I stood at a standstill near the top of a blue run on Cypress mountain. I’d already skied down the run once before with only a little bit of difficulty but now, for some reason, I couldn’t move. I started to shimmy down… What the hell was I doing?

Every time I caught myself going “too fast” I fell. Immediately. I jump to the conclusion that I don’t like speed.

I got my driver’s license when I was 21, and haven’t driven since (three years later). On our way to pick up my brother from a friend’s house, my mom once let me drive. She told me where to go. We were on a quiet street. No cars in sight. She told me to take the next left. I couldn’t see the turn off until it was too late. A new driver, I hastily turned the steering wheel. The car spun towards the left and I could feel it getting ready to roll. Something took over and I quickly moved the car from left to right until it had grounded itself again. How did I know to do that? Had a driving video game saved our lives? My thoughts certainly hadn’t. A week later I hit a car in a Tim Horton’s drive thru because I hit the gas instead of the break. I made the mistake because I started thinking, and started to doubt the pedal I was instinctively getting ready to press.

In school you are taught that your intellect is so important, and yet all of my greatest successes have happened when I let go. My only A+ paper in university Philosophy was written in under two hours (versus the 8+ hours I took to write my 3 A- papers for the same class). I ran my first have marathon in just over an hour and 53 minutes (10 minutes faster than I should have based on my training runs) because I turned my brain off, breathed and focused on nothing but the next step. The first 10-15 minutes of a run are generally so painful because all you’re doing is thinking about how much further you have left to run.

I’ve been told that thinking isn’t everything. “You are not your thoughts.” Your thoughts are mainly a reflection of what you think about yourself in relation to your past and future. Our thoughts are mainly a fiction that we’ve created to support a false sense of identity. But if we are not all of these things that we have come to believe about ourselves, who are we? Are we frauds if we behave in a way that’s not “us?” Are we liars? No, you’re only a “liar” if you’re lying about facts. Turns out: Your identity is not a fact. 

I made it to the bottom of the ski hill shaken and wanting to go home. On the previous run I had fallen and it had shaken my confidence. I was afraid of getting injured. My thoughts had a field day as they worked overtime to develop highly specific versions of ridiculous skiing accidents that would injure me indefinitely. I remembered watching the P&G olympics commercial that featured little kids, unfazed by repeated failure, continuously getting up and trying again. Along with the gentle encouragement of their parents, they were inspired by their belief that eventually (no matter how many times they fell) they would succeed. When I watched this commercial with my boyfriend, I started to cry. “I’ve never even given myself the opportunity to fall.”

I’ve tended towards such a cautious life. Preferring to go slowly so as to stay in control. I’ve wanted to carefully determine the outcome of every experiment, every engagement, and every role. I start each day with a clear expectation of how it will start and end. No room for surprises. No room for spontaneity. No room for laughter. No room for anything but thinking. Destructive thinking. Thinking that tricks you into believing that it knows best, and “NO” you shouldn’t take that chance. NO, it doesn’t make sense that you could be going this fast and still be in control. It doesn’t make sense that you could have run this distance and still have energy to run further. So I’m going to make you lose your balance. I’m going to give you a cramp. I’m going to make you catch the flu. Any way your thoughts can sabotage you to slow down, they will. Because with speed comes momentum, and with momentum comes surrender. Surrender has nothing to do with thinking. Surrender is best embodied my the phrase FUCK IT! There’s such freedom in surrender. There’s such freedom in forgetting to be afraid and deciding that you don’t care if, previous to this day, you’ve been afraid, shy and timid. Your identity is not set in stone. You decide whether or not today you will be affected by your past. Perhaps today you will be the person who dances in the rain and sings out to the ocean. Perhaps today you will be free.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J. K. Rowling

I’m ready to be free. Although I didn’t want to go down that run again, I did. My boyfriend encouraged me to try again and again until I wasn’t afraid anymore. On the last run of the day, albeit still being cautious, I let myself smile as I skied down the mountain. I let myself feel the wind against my face. I let myself enjoy the adrenaline rush that comes with speed. Yeah, I might fall. But if I do, I have a helmet on. If I do, I know that I’m surrounded by a loving boyfriend, family and so many friends who support and love me, and who will be there to help me to get up again… if I need it. But I won’t need it. Not because I’m not going to fall. I plan on falling a bunch. But because when I do, I’m going to pick my own self up, dust myself off, and try again.

Basically, I’m ready to stop thinking so damn hard, and to give myself the opportunity to fall on my ass every once and awhile.

Who’s with me?

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