Outdoor Adventure & Personal Growth

We believe so strongly that outdoor adventure is about so much more than first ascents and bagging peaks that we made a podcast about it!

This episode offers a glimpse of how outdoor adventures can shape our attitudes towards ourselves and others.

In this episode we share:

• How the outdoors is about play as well as growth.
• The power of discomfort.
• Challenging our mindset when in shame and embarrassment.
• Letting go of other peoples opinions and expectations.
• The freedom that comes from trading conceptual stressors for real ones.
• The opportunity in the outdoors to reduce shame and build resilience.
• Getting familiar with our feelings of fear.
• Celebrating small wins and getting out the door.
• Enjoying the process not just the goal.
• The term “Jerry” needs to be gone.
• What we’re excited about for summer.

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Transcript

Outdoor Adventure & Personal Growth - 2023-05-15

Hannah: [00:00:00] Welcome to Weatherproof. We are your hosts, Claudia and Hannah. Join us as we talk about the raw, real, and relatable elements of outdoor adventure. Before we get into that, we're gonna beg you to join our email list@weatherproofpodcast.com and to hit that follow button wherever you listen to podcasts. This will really help us get our podcast out into the world. 

Claudia: This podcast is recorded on the unseated territory of the Squamish and Lilah nations. We pay respect to the stewards of this land on which we live, work, and play.

I guess we should introduce ourselves. 

Hannah: I'm Hannah. My pronouns are she her. I'm a 31 year old Kiwi or New Zealander living in Whistler, Canada. I've done a bunch of different jobs over the past few years. I left an operations role in a TV station in Sydney, Australia, when I moved here almost six years ago. 

I was a lifty, when I got to Whistler. I've done a bit of ski patrol. I've been an outdoor [00:01:00] adventure guide for a few years, and now I've returned to my roots as a registered massage therapist with a side of patrol to keep life spicy because I love chaos. My outdoor loves is skiing, ski, touring, mountain biking, hiking, especially multi-day. And I just ordered my first touring paddle award. Shout out to squid paddle co.

Claudia: Woo woo. 

My name is Claudia. My pronouns are she her. I am 36 years old. I currently live in Squamish, bc I'm Canadian.

 What do I do for work? I am an outdoor educator. I just started a business in outdoor education and risk management consulting. I am currently working for a little bookshop in Squamish, and I also produce educational resources for a company called Learning Bird based out of Montreal. My outdoor loves are [00:02:00] skiing, snowboarding. I have started dabbling in mountain biking. And I love to do all the things, hiking, paddling. The more time I can spend outside, the better.

So Hannah, if outdoor adventure isn't just about first ascents and bagging peaks, what is it about? 

Hannah: I think we all know that the outdoors is full of adventure and fun, seeing incredible places, achieving physical feats, being out in nature, beautiful views, places that make you feel small. But the outdoors is also this place where we get a lot of personal challenge.

We can wrestle with ourselves, we can form deeper connection with those around us, with the earth. For me, the outdoors has taught me to trust myself that I'm more capable than I think I am. It's shown me my own strength, but also kept me humble. It reinforces to me [00:03:00] constantly that I can in fact do hard things, which has huge impacts on my day-to-day life. 

Claudia: I think often for me, being in the outdoors is an opportunity to spend time in wonder and awe of the natural world and to return to a childlike sense of play. I think as adults we often miss out on that and, and maybe those of us who live in our corner of the world spend more time than others playing. Maybe that's why we're so drawn to sports like backcountry skiing, splitboarding mountain biking. 

All of those things incur a certain amount of risk or there's a certain amount of risk inherent in those activities. And I feel like that is the adult version of playing on the monkey bars or seeing how high you can swing and then jumping off or, you know, things, things that we have like a tendency to leave behind, but that were so important to us as children. 

Hannah: Yeah.[00:04:00] We don't play on the playground anymore.

We play in bike park instead. 

Claudia: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Although I recently was on a playground with my two year old nephew and it was so fun. Playgrounds I think have really taken a step up since we were kids. 

Hannah: Totally. So go and explore your local playground 

Claudia: if that's how you can get outside. Do it. 

I wanna go back to something that you said though about being uncomfortable, putting yourself in situations where you you know, where you are, consciously cultivating uncomfortable and risky and scary experiences. That we're like knowingly, putting ourselves in situations where we're interacting with elements that are outside of our control and, and doing it anyway. Testing our metal, so to speak.

