To Live is to Jump from Mountain Edges
Not literally.
Life is not a single summit. It is an exploration of ranges.
The top of the mountain is the attainment of a goal. Climbing the mountain might be the goal. Or getting a new job, healing the inner child, getting your drivers license, being able to get on public transport without a panic attack. The only way to grow is to climb it. However, life does not end when we have reached the peak and accrued hours of knowledge through blood, sweat and tears.
We must decide to jump off the mountain’s edge towards the next goal and adventure.
It is a test of whether those hours and hours of learnt knowledge were sufficient. If we land on the ground, we have learned and on to the next mountain. Or even if we land a little bruised, we’re still alive, and so some of the lessons must have been retained.
The only way we don’t grow is if we never dare to jump off the mountain’s edge. For the edge represents the blocks: anxiety, fear, doubt, shame, guilt, and unworthiness. To wait on the edge, to debate whether we will survive or die, is a lesson in itself.
It means you’ve got more work to do, and what a wonderful realisation to make. How lovely you’ve grown to trust your recognitions.
Back down the mountain you climb, towards the start. As you do, you walk across the snow line, or tree line, odd rocks, and other parts of nature. You pass the milestones: setting boundaries, seeking a therapist, healthy habits, paying off debt, cutting out toxic relationships, sorting yourself out financially.
All the way down to begin again. But when you have done the work once, it is easier the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth time. The time it takes to hike up the mountain will quicken for each time it gets easier to set yourself up with finances, reaffirm boundaries, get back on the healthy habit wagon.
And so, as you begin the summit. Again. Except this time, you’re aware of what awaits at the top of the mountain. Those ugly feelings of which are of the utmost importance. Once we’ve worked through the shadow, the light is not under threat of it.
You spend a little more time with each milestone. You welcome those feelings and sink…
