part of yourself." ~ Eve Ensler - TED talk on the Vagina Monologues It is no surprise that what I have chosen for myself is to give away what has had the most meaning for me. Saturday I spent the morning at our local climbing gym with a flurry of young climbers. One was injured, most were a little too excited to be finally spending time together to focus on the training activities I was giving them. I was all smiles. Their enthusiasm and trust in what I ask of them is huge reward. And it is a responsibility I do not take likely. Notice this quote of Eve Ensler emphasizes giving away what you long for. In the context of the Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler was giving away safety for women. She has created safe spaces for women to go so they would not be mutilated. She was not stomping her feet around looking for her own safety... she gave it away. A coach should not be training while coaching. A yoga teacher should not be doing their own yoga while teaching.... it is about giving away the experience one longs for. Responsibility... I have a responsibility to the youth, their parents and the facility I work for. - I have a responsibility to not harm the youth I coach. - I have a responsibility to assist them to improve their performance. I also have a responsibility to myself to act with integrity. As team started the other day each athlete was asked to sign a Code of Conduct form, outlining their responsibility as an athlete. When you get to climb on a team, your behaviour influences the team. This little element seems to be missed in most things these days. But it is essential. If I show up in a bad mood, my mood will influence the team; team and individual motivation and quality of practice. It is my job as the coach to show up in a good mood, preparing to have a positive impact on the team. So too is it their job to show up ready to work, ready to try, ready to grow. The CEC - Climbing Escalade Canada - has just released a document called the Athlete Development Model that explains when an athlete - particularly a youth - should be introduced to various skills. Check out www.climbingcanada.ca - resources. The CEC has a responsibility to educate coaches, or prospective coaches and protect athletes and this tool goes a long way to achieving that goal.  In this global pandemic, I would suggest, we also have a responsibility to ourselves and to those around us, to live in line with our values. If you value freedom, how about you make it possible for others to have freedom. If value safety, why not assist in keeping people safe from the virus. If you value kindness, be kind. If you value curiosity, stay curious and offer the opportunity for others to be curious. Just a thought.
 A memory popped up on my Facebook timeline - a quote from Wayne Dyer. What seems a million years ago now, I was living in North Vancouver, BC, working in retail and at a coffee shop and a climbing gym. I needed all of the jobs to just pay the expenses of living in BC. My boyfriend and I had landed here after three months of road tripping through the wealth of climbing areas in the United States. We had covered New Hampshire, West Virginia, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Texas. All living out of a Mazda GLC backed with our climbing gear, camping gear and dreams. Despite our many adventures, or perhaps because of our sudden return to the world of slaving at jobs and spinning in circles to just make enough money, we had split. My partner decided that perhaps he would go to University, climbing dreams no longer fit his aspirations, he had become someone I did not recognize. Heartbroken and overwhelmed with still having to live in the same space, figure out what to do about our dog who disliked being home alone so much that she would dig at the floor if we went out. I perused the self help section of a local bookstore looking for something to make me feel better about life. I came across this book titled, “Your Erroneous Zones,” by Wayne Dyer. And as I read the first few pages I was hooked. So hooked I still have a copy of the book. An idea I had never before considered was presented to me and it made so much sense I had to read more. Emotions are born from thoughts. Thoughts are born from our memories, our ideas of who we are. AND we get to choose thoughts. Read that again… we get to choose our thoughts. I can choose to believe a rainy day means bad weather or a rainy day means a good weather day. I can choose to think my partner leaving our relationship is good OR that it is bad. It follows that if I believe his leaving is bad, I will feel bad. If I choose to believe his leaving is good… I will feel good. Surely, happiness cannot be so simple. Can it? Obviously not.
I said finally, but really that is not it. Choosing how you think about the routes immensely impacts your success, and failure on the route. When someone does not believe they can climb a route, the move is too reachy or the holds are too small, the angle is too steep, they choose thoughts that affirm their inability to be successful. Often then, those thoughts become reality. Tommy Caldwell didn’t complete the Dawn Wall believing it was impossible. He completed the route because he kept the door open to the idea that it could be done. Often when we choose to believe something is impossible, we feel bad. The moves are too reachy for me, becomes, ‘the routesetters set something reachy,’ then along on its tail rides the emotions of righteous indignation. Or if we disagree with someone’s actions, we believe they should not have done what they did, we are right, and again…. Righteous indignation rides shotgun. I will not state any one political issue of the day, but after #metoo, almost two years of Covid, finding unmarked graves and 4 years with Trump, I think you can find many ideas that have borne out this example. Trouble is, righteous indignation really doesn’t have the intended impact of getting us what we think will make us happy. Why? Another book delivered this gem… “if I defend myself, I am attacked.” Blame and accusation points the finger out to someone else. And we often take that stance to protect, defend our idea of how the world should be. “Routesetters should not set reachy routes.” Even if we could get the whole world to agree with us - an impossibility - we would not have changed our need to be right. The need to be right is a very heavy burden to lift and carry everywhere. It keeps you at war all the time. Because your identity is held together by the conditions of being right. AND there will always be another route, or another movement or ideology to go to war over. In the relationship I started this story with, I was the girlfriend, loved by this man. Suddenly, his desire to leave the relationship changed one of my many identities. I was no longer the girlfriend. I was no longer in a relationship and loved in that romantic way. So war started… the struggle began. The struggle to be right… to be loveable, to reaffirm the identity. War. And war means being unhappy.
With each loss it was those words… choose happy, not right that made all the difference. If I choose to be right, I am choosing to tell someone else they are wrong and that creates division. Separation. Choosing happy is to choose to look for the joy in the moment I am in, not the past I lived or the prospective future I planned. To choose happy is to choose to live right now. To choose curiosity is humility. It is the most vulnerable and bravest choice you can make. Last week I posted a quote with the sentiment…
“...see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves…. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary.” When we defend our identities and hold tightly to them, we hold the attitude of struggle and take ourselves very seriously. We separate ourselves from peace and it is only in peace that we can connect with ourselves and those around us. We cannot grow, nor can we celebrate and feel the joy that is always available to us. |
Heatherdr
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