Hannah: There is like that saying that's like, be scared and do it anyway. And that applies often in our day-to-day life, in situations where we're kind of called to like put ourselves out there or do something [00:05:00] that's a little bit scary. And then one of the things the outdoors gives you is so much experience in doing that regularly doing scary things, facing the fear of doing it anyway within reason.

And that's where it can help in your day-to-day life. It's like exposure therapy. As you get more and more used to being scared and doing it anyway, you get better at being scared and doing it anyway. So if you have that sport or that adventure that you do where things get scary and you push through it when it comes to your day-to-day life you're a bit more used to having those feelings and pushing through it.

Claudia: We are not doctors, we are not making any kind of comment on exposure therapy. It's pros or cons. But yeah, I agree with you. I think that's where that personal growth element comes in is in our ability to kind of expose ourselves to things that, that we're uncertain about the outcome and prepare ourselves in the best way that we know how. And then, [00:06:00] launch ourselves

Hannah: quite literally.

Yeah. When it comes to biking and skiing off things, it's quite literally a launch.

Claudia: Yeah. 

Hannah: So how does outdoor support personal growth? Obviously that's kind of a theme that we are wanting to really delve into. . Tell us a bit more about that. 

Outdoor adventure, outdoor activities, outdoor pursuits. They provide a whole host of new and challenging experiences. And much in the same way that you can dedicate the rest of your life to playing golf and becoming a really good golfer. The same thing applies with spending time in the outdoors. We can constantly return to the outdoors, learn new things about ourselves, challenge ourselves in new ways, continue to put ourselves in uncomfortable and scary situations forever. 

 Being in discomfort, being in those places of learning, that's where the growth happens. Yes. When we encounter discomfort, we're forced to [00:07:00] act in a way that we aren't in our day-to-day lives. I feel like convenience and how we approach our lives now is all about minimizing and avoiding discomfort. Mm-hmm. And when we're in the outdoors, there's an inherent amount of discomfort, by virtue of the fact that we're choosing to be in places that don't necessarily have running water or running water means you're getting your water from the stream or the lake or the whatever and that we're sleeping on the ground or we're sleeping on a Therma rest, we're in huts with, 20 strangers and five of those strangers are snoring at different paces. 

Yes. Your favorite. I know. 

Claudia: I mean, the other thing about discomfort, and this is again, where so much amazing learning comes from, is it doesn't just have to be physical.

I think we often think about physical discomfort when we think about spending time in the outdoors but there's also so much [00:08:00] emotional discomfort in outdoor pursuits. Whether we're new or we're being challenged in ways that we're not used to being challenged.

Maybe it's by other people that we're participating in those activities with, or our physical discomfort is leading to emotional distress and were faced with having to navigate really strong emotions that we're not used to navigating. 

Hannah: Yeah.

One memory about embarrassment, shame that comes up when talking about outdoor adventure. I got accepted into the Mountain Mentors Program the program that I was in was for ski touring. So they pair you up with someone who has more experience and they're your mentor for the season and they take you out and you learn things. So it's an organized mentorship program, which is fantastic. And so my first time meeting my mentor, we skinned up to hanging Lake.

So skinning for those that don't know is like you basically put like carpet on the bottom of your skis and [00:09:00] then and hike up the mountain and, 

Claudia: and where's hanging lake for those who aren't familiar with it? 

Hannah: Hanging lakes in the Callahan. Near Whistler and the skin track up to Hanging lake is kind of single file, or at least it was when on this particular occasion.

And we were at the very start as it kind of goes off where the cross-country skiing tracks are and it kind of dipped down a bit. And at that point I had zero skill when it comes to going downhill on my skins because without the heel locked in, I tend to fall on my face, which is exactly what happened.

So I go down, follow my mentor, I fall on my face, there's five people behind me. So I'm trying to quickly shuffle out of the way cuz they can't get past me cuz I'm taking up the entire path. And this happened like multiple times on the way up because there is a couple of stream crossings where the bridges weren't particularly wide at this point in the season and they would kind of go down before the bridge and then across the stream.

[00:10:00] And so not only can I not go down very well when my skins are on, but there's also like a water consequence if I do fall on my face. And so again, I was just like holding people up. And the story that I was telling myself this whole time was , these people are judging me. They think I'm an idiot. Which we tend to do when we're embarrassed. And one of the things that I've tried to do a bit more recently is challenge that thinking what if instead of judging me, they're actually cheering for me.

