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Mental Health for Mountain Athletes: Resilience
2.2k Plays4 years ago
Mental health challenges, particularly the areas around trauma, loss, grief, and depression are a part of life for many mountain athletes.
Steve House begins this much-needed discussion with Sky Yardeni, the therapeutic director of the Climbing Grief Fund. The two share their personal experiences and Sky shares insights from his extensive professional background in working as a psycho-therapist as well as his time in, and after, combat as Special Forces solider.
This is the first of a multi-part series addressing our shared mental health challenges head-on as we explore strategies to help us navigate this landscape as individuals and as a community. Today's episode sets the stage for the topic and dives deeper into an exploration of resilience. Specifically the how to nurture and prepare your personal reservoir of resilience for the times you need it most.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Uphill Athlete Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. These programs are just one of several free services we provide to disseminate information about training for mountain sports. If you like what you hear and want more, please check out our website, uphillathlete.com, where you'll find many articles and our extensive video library on all aspects of training for and accomplishing a variety of mountain goals. You'll also find our forum where you can ask questions of our experts and the community at large.
00:00:30
Speaker
Our email is coach at uphillathlete.com, and we'd love to hear from you.
Introducing Skye Ardene and Mental Health in Climbing
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Uphill Athlete podcast. I'm your host tonight, Steve House. And with me today, I have Skye Ardene, psychotherapist, longtime climber, and therapeutic director of the Climbing Grief Fund from the American Alpine Club.
00:00:54
Speaker
Sky is joining me today from El Potrero Chico in northeastern Mexico, and I'm sitting in the eastern Alps in Austria, so having an international conversation. Welcome, Sky.
Exploring Resilience in Mental Health and Sports
00:01:06
Speaker
Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, Steve. It's good to be here. So I brought Sky on tonight because I want to do actually a little series around a topic that
00:01:20
Speaker
I personally have been affected by a lot in my life as a climber and it's something frankly that I just don't feel that we have spoken enough about as a community. And especially in the uphill athlete world, we talk a lot about physical health.
00:01:40
Speaker
But we rarely, if ever, talk about mental health.
Understanding Resilience and Emotional Regulation
00:01:44
Speaker
So Sky and I are going to tackle this subject a bit and dive into some discussions and open up some discussion about mental health and how the intersection of mental health
00:02:01
Speaker
our lives as climbers, our lives as humans and family members and all the ways we manifest ourselves in the world. So Sky, let's start with, we had talked about starting off with
00:02:21
Speaker
Just kind of this concept, which I think is one of the most important concepts here. And it has been for me is this idea of resilience. And when we talk about resilience within mental health, how would you talk about that? How would you not define it, but how would you characterize it? Sure. And before that, I actually want to preface and say that I'm really happy that we're starting from this topic of resilience.
00:02:50
Speaker
because often mental health can have a certain stigma of what that is and what that consists of. And I believe that in the conversations around mental health, in the world of therapy in general, the topics of resilience are so important, so embedded in our day-to-day lives, especially as mountain athletes and as humans in general. And so really start the conversation from this place of resilience, uplift this topic that
00:03:20
Speaker
actually inherently exists within all of us. And it's something that we can pretty easily tap into and operate from, I think is just a great place to start. So I'm really happy that we're starting here. And the way that I start talking about resilience is the ability to, or the process to adapt well in the face of adversity, in the face of a stressor,
00:03:50
Speaker
or a traumatic experience, or a tragedy, or a threat, and our way to adapt, to be flexible, to face it as well as we
Resilience in Personal Experiences
00:04:04
Speaker
can. And that's kind of like the starting or the jumping off coming around visually. And there's so much more to say.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think about that as I listen to you and I immediately jump to thinking about the, I don't know how many, 20 plus 30 expeditions I was on in the Himalayan Queer Quorum and how those, I think of those when I reflect upon them.
00:04:35
Speaker
as exercises in resilience, you know, it's everything from the, you know, getting to arriving at the airport in a
00:04:45
Speaker
in a country that's completely different than your own and you don't know anyone and you're trying to navigate to a safe place to sleep, to the bureaucratic paperwork that you need to go through to get a permit for a big mountain in Asia, to climbing the mountain itself, and then coming back and kind of like, wow, that was hard, I'm tired now. And of course, like,
00:05:12
Speaker
Trauma tragedy, those are two of the topics that originally brought me to reach out to you. And we're going to get more into that in a minute.
Practicing Resilience
00:05:21
Speaker
But I also think it's interesting to think about this idea of resilience to threat, because we as mountain athletes, particularly in not all mountain sports, but particularly in alpinism, we put ourselves in very dangerous situations.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely have had a flight or fight response more than a few times to some of those situations, as I'm sure you have in your climbing as well. Absolutely. And so what we're talking about basically is what we do when those curveballs happen. And the list of curveballs are endless. Some of them we can predict, most of them we can't.
00:06:08
Speaker
It's an inherent part of life. And when we put ourselves in more risky or dangerous situations in the mountains, the probability of those curve balls happening increases. And so the more that we can really foster and cultivate our resilience, I think it can better equip us to adapt well in the face of adversity.
00:06:36
Speaker
And that can also happen in our relationships and in our conflicts and, you know, different stressors that happen in life around, even around these days around COVID and the different stressors and experience of adversity that folks are experiencing because of the global situation these days as well. So my question, I mean, I have, I mean, my questions are coming as fast as your words pretty much, but so,
00:07:13
Speaker
Well, first of all, if I'm working, if I'm building resistance up through, say, my climbing side of my life, does that necessarily transfer to, say, the relationship side of my life? Because I've got to say, I don't feel like it probably did in my case. But maybe in some ways, eventually, or how does that work? Are these, how do you compartmentalize, or are we just too complex? I think it's a yes and no question, or a both and.
