Aren’t we sometimes our own worse enemy? I could have missed one of the most fun experiences I have had in a long time if I had listened to my “yea, but’s…I don’t wanna’s.”

It happened like this.

Jerele and I were visiting friends in Colorado. Our friends are avid out-of-doors people for whom a great day includes climbing straight up mountains and stepping across frozen ice in snowshoes in minus-degree weather. Oh, how I admire them. We went prepared for a couple of hikes during the weekend, although neither Jerele and I have been hiking regularly for a long time. But we work out at the health club and exercise faithfully, so a couple of gentle hikes would be manageable.

The first hike was a lot of fun, over scree fields. Scree is defined as a mass of small loose stones that form or cover a slope on a mountain. The word comes Old Norse where it meant landslide and glide. (Not hard to figure that out!) The amazing thing about this scree field on a high Colorado mountain is that some unknown persons in the past had moved large rocks and stepping stones to make a trail horizontally across this scree field. I really can’t imagine what it took for these people even to stay on their feet to move and place these walking stones; but there the stones are. You walk, therefore, across the scree field safely and reach a height where it seems that you can see the world in one gulp of a glance.

So much for the first wonderful hike.

It was when we saw a picture album that displayed the hike we would be going on the next day that my internal resistance began to build.

Since third grade I have “known” that I am not athletic…when I was always the last student chosen when the class divided into two softball teams…and when I could not learn not to sling my bat. Then there was the endurance six-day course I took one summer in the Sierra Madre mountains where we had to repel, jump off a zip line and—worse of worse—cross a canyon on a Tyrolean traverse. I decided on the Tyrolean traverse that I would just stay out in the middle of the canyon until winter came and froze me rather than try to pull myself one more inch with the ropes over my head…they could just cut me down in the spring.

You get the picture.

Well, this second hike in the Colorado mountains, from the pictures in the photo album, looked too hard. I didn’t want to “have” to go. I didn’t want to feel “pressured” by the social situation (although no one was pressuring me in any way at all), thinking that I had to go because everyone else was going. Yet I didn’t want anyone to know I was feeling irritation about being “caught” in the situation. I felt angry at myself for just not saying, “I’m not going to go.” And, yet, I wanted to go, too, because I didn’t want to miss this experience. I felt in a dilemma.

When morning came and it was time to leave for the hike, I decided to go, in spite of my internal resistance. Somewhere I found a pocket of courage, which, I have to say, in that moment felt like stubbornness and sheer determination to tackle something that I wondered if I would be able to do.

You probably know the rest of the story.

This was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever been on. We saw a still, deep blue/green trout lake. We saw waterfalls. We saw streams. We saw mountains and more mountains. And, oh, the wildflowers. The hiking path went through fields of wildflowers, some of which looked off in the distance to be shoulder height. The photos can’t do the wildflowers and the terrain justice. I enjoyed every step of the way, even the wobbly passages over (and in!) water. I felt exhilarated. It was an experience I wouldn’t have missed for anything in the world.

And I almost missed it. I almost let the past determine my present. I almost let memories of earlier experiences deprive me of a new experience in the current moment. I almost let ‘I’m not going to do this just because people think I’m going to do it’ and thoughts like that cost me a fresh and memorable Sunday morning in the mountains, hiking high up into the clear and sparkling air.

Just to think I might have missed that joyful occasion with friends—and with myself. I’m so glad I had the experience and have the photos to share with you, although remember…the photos can’t begin to do the scenery justice!

Have a wonderful September.

Love,

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Dr. Elizabeth Harper Neeld offers wisdom and practical insights to anyone whose life is in a time of transition, change, grief and loss of any kind. As an internationally recognized and accomplished consultant, and author of more than twenty books - including Tough Transitions and Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World - she is committed to work that helps lift the human spirit.