And cuz one of the things, I'm a big fan of Brene Brown and she describes shame as being like the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we're unworthy of love and belonging and that thing that we've done makes us unworthy of that. So in that experience in Hanging Lake, it's like, I don't belong here. I shouldn't be here. People think I'm stupid. All of that kind of stuff. And so being able to challenge that belief when we are [00:11:00] trying new things or just not really sure what's happening, there's so many times getting out to the, into the outdoors where , things don't quite go to plan.

Being able to challenge that story that we tell ourselves about what other people are thinking. Now obviously some people are assholes and they will be judging you and thinking that you're an idiot and that you don't belong there and why you in front of them to hang up space and being slow or whatever it is. But more often than not, people aren't. And so if we can just challenge ourselves to change that thinking a little bit and assume that they are cheering for us. 

And if that feels like too much of a stretch, maybe instead of cheering for you, it's just that instead of judging you, they're feeling that shame, that discomfort. They're watching you struggle and being like, oh, I remember what that was like. That makes me really uncomfortable to watch. Cuz watching someone struggle isn't a fun experience and they're like, I just need to get outta here cuz that's making me uncomfortable. 

Claudia: Totally. The idea that there's now a [00:12:00] word for that used in our daily Jargon, cringe. Yeah. Is so good.

And I used to get that experience all the time when I would watch a movie... I used to hate... Yes. I still actually hate watching embarrassing movies. I will hide behind my fingers. There's an emoji for it now too. And it's just that feeling of cringing on somebody else's behalf. Right. And I think that spending time in the outdoors and outdoor adventure makes us better people, partners and friends, because it offers us so many opportunities to be uncomfortable and then to see other people also experience that discomfort, also experience struggle, and we're able to be more compassionate. We're able to better put ourselves in other people's shoes. We're better equipped to have hard conversations because we've had to navigate our own [00:13:00] intense emotions alongside the intense emotions of other people in intense situations. And that, I think is the beauty of outdoor adventure.

I also think that, yeah, we can get caught up in what other people are thinking about us in those moments, but the reason I love challenging myself in the outdoors is because I'm so challenged there's no space in my brain or in my body for thinking about what somebody else is thinking about me.

Like I'm so present. I'm so in it that, I'm not for once in my life consumed by thoughts of what other people are thinking about me. And maybe that makes me a narcissist, actually, now that I am thinking about that and saying, no, that's great. But I run because it's the only time in my day where my brain shuts off and I'm not cycling through endless thoughts. Yeah. When I'm in the outdoors. It's the [00:14:00] same, it's the only time where I'm so consumed by what I'm doing in that moment. And then the next moment, and then the next moment that there's no, there's no space for worry about, what else is coming down the pipe or what anybody else thinks of me.

Hannah: As a recovering people pleaser the main time that I can think of where I actually really don't care about what other people think is when I'm scrambling. I find it really terrifying. So all I'm thinking about is trying not to die. And I couldn't give rats about whether I'm holding someone up or what they think of me or if they think I belong there. Like, there's no in this podcast. That's ok. You can say rats ass, there's no room for embarrassment or shame. It's just pure, like I'm trying to survive.

And, and that in itself, as much as it's not a nice experience, is a nice experience to worry more about what's going on for me than what's going on for someone else. 

Claudia: I mean, I think it's so [00:15:00] freeing. Mm-hmm. And that's why I love it. I think that it can be addictive to be in that place of like I'm out here and I'm unbound by societies rules and conventions and norms around what I'm supposed to look like, what I'm supposed to smell, like, how I'm supposed to comport myself. Like all of these things that freedom is like, I love it. 

Hannah: One of the things is in day-to-day life, we deal with so much invisible stress.

There's so many things on our to-do list or things that we are worried about or worries about the future or the past or whatever is going on. And it's the stress that we have. , they talk about it, we don't have a tiger anymore and we just have all this stuff that we kind of don't really know how to.

How to deal with, and 

Claudia: you talking about like fight or flight situations? 

Hannah: Yeah, yeah. And, and then in the outdoors, when we leave the real world behind and we go on an adventure, especially the multi-day[00:16:00] what we are worrying about is like, where are we gonna get water next?

And, and things that are real stresses, but that we can easily mostly do something about, there are stress that there, that we fix instead of these conceptual stresses that we deal with on a day-to-day basis that we can never really fix because there's no stream to find to fill up the water.

It's just our brain running away with whatever we're worried about next. And so the outdoors can give us that kind of piece of like, I'm just gonna deal with. Whatever comes up today, and I'm gonna be able to deal with whatever comes up today because I can, and I'm gonna work through it. 