00:07:35
Speaker
When we build resilience, we practice this.
00:07:43
Speaker
I think a big part of resilience is maintain some level of regulation when stress is happening. So my nervous system is being activated. My heart rate is starting to increase, my breath as well, and I'm under somewhat of a stress, either in the mountains or in any relationship or in conflict in a relationship.
00:08:14
Speaker
And the more we can regulate ourselves, the more we can stay calm and not necessarily get into that fight, fight, or freeze response that you were talking about, the more we can be in the driver's seat, the more we can manage the situation and not being managed from it. And so that stressor, that avalanche that is coming or rockfall or whatever, you know, threat of the elements that happened in the back country,
00:08:44
Speaker
as well as whatever conflict or heated situation that can happen in our relationships.
Managing Fear in Climbing
00:08:50
Speaker
The more that we can maintain some level of emotional regulation, again, the more we can gain control, the more we can say what we mean or do what we mean and have more sharp and intentional decision making processes.
00:09:08
Speaker
So all that to me is included when we talk about resilience as well. So I think of myself, this is something that I had to puzzle out for myself because at a certain point when a rocker chunk of ice flew past my head, I just stopped being scared. And at first that really bothered me.
00:09:34
Speaker
But then I was thinking about it more and eventually it took me years, I'm condensing years of sort of reflection into this one sentence. But eventually I realized that no, it wasn't bad. I wasn't losing my fear because that wasn't in fact what was happening. I was just accepting that
00:09:55
Speaker
there was an icefall event and I was, because what I was immediately doing and what that allowed me to do is immediately jump to what do I need to do now? What is the best thing to do next? Should I go left? Should I go right? Should I yell down to my partner? And not have, and not be blocked just by the shriek of fear, which takes up valuable time in those situations.
00:10:24
Speaker
Is that kind of what you're talking about? Is that in a real time way? I believe that a big part of resilience is being very much in touch with our emotions. And so I wouldn't skip the experience of fear when a rockfall or ice comes crashing next to us.
00:10:54
Speaker
I think fear or any emotion can be a good indicator of what is happening to be connected to myself, my body, my partner, the situation. And again, the question is, who is in the driver's seat? Is the fear in the driver's seat or am I in the driver's seat? I can acknowledge the fear, but I don't have to be managed by it.
Mindfulness and Emotional Engagement
00:11:22
Speaker
And the more I am, I have a relationship with that fear or whatever emotion that comes my way, the more present I can be with the situation. And I also believe that that's what makes mountain sports as beautiful as it is, because there's such a huge range of emotions that I experience when I'm in the mountains and to be connected to those emotions, whatever those are.
00:11:51
Speaker
I don't know, enriches my whole experience. So you said something I want to drill down on a little bit. You said relationship with that emotion, relationship with fear, whatever the emotion is. Talk about that. What do you mean? What do you mean by relationship? I mean, so there's a saying in the world of mindfulness that I really like or really connect with and it's pain plus resistance equals suffering.
00:12:23
Speaker
The pain is the objective experience. That is what's happening. I am in pain. I am in fear. Something is happening to me. And I can choose what happens next. I can resist it. And then that might very much lead to some level of suffering. Or I can have a relationship with that experience. I can acknowledge it. I can face it. I can embrace it. I can talk to it if I like. I can feel it.
00:12:53
Speaker
Then there's somewhat of a discharge. I even remember Steve, a long time ago, I was on Mount Russell at the end of Mithril Dihedral in the Eastern Sierras in California. And it was the first time I simultaneously climbed to the summit with my climbing partner after the climbing. And there was snow and hail and the climbing was challenging or the whole experience was challenging.
00:13:22
Speaker
to the end of the climbing and actually the Simon climbing, fifth class Simon climbing of like three, 400 meters to the summit. That's what the most scary experience was from. And we did one stretch after, I don't know, 150, 200 meters. I ran out of gear. I built an anchor. My friend came to me and she was like, Skye, are you scared?
00:13:49
Speaker
until she didn't ask me if I was scared. I didn't notice that I was over gripping. I wasn't breathing. I was really tense. And I was like, yeah, actually I'm pretty terrified. It was my first expedition in the Alpine in elevation with exposure. And as soon as I was able to admit that I was terrified, I had an enormous shit. Like I had a body response that I discharged a lot of that energy through pooping.
00:14:18
Speaker
And that allowed me to have somewhat of a visceral relationship with that emotion of fear. And then I was able to be present with it. I wasn't managed by it anymore. I was with it. I had a relationship with it. And then I could talk about it myself on my own inner dialogue, talk about it with my climbing partner, and then move on to the summit and have a great
00:14:46
Speaker
summit photo and Apple and then good descent and a successful trip. And so that is one example to me of what having a relationship with an emotion is for the mountains for me. That's great. I think about it. For me, I want to maybe my experience with it is
00:15:16
Speaker
a little bit is very connected to breath, particularly when I'm leading or when I'm in a situation. And I think one of the misconceptions that I've noticed a lot of people have about me and my climbing is that they think I must be climbing really fast. And actually, I don't climb fast. I think I climb actually fairly slowly, but very deliberately, but very steadily.
