Climbing Half Dome — A Lesson in Self-Growth
Hiking to the sub dome, climbing the cables, and trekking back down the mountain was the most surreal experience of my life.
Have you ever put yourself in a situation that challenged everything you previously believed about yourself?
If not, you are missing out on one of the greatest opportunities for growth.
This past July, I — along with my husband and another married couple— completed the strenuous hike to Half Dome and back (Mist Trail on the way up, John Muir on the way down). We didn’t do it in a single day, but we did it in the middle of the hottest day of the summer, during an earthquake. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, both mentally and physically.
Hiking the Half Dome cables reminded me of the importance of constantly pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones.
Completing this hike totally obliterated the limitations I had enclosed myself in for many years. I was almost positive (even when we had made it the whole way to the bottom of the cables) that I was not going to be able to climb to the top. Not because of my physical strength, but because of my own self-doubt and lack of confidence.
This experience reminds me a lot of how it felt to train for and complete my first full marathon. I am a person who has to train and follow a program to a T. My marathon training was riddled with sore feet, tweaked knees (once so bad that my husband had to help me hobble 8 miles back to our car). Although training itself didn’t go as I planned towards the end, the marathon was amazing. I had such a great time. Such a great time that I never want to do another one, and ruin the fond memories I have of running in a marathon.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a somewhat substantial fear of heights.
I never like to hold myself back from doing fun things because of my own fears or self doubt. Example: I climbed to the top of the tallest building in Australia, and while I was terrified, it was such a fun experience. Granted, it was a little different than climbing Half Dome because it involved taking an elevator to the top and being harnessed to the side of the building. No one has ever accidentally fallen during this experience.
Half Dome is a different bear.
This is the kind of situation that you are strongly advised against putting yourself into if you have any measurable fear of heights. One, because it requires that you actually be able to keep a level head and make quick decisions in the case of a dangerous situation. Two, because you are only harnessed to the cables if you had the prior inclination to buy and pack your own harness and carabiner. (Fun fact: I actually did bring my own harness and carabiner, but I made the last minute decision not to use them). Three, because about 10 people have actually died attempting to climb the cables.
I’ve written on this platform before about my history with Eating Disorders, a messed up relationship with my body and with food, and how for years I have clung to different manifestations of the illness that has made my life so needlessly miserable. Doesn’t it seem absolutely asinine to hold onto behaviors that we cognitively recognize are detrimental to ourselves? The very definition of Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Yet, many of us participate often in the same self sabotage. Why?
Comfort.
Often times, these behaviors that we know are bad for us have become so engrained in our persona that letting them go is almost like letting go of a piece of ourselves. These are habits. And breaking a habit (the majority of the time) is about as easy as stacking bullets with boxing gloves.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve made the most progress towards healing from my disordered relationship with eating, with my own self perception, and my body image than I have in the past 8 years of shoveling my problems under the carpet. And I think it’s because of 3 major things:
- COVID forced me to come face to face with all of my demons.
- I finally realized that I deserved to get help.
- In order to start healing, I had to break my old cycles of thinking. This meant stepping out of my reality from the past 8 years — A.K.A. my comfort zone.
So what does climbing Half Dome have to do with healing from my eating disorder?
For as long as I can remember, all I have ever cared about was being skinny, or weighing a certain number. Constantly trying to shrink myself because no matter how small I really was, I would hate the body I saw when I looked in the mirror. Hopping from one form of food restriction to another was like second nature to me. But all I longed for was to be able to live my life without thinking so hard about food. Why was this so hard for me to do? Because for so long, my brain was wired to a disordered mentality towards my body and food. This was my reality for so long. And now, that reality is being slowly ripped away. Because I’m changing my internal dialogue, and breaking the habits.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve just thought that I was afraid of heights. My experiences in life — mostly in amusement parks, small rock scrambles on hikes, or my excursion to the top of the Q1 building in Australia — have lent themselves to this belief. So why should Half Dome be any different? I had the seeds of doubt in my brain whispering to me right up until I grabbed ahold of those metal ropes and began the ascent to the top of that granite rock. Once I started climbing, my body took over and I HUSTLED to the top.
The Takeaway of my Story
Half Dome gave me the tangible proof that we can achieve things beyond our wildest dreams. Things that we once thought impossible. If you had told me that I was actually going to complete the cables a year ago, I probably would have laughed at you. Same thing if you had told me that I’d be eating dairy on a regular basis.
Life without challenges and change is boring and, quite frankly, unfulfilling. Find your version of my Half Dome experience and conquer your own life’s cables.