Claudia: And those needs are so beautifully simple.

Yes. Right? It's like I need water to stay hydrated and to cook my meals. I need sleep so that I can, get from point A to point B. Tomorrow I need enough food to stave off hangar and it's associated complications. I [00:17:00] need companionship for distraction because, if I have to think about, yeah, if I have to think about putting my next foot forward, I'm gonna lose it.

Hannah: There's a, there's a privilege that we get to put ourselves in situations where we. Get to choose to worry about water and food, 

Claudia: yeah. Being able to like step out of those, those stresses is a privilege.

I wanna take us back to Brene Brown. So you mentioned her name, who is Brene for everyone who lives under a rock and has never heard that name.

Hannah: Brene Brown is a shame researcher. If you haven't heard of her before, go look at her Ted Talks. Go and watch her Netflix special. Check her out on YouTube, read her books. There's heaps of them. They're all fantastic. 

Claudia: She's got a couple great podcasts. 

Hannah: Yes, she does have a couple of great podcasts.

And one day we are going to interview Brene Brown on this podcast in my wildest dreams. 

Claudia: Gotta have [00:18:00] goals. Stretch goals.

And she has some pretty clear thoughts on the difference between shame and embarrassment and we've kind of used them interchangeably in Yeah. In some of our stories. And I'm sure we'll continue to do so, but they're not actually synonymous. So do you wanna distinguish for us shame from embarrassment?

Hannah: Yeah. So Brene's definition of shame, like I said before, is like this feeling of, I've done something that makes me unworthy of love and belonging. And so it's that really like, Intensely painful. It's that crushing feeling. Whereas embarrassment is when you've done something that you know, that other people have done it too, like embarrassing.

You can kind of laugh about pretty quickly often, and sharing embarrassing stories, like in reality, hanging like is probably more embarrassing than shameful because I can share it and it, it doesn't trigger. Whereas shame makes us feel really alone. And one of the things about shame though, Is that [00:19:00] shame disappears when it's shared.

And so I think that's one of the things we get from spending time with people over a long period, which is something that you get to do when you do lots of adventures with them. The friendships that you get to form by being outside with people is you kind of often, especially when you're like hiking through the mountains for a few days, you end up sharing these stories and things about you.

 Going out for brunch and having wines is great. We love doing that with our friends. But there's something about just, maybe it's the being uncomfortable together. Or the amount of time that you spend with someone when you are out on adventures or bike rides or whatever it is that you do. You spend this time and then you start to kind of share some of the struggles in life and you start to have those deeper conversations. I don't know whether it's the mountain effect or what. And part of that is, is healing and it is so helpful because things like shame when you do have things that you're struggling with, when you share them, you feel [00:20:00] less alone.

And same with things that, that you might struggle with in your day-to-day life that you feel like no one else struggles with. And then you share them and then you realize that someone else that you thought didn't actually does too. 

Claudia: Yeah, I think it comes down to. Again, we're only concerned about our most basic needs, so all of that superfluous stuff that we worry about because of the society in which we have been shaped and molded demands it we're free to talk about the things that we hold closest to ourselves. And I wish I had better words to describe that experience, but it's so much easier, to shed light on those shadowy parts of ourselves that we are ashamed of in situations where, our most basic needs for survival exist because we realize that those things that we're so ashamed of that we clinging to like they don't actually matter. And the [00:21:00] people that we spend time in the outdoors with like us for who we are, not because we're beautiful, cuz we've got a face full of makeup or because we dress a certain way or because we talk about certain things, but because we know they have our backs mm-hmm. And they prove it to us day in, day out by helping us meet our most basic needs. I can't carry the weight in my pack and I, have to offload some of it to a friend so that I can make it up to, , our objective that day.

That's what I'm worried about. Mm-hmm. And when they're willing to do that for me, it builds trust. 

Hannah: I think about it in like a mountain biking term as a scenario as well, because I'm a chicken shit. And so when it comes to mountain biking, like I'm scared of everything. And there's so many things that I know that my skills allow me to do, but my mind just doesn't.

And so some of the friends that I've connected with, you kind of get this deeper connection with people [00:22:00] when you come up to an obstacle, like a rock roll or something that you have to ride down on a bike and it's scary. And so you look at it and you try and you don't, and you try again.

And I get too scared. And just those kind of experiences of like wrestling with yourself, trying to do things, having people there encouraging you, having them wait for you, which is also really stressful. And then either doing it and having the, oh my God, you did it yay. And sharing that kind of elation or not doing it and sharing that.

