“At this point, the only way down is out”
I didn’t realize it at the time but, these words, spoken to me at 12,000 ft in the air, would the prove the catalyst for one of my most significant mindset shifts to date. A shift that fundamentally change my perception of The Mind, Fear, and of just how much control we have over how we choose to show up in life.
The Backstory: Taylor Goes Skydiving
A lot of people hear the work ‘skydiver’ and immediately envision a hedonistic, thrill addicted, adrenaline junkie with a death wish and no home training…. Okay maybe not A LOT but definitively my best friend’s Great Aunt and I’m sure she’s not alone. But even if the association isn’t quite as intense, there’s no doubt the idea of regularly recreationally jumping out of planes seems a less than attractive hobby to pick up in life.
Skydiving is something I’d always wanted to give a try. I think at least a tandem jump is on the Life Bucket list of everyone without an intense fear of heights so when my friend invited me to his diving club for the weekend, I was so amped to finally have the change to cross another nugget off The List.
Trying a tandem skydive and being able to say that you’ve officially jumped out of a plane once in your life is a pretty baller feat, don’t get me wrong. But something really interesting happened to me in the process leading up to my first Tandem jump. I don’t think I was really nervous on the front end as we geared up for our trip.
The whole adventure was meant to be a day trip to Resende (The city in Rio where the Drop Zone is located), leaving at 8am and getting back by 8 pm as well. When we arrived, I was surprised to see just how dynamic this world was! Probably an attendance level in the low hundreds, from instructors and recreational jumpers, to experienced pros and formation teams…and then the wives, girlfriends, kids, dogs….there was a LOT going on.
We were scheduled to be on a particular load that was already WAY later than we had anticipated and the anxiety if missing our bus, which was the last one out for the night, was quite real. To make matters worse, a random storm rolled in from nowhere and we found ourselves paralyzed in a weather hold. It was kind of turning into a disaster (in my head) but I could see how stressed my friend was becoming so keeping a smile on my face a positive disposition was paramount.
I had just about given up and accepted the day’s jump just wasn’t going to happen when my friend came SPRINTING around the corner with the news; it was go time.
After we reviewed safety protocol and geared up, we were walking out to the airstrip as our plane came pulling up. By this point I was definitely…. Excited. I couldn’t stop smiling, my heart was beating so fast, but the mantra in my head was more of a “Lets F*cking Go!” than anything else.
We boarded the plane, strapped in, and next thing I knew we were off to the skies. As we began to climb in altitude, it hit me just how ignorant I was to exactly what ‘12,000ft’ meant. I remember looking out the window and saying to myself, ‘yeahhh this feels about right’…then realizing we were continuing to climb. At about the 6,000ft mark, my instructor taps me on the shoulder and asked: “You think this is pretty high?” to which I ‘anxious emoji’ smiled and nodded my head.
“We’re only half-way up” he laughed. It was at this point that the gravity of what was about to go down (no pun intended) really started to really sink in. It was as if he could sense my energetic shift, as he then leaned forward and he said it:
“At this point, the only way down it out”.
Essentially, we had passed the point of no return. This jump was happening no matter what; the only influence I had on it was how I’d choose to react. I could close my eyes, try to focus on not peeing my pants, and wait for it to be over; after all, ‘we can do anything for 5 seconds’, right? … OR I could trust that I was exactly where I supposed to be; bathe in the gratitude of my fortune to even have the opportunity, to above all else, acknowledge my COMPLETE energetic and emotional ownership over whichever path I choose to walk.
12,000ft, the door opens and people start disappearing out of the plane, like something you’d see in some early 2000s film where there’s some freak aviation accident, and everything is getting sucked out of the plane as some rando businessman, probably the one who was a huge d-bag at some point earlier in the film, is holding onto his seat anchors for dear life? You know what I’m talking about? No? Just me? That’s cool too…
Regardless, the anxiety was chomping at the bit for its chance in the driver’s seat for a microsecond before I noticed the huge smile that had appeared across my face and just like that, any hint of anxiety was gone.
Diego Looked at me and asked if I was ready; “ 3…2….”
By the end of that jump, a skydiver was born. At the time of writing this piece, I’m a Category A Licensed Skydiver with 27 jumps under my belt and I’m just getting started.
My biggest take away from the initial experience was twofold:
The First:
There are going to be things that scare us in life. It’s how we REACT to that fear that will define how we move through this life.
We’re human beings and generally speaking, these fears are coming from places that have evolutionarily served to protect and keep us alive. (SO let’s take a second to thank our past selves for developing these systems & protecting us historically) The trick here? acknowledge the fear surrounding a certain action or decision, sit with it for a second, and then consciously part with the emotional attachment and do it anyway. There is some magical re-wiring that goes on in our minds when we create a habit of this; a pattern that is reinforcing to both our conscious and subconscious minds. We are fundamentally re-training our brain and it’s reaction to fear.
When we experience a scary or upsetting sensation, a strong reaction is triggered in our Me Center (technically the medial prefrontal cortex) that makes us feel scared and under attack. Flight or Flight ringing any bells? This is a neurological connection that has likely existed since the evolution of man BUT it is also a neural connection that’s able to be weakened over time.
How you might ask? It is the same process through which traditional meditation is known to help reduce anxiety but that my friends is the beauty of meditation; the core of it is a simple practice of mindfulness. When we look at it this way, so many of the things we do and experience in any given moment have the potential to be an opportunity to strengthen our ‘meditative practice’ and further weaken that fear response connection, including skydiving!
As we weaken this connection, we simultaneously strengthen the connection between what’s known as our Assessment Center (the part of our brains known for reasoning) and our bodily sensation and fear centers. The more we work at this, the more easily we can , when experiencing scary or upsetting sensations, look at them rationally.
The Second:
We have more control over how we interact with (and therefore experience) the world around us, than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. Don’t get me wrong; there are so many things in this world that we have absolutely NO control over…like at all. And that will never change.
What DOES change however is our ability to be at peace with this knowledge and grow to a point where, regardless of the external situation, our internal state remains unchanged. The more comfortable we become being uncomfortable (whether due of the absence of control or any other triggers that influenced us in the past), the greater joy we’ll begin to notice in other verticals of life. The emotional home evolves from one existing in a constant state of fight or flight to one with excess energy to transmute into love, light, empathy, and connection with others.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Stay tuned for my next piece that dives deeper into HOW the process of skydiving is a greater meditative tool than you may have ever realized!
Taylor Wallace
taylor@thefitfounder.com