00:15:45
Speaker
And it's very in tune to my breath and I feel like I'm constantly breathing in to these emotions in a sense. And the more scared I am, the more I have to stop and
00:16:00
Speaker
breathe into it and in a way feel it but in a way it's the same it's what you just explained it's a discharge in a way it's going away like it's dissipating through that kind of acknowledgement like oh you're here again okay let's stem out find a comfortable position look up at this crux of this pitch and
00:16:22
Speaker
take some big deep breaths and sort of plan where I'm going to put the next piece of gear and where I'm going to get the next rest and think about, okay, when I get to that foothold 10 feet up there, then the hard part is going to be over and start to do those kinds of positive reinforcement kind of visualizations and so forth and not spend a lot of time
00:16:45
Speaker
on it or letting it take over the conversation. And I have to say that this has changed a lot throughout
Personal Growth and Resilience
00:16:52
Speaker
my life. I mean, this is something, I've been climbing, I'm 50 years old and I've been climbing since I was around 10 or 11 years old and pretty intensely since I was around 20 years old. And there was a time, a period where I was wracked with fear.
00:17:14
Speaker
Then there was other long periods where I felt like fear couldn't touch me because I was, I think I got so used to it, sort of. And now that I'm older and I have a family, I'm very sensitive to fear again. And does that ring true with some of your experiences, either personally or professionally with people that you've worked with? Yes. I really love that you just, I saw the evolution of your relationship with rock climbing.
00:17:45
Speaker
So I really believe that as a non-athlete, it's not something that we do. It's something that we have a relationship with and that relationship grows and evolves with us. Yeah. So like, like your relationship with your spouse, Steve, it grew and evolved with you. It wasn't stagnant. It's not the same as it was when you had first met. Same thing as climbing.
00:18:11
Speaker
you as a 50 year old are not the same person as you were when you were 10 or 11 and started climbing or 20 when you started climbing more intensely. And so relationship with climbing is also not the same. And to allow it to evolve, to allow it to change and to meet yourself and to meet that relationship with where you're at, to acknowledge the different changes
00:18:40
Speaker
that have happened over the years, and the ways that I have transformed, my time has transformed, and my relationship with my client has transformed due to my body and due to what I'm psyched on, due to other life circumstances. And, and that actually connects to something that I really want to talk about around resilience, is
00:19:10
Speaker
I was in the military in the Special Forces for four and a half years. And there is something around building resilience that I can't be harmed, is developing some kind of shield that I can't be vulnerable. I am resilient to whatever threat that is coming my way.
00:19:31
Speaker
And a shield kind of metaphor, like it can't get to me. It can't penetrate. Yes. Okay. I'm building a layer of, I'm building a layer of protection here and I'm resilient to whatever is happening. Armor. Exactly. And so in that context, it was very necessary. It was very important. Like what you were saying on that pitch with ice coming down, like you can't really like the stage so high.
00:19:58
Speaker
that you can't really allow yourself to blink. You have to make very certain decisions in seconds and because the stakes are really high, same as in military context. And as I continue to develop as a human, as a climber, as a therapist, and understanding that resilience can also live in other contexts when stakes aren't that high and
00:20:28
Speaker
that actually resilience and kind of like bringing Brene Brown's work around vulnerability is to allow myself to be transformed by an experience, to allow myself to be penetrated, and to lean into that from a place of strength, in a place of being in the driver's seat, managing a situation, because that's how I believe that I continue to grow and transform
Community Support and Transformation
00:20:58
Speaker
and develop and how that is also connected into my own resilience. And so I just wanted to bring that and like connect the dots between to allow my relationship with climbing to transform and also to allow myself to be transformed. Yeah, and I would add one more thing to that, to allow others to transform.
00:21:24
Speaker
Because it's interesting to me, you know, in my experience with climbing over decades, I felt like the expeditions in particular were journeys I went upon, I embarked upon in order to transform in some completely unknown way. Like I didn't know how I was going to come back, but I always came back different. And, you know, internally I automatically would have a sort of resistance to that.
00:21:54
Speaker
Which when I had time to reflect about it, I had to laugh at myself like, look, fool, you're going on this trip just to experience some transformation. Why are you resisting it now? This is what you want. What are you doing?
00:22:10
Speaker
And, but then once I kind of got over myself in that way, it was able to be like, except like, okay, yeah, this experience has transformed me. Often took me a while to figure that out. Sometimes months, sometimes years. But the other piece is that.
00:22:28
Speaker
I would get really frustrated when my peers and friends and those closest to me couldn't allow me to transform as well. So I think that's something we need to support each other in as a community and recognize that, you know, if
00:22:43
Speaker
If Sky goes down to El Puerto Rico all winter and just like has an incredible winter of climbing and transformative experience, he's going to come back a different person and we need to kind of relearn who that is and make a little space for that. And that's something that I wanted to not freeze people in time. Okay. Yeah. So there's a term for that. Yeah. I did not freeze myself in time. I did not freeze other people in time.
00:23:10
Speaker
And actually, the more that I work in the climate community and the climate industry with my work with the Climate Grief Fund, to also not freeze our community in time, to also allow our community to transform, to continue developing, to grow up with us, to be able to allow ourselves to evolve the conversations around social justice, around racial justice, around diversity and inclusivity and mental health and
00:23:40
Speaker
not be what it was decades ago. So also, how do we cultivate resilience on a community level as well? Yeah, that's great. And that's something that I think that would go a long way for all of us in helping us all be better people. So I like this idea of
00:24:04
Speaker
You mentioned in one of our conversations that resistance is sort of a process of acceptance, positivity, and perspective. Resilience. I'm sorry, what did I say? Resilience. Resistance. Resistance, I'm sorry. Yeah, that would be wrong. Yeah, but let's talk about that.
00:24:25
Speaker
that sort of triumvirate of ideas there, acceptance, positivity, and perspective. Because I think that those are three of the most important things that a person can bring to probably any activity, but certainly mountain sport where it's frankly kind of hard. Yeah, absolutely. So I would actually start with the last one, with perspective. Whenever I am faced with
00:24:54
Speaker
a curveball, I keep saying curveball interchangeably with an experience of adversity. Whatever I'm faced with, whatever threat from adversity, stressor. I really believe that a part of maintaining and building resilience is under is keeping a bird's eye view of like, seeing my own journey my whole life as a process.