Like I feel really bummed out that I didn't try it. Those are the kinds of things that we kind of don't get in our day-to-day life. Without it being like, really I important, like I can fail at a rock roll and I'm not failing in my life as much as sometimes it feels like I am. Whereas when you have failures in your day-to-day life, it's often so much more of a big deal.

So you don't share those as readily with people. Whereas I'm constantly sharing my failures in mountain biking with my friends cuz they're riding with me and they see all the things I can't do and it makes me feel awkward and embarrassed and [00:23:00] whatever. But because they're there and they don't shame me and they don't make me feel more embarrassed, they're encouraging.

And that builds that connection and that trust with them that you're like, you know that they're gonna have your back. 

Claudia: Well, and it's so interesting that, failing at a rock roll one day is not a big deal because you know that rock roll's gonna be there tomorrow. Yes. And you can tackle it again.

Tomorrow. Whereas, if we don't get a job that we applied for, , that has such a bigger impact on how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive our place in the world, because we have this feeling that like, oh, if we didn't get this job, we're not gonna get the next one. Yeah. And then the next one and then we're gonna be destitute and , X, Y, z, 

Hannah: we place, we place our self-worth on it.

Claudia: We're terrible people, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. When in reality, by tackling and failing at that rock roll on day one, and maybe on day two and maybe on day three, but getting it on day four is actually going to make us better equipped to tackle[00:24:00] that job application that we're uncertain we're gonna get, and then be able to tackle the next one.

Hannah: And the feelings that come What with not getting it. Exactly. 

Claudia: Like being able to, if we don't get that job, I don't know why I'm fixating on this like particular example, but if we apply for a job and we don't get it mm-hmm. That we're not gonna be so devastated that the impact of that isn't going to actually affect the way that we perceive ourselves.

And it's gonna equip us with the skills to persevere and apply for the next job and then, , meet inevitable failures the way that they should be met, which is with resilience. Yes. And maybe we just took a long time to articulate the fact that like, spending time in the outdoors, going on outdoor adventures, failing in the outdoors is actually building resilience.

Yes. And that is a crucial skill to have these days. Yeah. Fun. I think the other thing that I wanna talk about is how [00:25:00] I've like developed and started to cultivate this relationship with fear that I wasn't aware of prior to spending a lot of time in the outdoors. And this relationship that I'm building gives me so much joy. It challenges me so much. But one of the things that I love to do in the outdoors is back flips.

I love back flips. I had a very mediocre, very short-lived career as a gymnast. But it built in me this like love of inversions and back flips. And so now whenever I have the opportunity, like off docks or rope swings or my big goal right now is to do one on my snowboard.

Mm-hmm. And it's spring. My opportunities to fit one in this season are dwindling rapidly verging on like, no longer existent. But I get this like feeling in my stomach and it's like what you were saying before, that you're capable of these things.

Mm-hmm. But you think about all of the [00:26:00] like what ifs and your brain gets in the way and then you like can't do it. And the joy I get from feeling that now, really familiar feeling and being like, cool. Like this is, this is my edge. This is like, like I'm coming up against the 

Hannah: familiar feeling being fear.

Claudia: Fear, yeah. Yeah. That like. Oh yeah. Like I'm in it and I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm getting so much better at kind of recognizing that feeling and treating it like lovingly in a weird way. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that makes sense, but like, being grateful for it rather than it being this big red flag that I don't interact with or don't engage with in any way, shape or form.

And then ends up being this like, massive barrier. Yeah. Rather than something to like, go out and play with and, engage within a way that like isn't so definitive, 

Hannah: it's not controlling you, you're kind of controlling it in a way. 

Claudia: Yeah. And I mean sometimes it does control me.

Sometimes I'm like, Ooh, yeah. self-preservation is more important today. Oh, [00:27:00] totally. Than like attempting whatever. And I think the reality is that, that sometimes those consequences, like we're not willing to risk. Yes. Right? I'm far more willing to do a back flip at the end of a season than I am to attempt one at the beginning of the season.

A because I have the confidence of an entire season's worth of riding under my belt. And, missing out on the end of the season isn't as big of a deal to me as losing the entire season. Cuz I've destroyed myself Yes. On this like first attempt. So there are circumstances, right? And the beauty of it is that those decisions are presented to us every time we encounter something that makes us afraid.

Like every time we get to say, "Yeah, I'm gonna do it", or "No, not today. Today's not the day." 

