Overcome the wall of fear and enjoy the magic on the other side

“WONDER is what we’re born with. WORRY is what we learn.”

Amber Rae

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about fears lately. I seem to have more of them surrounding my life than I would care to admit. I’m not sure if it’s a byproduct of age, my circumstance in a foreign country, or simply a realization that my life in front of me is shorter than what I’ve lived already. I’m afraid to miss out on something, and I’m worried about how and when all of this will end.

Certainly fears at some point are good warning signs of things we shouldn’t do, or things that are dangerous in nature to attempt–and thus we avoid doing those things. However, I also wonder in a world that lacks permanence if worry becomes something we learn to create our own natural wall or boundary to our limits. I think some of my fears are things I create to exercise some sense of control in a world that seems out of control.

My fears of change are different now. If I think about what keeps me from sleeping at night, I would say: it’s fear of the unexpected, the fear of language preventing me from living fully, the fear of being alone along with the fear of being too comfortable being alone (this is a double-edge sword), the fear of my health taking a turn for the worse and personal suffering, the fear of growing old and missing out on something important.

Physics is at play when we tackle fear. We know that the laws of the universe work 100% of the time without having to think about them. We know that the law of inertia will continue to exist without an outside force. Fear is inertia unless something acts upon it. It needs to be thwarted by the desire, will, and knowledge to overcome it.

What I’ve conquered is also important; the fear of living in a foreign country, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of not surviving the loss of someone important to me, the fear of starting again, and the fear of being the stranger amongst a crowd. All of those were acted upon by my desire to experience the other side of life beyond the wall of fear.

Recently, I had the opportunity to tackle another wall of fear. I wanted to see the other side of the mountain, figuratively and literally.

My desire to ski came with a wall of fear I had to scale

When I look back on my childhood, I never really had an interest in sporty things. The only thing that I can remember being of interest to me was snow skiing. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of the mountain air or the speed of heading downhill with two fiberglass strips under your feet.

On the other hand, it could have been the thought of ski chalets with roaring fireplaces, après ski socials, or destinations like Aspen, St. Mortiz, Telluride, or the Dolomites. I maintained a romantic notion when it came to skiing.

Three years ago, just weeks before the pandemic became officially a pandemic, I first attempted snow skiing. I was in Pontechienale, a small valley in the Italian Alps. I hired a strikingly perfect Italian ski instructor, Sebastiano, who was hilariously funny in his attempts to teach me the basics. It wasn’t a terrible first-time experience. I learned some basics. You can read all about those escapades in my post, three years ago, here.

The second time I went skiing I was without Sebastiano and began to enjoy the feeling of skiing. I was still a beginner, or in Italian a prinicipiante, but I showed promise.

After a few unsupervised downhill runs, I began to sense that combination of wind, speed, and crunchy or powdery snow. I began to trust the skis and how they reacted to my body’s movements. That was the moment I realized why people ski. It was then that I first peeked over the wall of fear to the other side of wonder.

There was strength and coordination involved, but 90% of the effort was battling the fear of leaning in and pointing your skis down without the confidence of knowing whether you could control your descent. It was completely unnatural for me.

Of course, if you’re an experienced skier you know that paralleling skiing is the goal–and being able to lean in and down towards the slope is what allows you to execute the proper turns to control your speed.

It is the opposite reaction for a beginner to lean in and face down the slope. Fear tells you to fight it. It is what separates a beginner from an intermediate skier.

However, my wall of fear wasn’t scalable at that point. I could see just on the other side of the wall of fear, and I wanted to be there but wasn’t ready to take it on fully. I wasn’t ready to let myself go.

Unfortunately, on the last run of the day I fell and twisted my ankle. I wouldn’t know that I actually broke my ankle until several weeks later when I found myself in Switzerland just as the pandemic hit. Miraculously, the ankle healed itself in the proper position. The Universe forgave my stupidity. I recovered fully.

Dreaming is an incredible tool when tackling fear

I always envisioned myself learning to ski in the Dolomites of Italy. It was my dream to feel at home in that place and to fit into that lifestyle of skiing. I’m not sure why, but it was almost mystical to me. It was my Brigadoon for skiing.

This was the place and the time to reattempt and relive that wonder. I was going to attempt to scale that wall or at least a good portion of it. I wasn’t getting any younger, and after several months in the gym, perhaps my body was ready to attempt it again.

This time I had the experience of a previous attempt and that incredible memory of sensing what was just on the other side of the wall of fear. These were the tools that pushed me forward when fear arose.

I found a hotel in the center of town where I wouldn’t need a car. There was also a ski school nearby that offered a five-day intensive course for beginners. I wanted to try this differently and be surrounded by other learning adults at the same level as myself.

Facing my fear was easier with a crowd

Just as misery loves company, I think fear-tackling loves company. It’s even better if everyone has the same challenge and fear to tackle. I guess snow-skiing could be like fire-walking. It’s best to do it with other beginners.