00:25:21
Speaker
as a whole and seeing that in perspective and that this too will pass. And whatever is happening, hopefully that this too will pass. And even if I am being benighted and freezing, and as long as I'm not like actually starting to slowly die from hypothermia, hardship, suffering,
00:25:50
Speaker
You know, like, yes, it sucks. It's hard. It's painful. And that too shall pass.
Positivity, Risk Assessment, and Balance
00:25:58
Speaker
And so keeping that like, the knowing that at some point, I'll have hot cocoa in a hot bath, at some point, maybe a few hours or days or whatever. Keeping that perspective with the positivity in mind that I have the tools
00:26:21
Speaker
I am well equipped for this moment. I've lived my whole life that brought me to right here, right now, and to trust myself that I have enough resources to move through this, to adapt well in the face of whatever is happening. That inner dialogue can just be really important
00:26:50
Speaker
navigate these really uncertain and difficult experiences, whatever they may be, physical or mental or emotional and so on. As you talk about that, you echo the exact dialogue that I
00:27:09
Speaker
engaged in so many times, especially on high mountains. Some of the words you said brought me back to very specific moments on some of my climbs where I was like, oh yeah, I remember having exactly this thought. And many times I would essentially zoom out in my mind. I'd be laboring up somewhere about 7,000 meters on day six or whatever.
00:27:35
Speaker
I would let my mind sort of zoom out and see where I was and what I was doing and what the big picture, what the perspective is. And, you know, also because I would frankly wanted to acknowledge how small I was in that environment.
00:27:51
Speaker
but not an insignificant in some ways, but not insignificant, not completely insignificant. I had to, it was a reassuring sort of insignificance. Like I am small and this mountain is big, but yeah, there is a, it is finite. There is a top, I am gonna get there. And the positivity piece is something that I think is a really slippery step for a lot of people because a lot of people innately, I would say myself included,
00:28:22
Speaker
have a hard time with that. We're somehow pre-programmed with a lot of negativity and a lot of negative self-talk in particular. It's very tempting. In the moment, it's hard to know which is right because you're also playing this game in your mind of a risk evaluation
00:28:45
Speaker
assessment and saying, so it's easy to say, it's easy to take this negative self-talk and justify why you should go down, for example. It's also. Why you should bail. Why you should bail. And it's also relatively, but if you go the other way, if you're too positive, it can also be dangerous.
00:29:07
Speaker
You have to be realistic in these situations, but most people I would say are too far in the negativity side. I've been on both sides of that. I've been right in the middle and too positive, too negative, all those things. So I feel like this is familiar ground. Yes. I really believe that it's an art to balance humility and self-empowerment. I like that.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, being aware of accepting my limits, my limitations of what I am capable of doing and what the external circumstances allow me to do and to be that small, insignificant human or thing or entity in this larger thing that you were talking about in the mountains. And also self-empowering. And like I was saying before, reminding myself
The Alpine Lake Metaphor for Resilience
00:30:08
Speaker
I have lived all of my life until this moment and it has prepared me to navigate this situation as far as it is as well as I can. And I have so many resources and I've been through so many hardships that I have the tools. I am equipped and whatever I don't, hopefully there's someone around me that asks for that support. And yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
the balancing act art of humility and self-empowerment for sure. I like that. I like that a lot because it's also, as fallible humans, we err to both sides of that. I've been too self-empowered at times and I've been too humble at times. And I like the juxtaposition and the idea of those two things in balance. I think that's a really helpful image
00:31:05
Speaker
We had talked earlier about some sort of mental models that you've used and you had one in particular about a glacial lake, a tarn. You want to describe that? That was, I found that really fascinating. Yes, absolutely. So this is a work of a good friend of mine named Lorca Smitana out of Bozeman, Montana. And she is a resilience expert and we have worked quite a bit together these past few years
00:31:35
Speaker
in the context of the Climate Grief Fund. And her framework that I use a lot in my work, and she's given me permission to share this in other contexts as well, is seeing or using the imagery of an alpine lake as a living, breathing ecosystem that is very similar to our mental status, our resilience.
00:32:04
Speaker
And so what she says in the short is that as an alpine lake, there are a lot of sources of water that feed into this lake. There is precipitation and ice melt and springs and streams and whatever other source of water that feeds into this lake. Rain precipitation, yes. And like that, there are a lot of resources in our life
00:32:34
Speaker
that feed and fill up our own lake of resilience. And so our different support systems in our life, our different self-care practices that we cultivate to enhance our wellbeing and mental health, the different relationships that we have with ourselves, with others, with the natural world, and so on. So all the things that we do and have in our life that really fill up our lake,
00:33:03
Speaker
fill up our cup. And then there are things that take away from our lake. Evaporation, humans, animals, the stream that comes out of the lake. So many sources or things that take away from our lake. And like that in our life, our different responsibilities, our work,
00:33:33
Speaker
our families and so on, all the things that require energy from us that kind of take away energy from that pool of resources.
Dynamic Nature of Resilience
00:33:46
Speaker
And so this is, like I said, a living, breathing ecosystem. It's a very dynamic. There's a lot of water that flows in and a lot of water that flows out. And a lot of more. I'm hearing. Yeah, exactly. So the more we can manage it,
00:34:04
Speaker
and maintain some kind of baseline that kind of prepares us for when an adversity happens. And that's like someone opening the valve and a lot of water coming out of our lake really suddenly. That there are enough systems that are existing in place that can help us adapt well in the face of that adversity.