Hannah: Yeah. When I was prepping for like major surgery back in 2016 I chose adventure as a way to get ready for that mentally, like I chose to do things that were scary and to put myself [00:28:00] outside of my comfort zone. It was like mental prep, like get ready for it, get ready to face things, do things that are uncomfortable, and that's kind of led a theme throughout my life since then. But yeah, it's, I, again, it comes back to that exposure thing of just getting more used to having the feelings of fear and discomfort and, and concern and kind of pushing through it and, and dealing with it instead of.

I think it's easy to feel fear and just go and hide inside. Yeah. Which is not always a bad thing, but getting more used to that feeling, facing it, pushing through it. Because the good things in life, the growth in life is through the discomfort. It is through facing that stuff, sitting in your feelings, pushing through it rather than like running away and shutting down.

Claudia: Totally. And I think that's how we gain confidence, right. It's not, not about whether or not the outcome of the thing we decide to do is positive or successful, but out of making the decision to do it. [00:29:00] Like to attempt it. Yeah. And, and that's what I love is I, I've really learned that it's not about the outcome of the objective, it's, it's attempting the objective to begin with.

Yeah.

This is like totally an aside, but I've started using their Nike run app and I've started listening to guided runs as a way to get back into running and the guided runs... they're so cute. And sometimes I'm in the mood and sometimes I'm not. But they're all about celebrating the smallest wins, , as often as you can, as kind of a reinforcement that like actually the most important step on the entire run, no matter how short or long or intense or mellow it is, is like the moment you decided to put your shoes on and walk out the door.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that crossing the threshold from inside to outside mm-hmm. Is often the hardest thing for me. [00:30:00] And whatever we can do to encourage ourselves to, to cross that threshold, like that's what we should be focusing on. Not 10 steps down the road, but like that first moment.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. Mel Robbins has like the five second rule of like, , countdown from five and before you get to zero, like, get up and do it. Because if you give yourself too much time to think about it, you won't. Yeah. And yeah, I think that's a good one. Yeah. 

Claudia: Actually my partner does that with me a lot.

Hannah: He counts down from five for you 

Claudia: sometimes.

Yeah. I can, I can be a go getter and sometimes it's really helpful to have him there to like, Get me off the couch when I don't wanna do something that we've decided we were gonna do, or yeah, just propel me on my way a little bit, which is lovely. It's nice to be supported in that way. 

Hannah: It is. 

Claudia: We talked a little bit about enjoying the [00:31:00] process of being present in the moment when we're out on trip. I wonder like, that's not everybody's experience. That's something that I think, depending on your personality, depending on what your motivation is for getting in the outdoors like that, you might experience that and that might be your motivation.

I talked about being addicted to that feeling of being so present. But I'm wondering like, what's your experience of being out on trip or being on a multi-day expedition and being like in it? 

Hannah: I tend to live life at a hundred miles an hour. I pack a lot in, I'm always doing stuff. I'm always working towards something and I struggle with like, Multi-day adventurous stuff of not being present.

And it's not that I don't enjoy it, like I'm always looking around and I love the word used of wonder, like I'm,, I'm constantly like, I can't believe I'm here. Look at where we are. Isn't this so beautiful? But I have [00:32:00] an issue of I'll be happy when. When we start off, I'm like, okay, I'll be happy when we get to camp.

And then it's when we get to camp, it's like, I'll be happy when we set up the tent and then we set up the tent and I'm like, I'll be happy when we've had dinner. And then when we've had dinner and we are going to, you know, chill out. I'm like, oh, I'll be happy when I've gone to the bathroom for the last time before getting into my tent for the night.

And then in the morning it's like, I'll be happy when I've had breakfast, and then I'll be happy when the tent's packed up and then I'll be happy when I'm on trail. And then I get on trail and I'm like, okay, today's supposed to take seven hours. Let's try and make it six. I'll be happy if we get there in six.

And, and then I get to the end and I'm like, did I stop to smell the mountain air at any point in this? Or was I just trying to like, keep going and, and , be faster and better? And, and I definitely have a, a struggle with constant achievement and constantly wanting to do more and be better.

And, and so one of the things that. That I really try and do is be present and enjoy the moment and, and take those little moments to stop and you can sit [00:33:00] down and have a snack. You don't have to get there really fast. And not that I'm a fast hacker by any means. And something for me is like if you, if we're not happy in the, in the little things, you are not gonna be happy in the big things.

