Toxic Trail

I just returned from a week doing wildernessy things in the mountains.

 A sentence I truly never thought I would write. 

I am by most measures, a city girl. I prefer a spa day to mostly everything and the thought of being without running water is not really my thing - or so I thought!

I’ve told myself a toxic story for about thirty years that I’m just not rugged. That camping is the pits and that climbing a mountain (oh, we’ll get to this) is something for people much tougher, braver, stronger, crunchier, yada yada, than me. 

My boyfriend Mitch, disagreed. He’s the type of guy whose idea of a good time is going to REI for a few hours and picking up a few bags of dehydrated food for the next time he’s on the trail. He has gear and gadgets and loves nature in the same way that I love the Nordstrom's Anniversary sale and an iced coffee. 

Mitch had been planning this week in the Adirondacks for us from the minute we started dating. He loves it up there, and even more than loving the place, he loves sharing it with other people. 

We started the trip with a night of camping with his old friend from college and her boyfriend. She is an upstate gal who grew up camping and hiking and is naturally in tune with nature. Unlike me, she’s a total natural in the woods, and really knows how to be with her surroundings when she’s out there. In fact, there was a Robin who kept showing up at our campsite and she pointed him out to us. Mitch and I, being less attune with bird life than she, assumed it was a different Robin each time. 

Oh no, she instructed us. This is where HE lives. We’re the ones visiting his home. He’s just checking in on us and then he’ll visit the next group of campers when we leave.

We went on a hike later that day, and while hiking she asked me, “You work with so many different types of people, what do you see in common amongst your clients?”

I loved the question because it had been a long time since I spent time really thinking about ALL of the people I work with, and what I came up with is:

They’re all dealing with something that is toxic.

Whether it’s a toxic boss, a toxic team, a toxic thought, a toxic relationship, a toxic habit, all of my clients are dealing with toxicity, and as their coach, I have the beautiful job of supporting them to treat the toxicity they are managing so that they can bound healthily into what’s next for them. 

As we were finishing up that hike, I exclaimed, “Wow, that was tough” and she said, “When do you guys climb Giant?”

“Wednesday”, I said

“Do you have boots?”, she asked a little bit concerned.

“Yes. Am I going to die?”, I asked and I felt a twinge of panic in my stomach. 

“You’ll be fine”, she said, but there was something in the way that she asked about my boots that made me worry. 

Mitch overheard and said, “You’ll be fine. It’s just one foot in front of the other”

After our camping adventure we stopped in Saranac, and went into a hiking store to ask about some bug spray. 

“She’s hiking her first peak. Giant on Wednesday”, Mitch said to the woman behind the counter.

She looked me up and down and said, “Have you ever climbed a mountain before?”, and I looked back at her and said, “Not since I was a kid. Am I going to die?” and she said, “No, just make sure you have good boots”.

Again, I felt my tummy knot up and I wondered if the boots I had were good enough. 

In the following days, we hiked, we kyacked we biked - all activities that were challenging, but that I knew I could do. 

Finally, the day came for us to climb Giant Mountain - one of the 46 major peaks in the Adirondack mountain range. Giant has a 3,500 elevation climb, and is, at points, unrelenting in its incline. Mitch, my sweet and encouraging boyfriend, had not a shred of doubt that I would be able to get to the top and down without a worry, but my brain had other ideas. 

“We’re climbing Giant today” - I texted my dad and I sent him a link to the trail. 

“No comment”, he wrote back. 

Gulp, I thought.

“Am I going to die?”, I asked Mitch as we were eating our yogurt in the parking lot, getting ready for our climb. 

“You’re not going to die, but it might be hard. You can do it. I promise. One foot in front of the other”

And with that, we signed the book at the base to let them know we were on the mountain, and we climbed. And we climbed. And we climbed. We climbed for four, maybe five, hours and finally got to the top. 

When we got to the top, we were enveloped with clouds. I’d love to say that we got to the top and the view was miraculous, and it made all of the climbing worth it. I can’t say that. It wasn’t. I was relieved to be at the top and nervous about getting down. 

We did it though. We did it in eight hours, and the lasagne I scarfed at dinner that night was absolutely the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.

What I can say is that I didn’t die. What I can also say is I can’t wait to try again. I am a believer in doing things before you know you’re ready, and this day on the mountain was a great reminder of that. 

The toxic drumbeat in my head was that I couldn’t do it. In fact, the drumbeat was to the tune of, “you’re going to die” 

It was a beat that I’ve been listening to since I was about 18 and no longer doing things like hiking and camping in the summer. 

It's a tune that’s been reinforced by friends and family over the years. Even recently, a person whom I adore and has a pretty good sense of who I am, when she heard about us going on this trip said, “No offense, but you don’t seem outdoorsy” and my response was “I’m not! I’m probably going to die”

I cured that toxic drumbeat by the simple and courageous act of doing it anyway. 

Now I know that the trick to climbing a mountain is good boots and putting one foot in front of the other. 

What the toxic thing you’re holding onto? What are you ready to put one boot in front of the other for?

Whether it’s your creative project, managing your team, navigating a tricky life situation or finally making your dreams happen, what would it take for you to ditch the toxicity around it?