00:34:33
Speaker
She also talks about the quality and the quantity of the lake, the quantity, how full it is, how around baseline or how under baseline it is, and the quality around if it's dirty and murky or if it's clean and fresh and how we maintain that quality as well. And so what I really love about this whole framework that Lorca talks about
00:35:03
Speaker
is that it's very adaptable to all humans, and especially to mountain athletes, I think, because I think that there are just so many more and additional things that go into that living, breathing ecosystem that we need to consider, to be aware of, to manage,
00:35:31
Speaker
the more that we can manage it and not be managed and I'll continue saying that throughout our whole series because I think that's the most important thing of how we are intentional and how we're in the driver's seat and how we are active in gaining that resilience in our mental health. So that's more or less
00:35:55
Speaker
the TARN, much more to say about it. Well, I'm hearing, let me repeat some of this back to you so I make sure that I'm getting it correct. One of the things I'm taking from this model or this concept is that, you know, you've mentioned under baseline, baseline, and perhaps over baseline, but that I can use those resources also to meet, it's a pool of resilience. I can meet adversity.
00:36:24
Speaker
the curveball, the grief, whatever it is that comes and know that the pool is going to get drained, but that I've got a big pool there before it's empty or before it's under baseline. Is that part of how this model works in your mind? Yes. Okay.
00:36:48
Speaker
to clarify about that is also like the quantity of how much water or resources I have already full, hopefully above baseline. And also what I said before of what existing systems are in plates already. So I already have a support system of friends and family or maybe a therapist that I don't need to create something new because whatever trauma
00:37:17
Speaker
were tragedy knocked on my door. Those systems are already in place. I already have, I don't know, a community of folks that I can go rock climbing with. It's not that I need to go on my project and find climbing partners. I already know, like, oh, I know people that I can go out and rock climb, and I know that that is something that is so supportive to me, that really helps fill up my own alpine lake, both from a place of
00:37:47
Speaker
maintaining resilience and also when I'm faced with whatever hardship, that's what helps me. Whatever practices folks have, those systems are already in place. I want to remind listeners but also myself that when we're laid low by
Mountain Sports as Coping Mechanism
00:38:10
Speaker
whatever it is that's laid us low in this case, that they agree for or a loss or could be any of these things. That's the moment that it's hardest to realize you have those resources and it's hardest to activate those resources because you can't lift a finger.
00:38:28
Speaker
because you're laid out flat and that's okay. And I think having either someone around to help pick you up or just making that first step for yourself to kind of activate your support network or call your friend or call someone in your family or whatever that is,
00:38:51
Speaker
is so critical, so critical. I've been there and I know it's so hard to do that, that it feels literally impossible. And if you're ever in that space, just remember that you're not the first one there and that you can, you know, activate that network and it will kick in and start working. And that's the path, that's the path through. That's my experience with that.
00:39:21
Speaker
I can only agree. But first of all, personally and professionally. Yeah. Yeah. I also think that, you know, one of the
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't know, misconception isn't the right word, but one of the perceptions I think people have of a lot of outdoor athletes and uphill athletes is that they're these mega gifted athletes. They do these incredible things.
00:39:52
Speaker
And while on some levels, that's certainly true. When people say that about me, I chuckle inside because I'm like, if you only knew, I have to do that to survive. If I didn't get out and get my exercise every day, and if I couldn't be outdoors in a natural environment every day, I literally am a person that could not live in a city. I wouldn't make it.
00:40:17
Speaker
a long time ago when I started climbing, especially with climbers in the States. So like in the mid to late 80s, I mean, you'd sit around the campfire and talk to people and they'd be like, yeah, if I wasn't here doing a climber, being a climber, I'd be a criminal. Like that's what they would say. Now I feel like people don't talk about that so much. I don't know why that is, but I think that that's
00:40:43
Speaker
doing, practicing these sports and it can be running, it can be skiing, it can be climbing, it can be probably many, many other things. It could be probably riding a bike and lots of other things. For me, it's
00:40:59
Speaker
First and foremost, actually, it's a coping mechanism for surviving as me. I plop down here on this world in this form and that's what I need to do to kind of fill my cup enough that I can get through every single day because otherwise I just feel overwhelmed and I personally get really depressed.
00:41:24
Speaker
So that's what keeps me literally alive. It's not that I'm an amazing athlete, it's that
00:41:31
Speaker
that I do these, I climb and I ski and I run and I do these things because it helps me so much. It helps me to be here. And, you know, of course, I've also spent a lot of time working on that and working on myself to improve my way I approach my sports, my training or, you know, different phases of my life. And that's just another way of keeping my
00:41:59
Speaker
self-essentially sort of entertained in a way from not going down into the deep black hole and wondering and trying to convince myself that there is meaning instead of no meaning because meaning is created. And it's a self-fulfilling when it goes back to what you were saying about activating your support network and
00:42:29
Speaker
You know, that's your support network is its own meaning because you're a part of someone else's support network. We're all part of our own, other people's, they're a part of ours. We're all, you know, you talk about community and friends, community, we're all in this, we're all there for each other. We have to be because, you know, it's
00:42:50
Speaker
I think a lot of us have some dark days and that's something that I think is part of what I want to have this conversation about is so people know that they're not alone or they're not an anomaly in any way if they think that they're the only ones that have these negative feelings or are depressed or like a lot of us that participate in these extreme sports for lack of a better term, I think are
00:43:18
Speaker
in fact, sort of self-medicating in a way. I certainly think of my exercises as a medication, frankly. Yeah, there's so many reasons why we do the things that we do. And what I think is very unique about our community is that our identities are so wrapped up in our passion or our sport or recreation.
