Having a fear of heights is not uncommon and something that I have lived with since I was a child.  While having a healthy sense of the danger present when being up high is normal for most people, for me it goes beyond the normal sense of caution.   It manifests not just with spiraling thoughts but also physically with my palms becoming sweaty and literally aching.  This is not limited to just my own physical presence of being up high.  The fear and the sensations come to life also in witnessing others whether in person, in a still picture or in a video as they are perched in what appears to me to be a precarious position.   For much of my early life it was easy to avoid most situations that would incite this uncontrollable reaction, but when I made the decision to learn to ski, facing this fear and figuring out how to tame it became a necessity.  

The easiest step for me was also the first one….the ski lift.  You get on at a low point with lots of ground beneath you and when you disembark more often than not there is a lot of ground close by.  For the ride up, while I understood I was missing spectacular views most of the time, I chose to focus on my gloves or the person seated next to me, pretending to not know the ground had fallen away so quickly.  And, as a beginner skier, the runs were wide with gentle downhill slopes so again, similar to the lift, my fear of heights was not triggered.

The biggest challenge for me came as I began skiing down more difficult runs, those that had more slope, were more narrow and where the mountain seemed to disappear far too speedily.  It was on one of those runs my husband took me, confident in my skiing ability to navigate down it, that I almost quit skiing completely.  I found myself, stopped on the mountainside, full panic attack, midway to the safety of the easy, wide path that was our goal.  Unfortunately, I had stopped and taken a look at the long trajectory of where we were headed and noted the steepness of the slope we were on as well as how narrow the path was to which we were headed.  I truly didn’t believe I could make it safely down without going over the edge of the trail and falling into oblivion. I then replayed that vision over and over again in my mind, sweaty, aching palms and all.  

Needless to say I made it down safely and we joke about it now as my husband thought we were going to be stuck there all day. (He confided later he had considered going to find ski patrol for help but was afraid of what I would do if he left.)  He couldn’t understand what had happened but it was a huge lesson for me in how to approach my view of the mountain.  After several bouts of tears, a lot of breathing to calm down and a few choice words exchanged, I finally convinced myself that I needed to figure out how to get down to safety and that focusing on the end goal was not the way to make it happen.  Instead I chose to focus on the next turn down the mountain.  This I was confident I could do and it did not induce the heart hammering panic that looking toward the end goal did.  So I made the first turn and stopped.  Success.  Focus on the next turn. Stop. Success.  I continued this this way down until we met up with the merging path which was actually much wider that it had appeared from my vantage point from above.  

Learning to navigate the mountain this way has held me in good stead for many years.  I may look out and down to see where I am headed but then I focus on the next steps to take to reach where I want to go.  Sometimes I hit an icy patch, have to navigate around other skiers, boarders or obstacles and so adjustments may be needed, but approaching my journey down the mountain in incremental steps allows me to manage my fear of heights and not let it overwhelm me.  

I have since applied this lesson from the mountain in other areas of my life.  When panic or overwhelm set in, they are my signal to take a step back and narrow my focus to what is immediately in front of me and to be present.  To determine what is the next step that needs to be taken and take it.  Then reassess and take the next step and continuing this process until I have reached a point of comfort or finished the task that was so daunting to begin with.  By choosing to remain in the moment each step of the way, the magic happens and the journey unfolds before me, step by step.

Wishing you dear friend much courage and magic of the present moment as you face the journey down your mountain, step by step.  ~♥~