 Enjoy your cup of coffee in the morning and, and really relish that moment because achieving something, whether it's outdoors or, or in your day-to-day life, is going to feel empty if you can't just enjoy the little moments along the way. Enjoy the journey as they say. 

Claudia: I mean, I think that's so important and obviously I'm biased because as, as we've already talked about, like that's what I love. Like a trip to me feels successful if I find myself on a beach at 3:00 PM having paddled all day and I can sneak a late afternoon coffee in [00:34:00] or we've decided we're gonna have an extra long lunch and I can whip my stove out and have again, a coffee.

Cuz that's what brings me joy. But those moments like getting to camp and being able to like bathe mm-hmm. Or, , waking up in the morning and having like a slower morning, , giving ourselves a little bit more time before we have to take camp down and being able to have a swim or, , just like those moments. Where time stretches in a way that like, it doesn't in my daily life. Mm-hmm. Or I don't make it stretch in my daily life because like you, I am constantly trying to pack 1,000,001 things into 24 hours and the thing that gets pushed is sleep every time. But I think, yeah, I think being able to find joy in those little moments [00:35:00] helps keep us present Yes.

And helps balance out the time we spend on the journey versus the time we spend celebrating the accomplishment. Yeah. And I suspect we're similar, but I'm so quick to think about all of the things I wish I'd done differently. Mm-hmm. Rather than, Enjoy the accomplishment or having achieved the goal. And so to me, achieving the goal, like, because I don't even dwell on it anyway, it's sort of pointless.

Totally. Yeah. But being able to enjoy and take pride in the moments along the way. 

Yeah. James Clear talks about it in his book Atomic Habits of the goal being pointless because you achieve the goal and you move on to the next thing. And it's not actually like we make it to be this big thing, whether it's whatever peak you're trying to get or objective that you have that day.

[00:36:00] Getting there, it's just such a small piece of the whole puzzle and it's over so quickly. And then, and then what, so it's like don't focus too much on, on the outcome. On the goal because you miss out on everything else. Yeah. And, and especially in adventuring, you don't always make it things go wrong, whether it's weather or whatever else happens, you've gotta be able to enjoy the process because you might not get there, you might not see the view.

Like we did hike in the Rockies last year where we got to the top and the clouds came in and we didn't see anything. And so we sat there for half an hour and froze and then hiked down and, and it's that reminder to just, enjoy the hike. I'm definitely one of the hikes for the views. So sometimes you've just gotta enjoy being, being outside.

Yeah. Yeah. And we hold the goal in such disproportionate esteem, I think Yes. To like the rest of the experience designed to get [00:37:00] us to that goal. And I think that's what often leads to like discontent or misery in extreme cases, right? Is that we live our lives for the accomplishment. But the time we spend on accomplishing that thing is so disproportionate.

Yeah. To the amount of time that we spend, like, we 

Hannah: forget to enjoy the living cuz we are working towards the goal. Yeah. Yeah. I I recently got permanent residency in Canada. Yay. Finally, it took a long time. Woo. We were so excited and there was so much stress and work that went into it because there were delays in a bunch of stuff.

And then the actual approval process was really quick and, and I was just thinking the other day I got it about a month ago and it's just done. , I just have it now. If I hadn't got residency, my life would've changed drastically and it would've had a really [00:38:00] big impact.

But getting it has changed a few things for me. But. In terms of my day to day, it's just the same. Like I now just have it, and, and that's just done. And that was a really good example to me of something like, I obviously didn't enjoy the process. Doing that much paperwork is not fun. And I don't know that there's any good thing I can pull out of , enjoy doing a PR application.

You won't, don't worry about it. But it builds resiliency. But it was just one of those really stark reminders to me of enjoying the process of whatever you're doing outside of your permanent residency application. Just enjoying each step along the way because getting residency was a huge deal, but when you achieve that big thing, it's like, oh, okay, now it's done.

What next? 

Claudia: Yeah.

I think on that note, it's important to articulate the fact that there are [00:39:00] many barriers to outdoor adventure and to spending time in the outdoors. And I'm so highly aware that we are privileged and not everybody has that same privilege.

Mm-hmm. And. I really want to make the outdoors more accessible to others, to anybody who wants to, spend time in the outdoors. And I think there's lots out there in the media right now about how the outdoors has not been and continues not to be a particularly inclusive space. Mm-hmm. And there are lots of folks out there who are championing that cause and who are much better positioned to do that than I am. But I, I want to do what I can, we want to do what we can in order to continue to open up the outdoors in whatever capacity we can. [00:40:00] So that it becomes a more inclusive space. 