00:43:46
Speaker
And our identities are complex, you know, parts of it are coping mechanisms and part of it is self-medicating and part of it is our community. And there's so many other reasons why people choose to engage in these things and make it such a big part of their lives. And I know a big part for me was healing from the trauma from being in combat and many other things, but that was a,
00:44:17
Speaker
a big or what one of the first like pathways towards healing for me. Way back I was during and then finished my military service as well. So I didn't really relate to that. And, and also wanted to emphasize how many more reasons there are to engage in these sports.
Attachment Theory and Relationships with Sports
00:44:44
Speaker
There is that sense of
00:44:46
Speaker
being alive and being like being present with the aliveness and being in our bodies and being in our power. It can be someone's self-expression in their art and their creativity. It can be a way that folks can feel the sense of freedom that we're out here in the mountains and I can breathe and like my lungs are expanding and I feel free.
00:45:17
Speaker
even if it's for that short limited time. It can be someone's way to discharge energy, the outlet as an outlet. And yeah, to just like release the tension, the stress that has been building up in my body. It can be because it's just something that we love to do.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah. It can be that simple, can it? There's also, there's also the simplicity of, I fucking love to rock climb and it brings me so much joy. And that is why I'm going out today. Yeah. And, um, it might be something that we need to do some element of addiction actually. Yeah. Um, and here I really wanted to bring in,
00:46:17
Speaker
that we, you and I have already established that folks who take their sport seriously develop a relationship with their sport. It's not something that they do, there's a relationship. And there's a lot of theory around relationship and how we engage in relationships in general. And one of those theories is attachment theory.
00:46:43
Speaker
What attachment theory says very briefly, and I'll try to do it justice in just a few short sentences, but the way that humans engage in relationships in their current day-to-day present day is very much influenced by the character of their relationships from their primary caregiver when they were infants.
00:47:11
Speaker
In general, there's secure attachment and insecure attachment. And again, that is influenced by the relationship with the primary caregivers when we're infants, and that shows up in our day to day. And so if I was shown some secure attachment patterns from my parents when I was a child, they'll show up in my relationship today in
00:47:41
Speaker
my friendships and my romantic relationships in my work and also in my climbing. And same goes with insecure attachment. And that's an insecure attachment is where one can develop a sense of dependency and codependency. And how much am I enmeshed in my relationship and how much I'm individuated in and from my relationship. And
00:48:10
Speaker
And I think this can be adapted to climbing in my life and other mountain sports and other people's lives. And I don't think there's a right or wrong, good or bad. I think the more awareness we can cultivate in what my attachment style is, how that is showing up in my relationships today, the human and the non-human relationships that I have, the more that it can allow me
Intentions and Personal Growth in Mountain Sports
00:48:40
Speaker
to be in the driver's seat. The more I can be aware of, oh, this pattern is coming up right here, right now in this way, and I can choose to do something different. It's not deterministic. If I have an insecure attachment style from when I was an infant, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna have to have an insecure attachment style for the rest of my life. I can bring healing to that, but that only comes through awareness. And yeah, and these questions are,
00:49:10
Speaker
Is climbing a need or is it a want? Am I enmeshed in it? Am I dependent on it? Am I deviated from it? What happens when that is forcefully taken away from COVID, from an access to different natural resources, global warming, injuries, like so many things that, hey, I can't do the thing that I love right now or other,
00:49:39
Speaker
external circumstances that inhibit me from engaging in whatever I do. What happens then? And again, I just think and believe that these are important questions that we need to continue asking ourselves, asking each other, reflecting on, to continue building our own resilience. Yeah, I mean, man, so many
00:50:06
Speaker
Again, flashing as you speak there, but one of the things that came up for me of many, I don't even know how to prioritize them, so I'll just sort of blurt out the first one that comes to mind here, but is that awareness and how the awareness is a word that comes up a lot in mountain sport.
00:50:30
Speaker
And not just climbing, but skiing, I mean, running, you know, I mean, any kind of endurance sport, I think there's a high level of awareness that's sort of manifested through the practice of that. And that helps me, I think helps us as a community become more aware of
00:50:56
Speaker
Lots of things that come up, including these things you're talking about. And as you talked about the different ways we can manifest a relationship with these sports, I think I've done all of those.
00:51:14
Speaker
to 100% at some point, but most of the time my relationship is distributed somewhat among, you know, going out in the mountains because I feel freedom going out in the mountains because I feel like that's my creative outlet going out in the mountains because it's just what I like to do and it's fun. I mean, and all those things and it changes a little bit every day.
00:51:34
Speaker
I think for me, one of the things that I have the hardest time communicating about when I talk to people about climbing
00:51:44
Speaker
is this is something that you hit the nail on the head and I want to bring that back up because I think it's so key is creativity. People don't initially think of climbing as a creative pursuit, but I actually think that that's one of the most important aspects of climbing is the creativity involved in
00:52:06
Speaker
And like, you know, when I don't have that outlet for my creativity, it has to go somewhere. You know, I have to do something that expresses that for me personally, whether that's, you know, lots of other ways, ways that can manifest. But climbing, I think that that's a, it's very, very creative for me, like it feels, especially I think that's one of the reasons
00:52:33
Speaker
I love, I particularly love ice climbing is because as opposed to especially when I get into harder rock climbing where I feel like it starts to become like beta and roadmaps and I feel like that
00:52:45
Speaker
I understand, OK, if I do this set of moves in a certain sequence, that's going to be the easiest way to get through this crux. But I also feel like that robs me of my creative outlet and finding my own way through that. And with ice, you never have that. You have this, and I love three-dimensional ice that's steep and has
00:53:07
Speaker
overhangs and so forth because I feel it just adds so much more dimensionality to it by being able to look in three dimensions and climb and move in three dimensions.
00:53:16
Speaker
And the mountains, I mean, man, let's just talk about a canvas for creativity. I think it's just endless and that's above anything else what draws me to the mountains is feeling like I can express creativity in so many ways. So many layers of myself that I can express.