If you’ve ever tried to ski with children, you probably realized very quickly, they have no fear. They are little demons on skis, and buzz around like busy bees. It takes just a few attempts and those kids will tackle any slope. They have no fear of falling, embarrassment, or even breaking a bone. Their need for speed is insatiable.

I, on the other hand, have the wisdom of age, experience, and a broken ankle. I enrolled in a ski school that offered group lessons for beginning adults only.

Our learning group consisted of 12 participants between the ages of 30 to 52. I just happened to be the oldest (ouch!). They came from all over Europe: Spain, Poland, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Denmark. The common language was English, so at least that was one thing I didn’t have to think about.

The important thing was that everyone was there for the same goal and we started at the same place. When the instructor asked the group if anyone had skied before, I was the only who could say yes. However, I reaffirmed that I was in the right class with the right group. I wouldn’t call my experience three years ago worthy of placement ahead of the beginners. I wanted to relearn from the very beginning.

The first several days we spent most of our sessions in the practice area, tackling the basics of snow-plowing, focusing on our turns, and maintaining our sightline on the slope in front of us.

Much of what I learned came back quickly, and I seemed to accelerate through the first few days of the class. I was feeling probably a bit too confident about what was in store on the fourth day.

The fourth day was the big day. Instead of the normal three hours, we would spend five hours on our skis traversing the more challenging slopes in the region called Alpe di Siusi, just a gondola ride away from Ortisei.

I woke up feeling a bit anxious knowing that this was the day I would have to face some real fear out on the open slopes with hundreds of more advanced skiers wizzing by in the parallel ski patterns, while I snow-plowed my way down the slopes.

I guess it’s a running joke that beginners ski in the snow-plow formation, which basically means fanning out the back of your skis as they dig into the snow. The Italian ski instructors call it a spazzaneve or la pizza because your skis resemble a triangle-shaped slice of pizza.

It’s a good way to start slow, but it’s not something experienced skiers rely upon. They have learned the skill and gained the courage to go fast and simply pivot their way down the hill at high speeds and allowing each pivot to reduce their speeds while keeping their skis parallel.

That day we tackled some good beginning slopes and even a few intermediates. I fell a few times, but so did everybody. We all had our wins and losses. It was the first time I replicated that feeling of wind, speed, crunchy snow, and views. I was able to experience that wonderful side of skiing just beyond my wall of fear.

You can’t tackle every wall of fear on the first attempt

I had just about conquered everything that day and was feeling happy and exhausted when the ski instructor offered up the last and most formidable slope.

It looked like a monster from below. It was steep and daunting with its beautifully sinister and icy reflection of the sun. I could see dozens of advanced skiers zipping side by side as they flew down the slope and made it look effortless. I knew then that I had hit my wall of fear head-on.

I’d like to say that I swallowed my deepest fear, climbed aboard the chairlift, and tackled that mentally manufactured monster. But after five hours of skiing, I lacked the combination of energy and courage. I knew in my head that I wasn’t ready to scale further up my wall of fear that day. There would be another time to take on that challenge.

I actually affectionately referred to it as the la pista di merda, which directly translates to the ski slope of shit, because that’s what I thought when I saw it. One big difficult pile of something that I wasn’t quite ready to deal with in that moment.

My ski instructor thought that was a hilarious thing to say about the ski slope. He said to me, “Luca, it is difficult but it is snow it is no shit.” I had to explain it meant a big pile of challenges, both mental and physical. Not all expressions in English translate literally.

There was definitely a feeling of self-defeat, but I knew that I had made the right choice that day. I had accomplished so many other challenges and scaled so many smaller walls of fear, I didn’t need to tackle them all this time.

I wasn’t alone in my decision. Half of the group made the same decision I did, which eased the sting of defeat a bit. But for those that did tackle it, I could see it bolstered their confidence and their sense of accomplishment. They went over the wall of fear and saw the other side.

One of them was the young gentleman from Gdańsk, Poland. His name was Michal. I would consider us at the same level of skill and confidence, but he found something that inspired him to take the wall.

I asked him how he felt and what gave him the courage. He replied, “I thought of my mother and an expression she used quite often.” I asked him what it was, and he told me, “Michal, don’t worry so much about risk. Your face is not made of glass.”

I appreciated the wisdom of his Polish mother. Our faces, bodies, and lives are not made of glass. They may crack or even at times seem to shatter, but it’s unlikely a challenge will destroy us. If anything, it tempers our fortitude and hardens our desire to scale the next wall.

I left la pista di merda for the next time. Life will always give you a wall of fear to climb, and whether you choose it today or tomorrow, it will be there waiting for you with something wonderful on the other side.

If you have your own personal story of scaling your wall of fear, I would love to hear about it in the comments below.

I leave you with some photos of what I saw and experienced just beyond my wall of fear. I hope you enjoy them, and I thank you for following along and reading The Spaghetti Diaries.