00:53:41
Speaker
my creativity, whether it's the gear nerd or the fitness nerd or the person that like, you know, visually sees a line. I mean, you can't just hand it into one thing, right? Like it's all these different things that, you know, and some I'm sure I'm not aware of to go back to that. But that was just one thing that you said that really hit home for me that I thought was really interesting. And these relationships
00:54:08
Speaker
Like, and I loved how you said that these relationships, they all evolve, right? Like, and, uh, my relationship with climbing has involved incredibly over the years. And it's actually, I'm sometimes.
00:54:25
Speaker
befuddled for lack of a better word, confused by, but I don't say anything, but people who just stopped climbing altogether, especially people who climbed a lot. And I understand that sometimes it's just they had too much danger and they just had to step completely away from that. Or maybe they're, I don't know, but man, for me,
00:54:46
Speaker
how my relationship with myself and my climbing has evolved is actually right now as a 50-year-old, one of the most fascinating parts of it. I was ice climbing today, and it was so different than my experience would have been ice climbing 15, 20 years ago, and I loved it. It was great. It felt good to be me today in this body, in this time and place.
00:55:13
Speaker
also being creative today. I mean, that was, it was fun, as you said. I mean, and all these things, and it just continues to evolve. And I hope that I'm climbing when I'm 82 and still feeling that way that I can somehow express something else. Yeah, it's fascinating. I wish, wish, wish that folks at home can see the spark in your eyes when you talk about this. Because it's just such a testament
00:55:44
Speaker
how multi-layered and multifaceted and complex humans are in our relation, different relationships. And when you talk about your relationship with timing and what it brings out in you, I truly believe that through these conversations, we continue to build our resilience as well. We continue to unpack and unfold all these parts of ourselves that
00:56:14
Speaker
Most folks don't really talk about, and the more we talk about it, the more access we have, the more words we can put to our experiences, the more we are managing our entire experience because we're aware of it, we're engaging in it. And another reason why I climb, and I didn't mention this, is also belonging.
00:56:42
Speaker
from a sense of being a part of a community. And that's what I love about climbing so, so much. And that's been a huge part of my healing and my resilience in my life, the community aspect and the belonging aspect, even moving from Israel to the US and finding belonging in my climbing community in Colorado.
00:57:10
Speaker
And having those relationships with those humans made the world a difference.
Daily Needs and Resilience
00:57:16
Speaker
And then when my best friend died in a climbing accident, I had that support system to really catch me and hold me in the worst times of my life. And that's thanks to climbing. And I also wanted to talk about something that you mentioned around
00:57:40
Speaker
every day can be something different. And that is so important to acknowledge that I can go climbing today and I can go climbing tomorrow. And essentially, objectively, it can look exactly the same. And it can come from two different reasons or places or needs, meet different needs. And I really believe that at the essence of cultivating resilience in the context of climbing,
00:58:08
Speaker
is to understand what my need is. What is my intention to go out today? How am I going to meet that need? Or how am I going to engage in that intention? So again, to manage the situation for me to be in the driver's seat. Because so commonly, it's just automatic. People do it at the default.
00:58:36
Speaker
You know, yeah, of course, you know, it's a weekend, so I'm going to go climbing and not really pause and ask myself, why am I going climbing today? What is my need today? Because we are so dynamic, because life just happens at a fast pace. It's important for us to slow down and to really ask and to cultivate that intention. Also, because the flip side would be dangerous.
00:59:05
Speaker
when I don't know why I'm going. And then something, you know, a curve ball comes my way. That can cause damage. That can cause more trauma than it really needs to be. I know for the first eight months after I lost my best friend in that climbing accident, I found myself going climbing because that's the only thing I knew how to do. That was my main coping mechanism.
00:59:33
Speaker
And sometimes it worked. Sometimes it helped me. Sometimes it was exactly what I needed. And actually most of the time it wasn't. Yeah, I believe that. But I didn't, I didn't slow down enough to ask myself, what do I really need? And how am I going to meet that need? And to allow myself to say, maybe it's not a rock climbing today, or maybe it's a different type of rock climbing. Maybe I'm not going on this multi-pitch rock climbing route today.
01:00:03
Speaker
maybe I'm just going cragging because that'll meet more of my needs today. And to allow ourselves to have different needs in different days and meet them appropriately or accordingly. You know, yeah, again, so many ideas come up as you speak, but the most recent one was I think that's so analogous to just being an athlete.
01:00:28
Speaker
being aware and recognizing what you need to do today is sometimes not very hard. That's why we have, that's why we have coaches or in some cases friends and colleagues and so forth to say, you know, that I think that the best thing for you might be this. Um, I've certainly needed that quite a few times in my life. Um, and that's been really, really helpful for me. And I just, I just, it's, it's so.
01:00:54
Speaker
I don't know. Again, it's just so multifaceted and it's evolving. One other thing I think I'd like to say on that note to people because we will have quite a broad audience listening to this in terms of age and experience and so forth.
01:01:12
Speaker
One of the things I wish someone had told me when I was in my twenties, for example, was what you just told this audience about. It doesn't have to be climbing every day because that was one of the ways I got myself into trouble and into trauma because I just wanted to climb every single day and I didn't really care about anything else. And I got really
01:01:39
Speaker
tunnel vision and it led me to some not great places. And now as a, as a, as an older climber, it's so much easier to have that perspective. I'm completely accepting when I wake up and like, you know,
01:01:55
Speaker
I was going to go climbing today, but I really don't feel like it. I think I really want to go skiing, or I think I want to read a book, or I think I want to work. You want to walk the next two or three. Yeah, or go play with my kids, or take my kids skiing, or take my kids and get an ice cream cone, or there's so many other things.
01:02:18
Speaker
It's pretty easy to do that, but there was a big chunk of my life where it was really hard to do that. Really hard, impossible. Probably without a really, I just want to reflect back and reflect back to you and circle back to what I was talking about around attachment is that it sounds like maybe in the past you were more enmeshed in your relationship with climbing and it was more of, um, self-medication, maybe, um,
01:02:47
Speaker
an addictive pattern in a way, and you were able to individuate, you were able to take some distance and say, oh, there's Steve, and there's climbing, and they're not the same thing. They love each other, but they're not the same thing, and they can both exist separately too. And yeah, and that you allowed yourself and your relationship with climbing to transform and to grow up with you.
01:03:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I wish I had known that that was going to happen when I was younger. I would have breathed a sigh of relief, I think.
Community Support and Collective Challenges
01:03:21
Speaker
And so I want the younger segment of the audience, if they're listening, to hear that part because I think that's something that would have been really meaningful to me as a 20-something year old climber. Absolutely. And I also think that the more that we can
01:03:40
Speaker
understand these concepts, the more that we can support our friends and communities when we see other people engaging in those same patterns as well. Not only ourselves, because sometimes we're blindsided by our own shit, and it's hard to see. And that's when our friends hold us accountable and keep us in check. Say, hey, maybe let's do this today, or maybe today is not the day.
01:04:10
Speaker
But also mistakes are high sometimes and if we're not clear with our own intentions, mistakes can be made also. That's important too. So it comes back to a practice of awareness. Yes, absolutely.
01:04:30
Speaker
One of the ways I'd like to kind of summarize some of this and bring us back around is, you know, I have developed, as I got older and worked through this, my maniacal climbing period of my younger years, I really see climbing, but really all these mountain sports that we talk about on uphill athlete, I really see them as crafts.
01:04:55
Speaker
I see them and I see us not as sports men and women as much as crafts men and women, crafts people. And we're like just trying to refine and the way you get and get a little better every day. But the way you get better is by awareness, observation,
01:05:16
Speaker
you know, reflection, thinking, okay, how can I, how can I do this a little bit better? What can I make? What can I tweak? What can I change? I mean, that's this process of training really like, oh, I gotta change my amount of this kind of intensity that I'm doing or that kind of intensity, or eventually, you know, you get into diet and all these other variables. And, and, and slowly over time, over years and probably over decades, it gets, it gets better. And then you start to slow down because you get older, but it still keeps getting better.
01:05:45
Speaker
That's the other thing. These crafts, I think Nordic skiing or backcountry skiing or climbing or mountain running, I'm not as familiar with, so I can't speak to, but I feel like the alpine skiing, even though I'm not as strong and not as fit as I was, I'm better at those sports every year.
01:06:11
Speaker
If I could take the skill I have now and import it back to my 25-year-old body, it would be a different game. And I think that that's really, you know, because so much of it too is just judgment. And it's that process of
01:06:31
Speaker
observation and reflection and refinement and trying to improve. And I think that that's what I like to hear. It warms my heart to hear these conversations bubble up in our community more and more around
01:06:46
Speaker
whether it's physical training or mental health or, you know, recently there's been a big conversation, a great conversation around weight for rock climbers, particularly about women for women. And I think that it's great that we're having these conversations and reflecting upon them and getting better, like you said, as an individual, but as a community. I think that's really, really inspiring for me. It makes me really proud to be part of this community.
01:07:16
Speaker
One thing that I wanted to respond to is that hearing about your process, about how it continues to get better and better is a testament to your resilience. And another way to see resilience is access to resources. And resources are mental resources, human resources, support systems, and also financial resources. And so there's also a privilege in having
01:07:45
Speaker
all the resources or having enough access to all those resources for you to continue growing and having a better relationship with your rock climbing.
Encouraging Conversations on Mental Health and Resilience
01:07:55
Speaker
And it might not be everyone's experience. And that's also important to say that this can be really complicated or complex. And when we're talking about loss, we're talking about trauma, we're talking about oppression or lack
01:08:13
Speaker
Um, of resources or in access to different resources that also feeds into someone's resilience and and to whatever process they have and engaging in the relationship with their sport. So. You and I have a lot of privilege in that. Yes.
01:08:32
Speaker
our relationship does tend to get better and there's a reason for that. And there's a personal reason and there's like a contextual societal reason as well. So yeah, there's a lot more to talk about. Yeah, I have a great story about, I mean, it's not a great story. I have a perfect story for that.
01:08:55
Speaker
I think that we'll save that for another time because I've experienced and observed that firsthand in a very, very real way. And it's very true. It's very true. I know that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing this conversation and
01:09:15
Speaker
I don't know about you, Skye, but what I hope comes out of this is that people listening have their own conversations. I mean, us having this conversation is, you know, meaningless in a sense. I mean, it helps me, maybe it helps you, certainly helps me understand myself and my community better. But what would really make me happy is if this allowed people to kind of get over that
01:09:44
Speaker
little bit, that little lump of anxiety and start these conversations and have them with their friends and their partners, their climbing partners, their life partners, their intimate relationships in all breaths and walks of life. I think that that would be something that I would be really honored
01:10:06
Speaker
by and excited for, if people can do that. So there's your homework, guys. Skye, we're going to continue this and talk about, what are we talking about next? I don't remember. We're going to talk more about loss, grief, and trauma. Yeah, that's true. How they're connected to mountain sports, what are the intricacies and the nuances of
01:10:36
Speaker
navigating those experiences of adversity, both individually and collectively. Which is the reason we came to this conversation is because that's the original thing I reached out to you about discussing. So we are getting there and I think that's going to be really, really impactful. Absolutely. I look forward to it. Me too. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon.
01:11:06
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com