Hannah: And part of what everyone can do on a really basic level is coming back to that story I said about going up to Hanging Lake and the embarrassment and assuming that everyone's judging me. If you are getting into outdoors, try and challenge your mindset that people aren't judging you. But don't be one of those people that confirms that. Help people don't be a dick. Yeah. , help people maybe if they are in a place they shouldn't be because they don't have the gear of the experience.

Offer some helpful advice , or some help to get out of there rather than those. That judgment or the huffing as they, you pass on trail cuz they were in your way and they're annoying. Try and even just those little things. We have that term called the Jerry and I, I have a problem with that.

Mm. Because yeah, it's funny to laugh at people that are doing silly things, but a lot of it comes down to laughing at people that are not dressed the right way. Mm-hmm. They're not wearing the right gear that you would expect [00:41:00] them to be wearing in the bike park. And obviously some of it is safety and we do need to be concerned about that.

But most of the time it's just that they're not dressed cool. They're not looking the way they should. And that is the kind of attitude and that's where language matters and what we laugh at matters because that's what makes things inclusive or not. Not everyone is gonna have access to the funds to buy all the right gear to try a new sport.

So let's not laugh at people that are trying something new. And even if you're laughing with your friends about that person over there and they can't hear you, someone in your friend circle can hear you and they might be wanting to try something new. Or you're just confirming that whole opinion and that whole idea that you have to look a certain way and dress a certain way to be accepted in the outdoors.

And we need to make an active effort to change that. Totally. 

Claudia: Getting into the outdoors is hard enough. And my hope is that through these conversations, we [00:42:00] are encouraging folks to get outside, as safely and as regularly as they can, and to embrace that idea of personal growth and the wins being about crossing that threshold from inside to outside. And, the attempt being what really matters versus any particular outcome or goal.

Mm-hmm.

As we wind down this episode, I'm thinking of all of the things that I have to look forward to this summer and all of the trips that I have planned. And I say that, but there actually aren't that many, but I'm starting to think about with the arrival of a new season, what are the things that I wanna focus on?

Hannah: One of the things that I love about living in this area is the change of the seasons. We get such a stark contrast between winter and summer. We get this renewed, invigoration about whatever's next. 

You get kind of tired of skiing and this is so ridiculous to save. You're tired of skiing [00:43:00] and then it's mountain biking or hiking season, and then you've done a lot of biking and then it's skiing season. And it's fun to have that anticipation of like what's to come, what you're going to get into in the new season if you're in the northern hemisphere where we're heading into summer. If you're in the southern hemisphere, you're heading into winter.

Claudia: Yeah, no, you're totally right. And I think, I mean, you're approaching it in the right way. I get so sad when winter ends. And usually I get sad because I haven't accomplished one or more of my goals. Mm-hmm. And that feels hard. It feels hard to like put those goals off for, , another six months or whatever.

Mm-hmm. And it usually takes me a few weeks to transition out of that mentality and into like the stoke for what's to come. And like as the days get longer, honestly. Mm-hmm. It's so amazing to be, once again, like I feel like a flower, it's just blooming in the sun and it's warm and wonderful and I'm reminded that yeah, as much as I love winter, [00:44:00] like the other seasons are also really great.

So do you have any, do you have any big plans, anything that you're like really excited to embark on? 

Hannah: Yeah, we've got a bunch of hiking stuff booked. We were lucky enough to get Skyline Lahara and Assiniboine all in one year, which is three of kind of the popular hiking destinations in the Rockies that are super hard to get.

So we're very excited about that. 

Claudia: And a testament to your. Living your life at a hundred miles an hour because you have to be that fast to get those bookings. 

Hannah: Yes, you really do. It's interesting. But something I'm excited for is hopefully getting back on my bike. I've been injured for the last 18 months.

I'm excited to just like. Get out there with my friends. One of the things that injury has really shown me is like, my friends are incredible and my good friends have, , come and hung out with me in my lounge room, which isn't nearly as fun as going [00:45:00] on activities, but I've definitely missed that time that you get to spend with people when you're doing adventures outside. I've definitely been missing in my life that just being outside and going on adventures and, and, even just like biking you might chat while you're going up the trail and, and then you just ride down and then you get to the bottom and you're all stoked and then you have a bit more of a conversation while you're going up.

Same as kind of the chairlift conversations. You have six minutes to chat and then a bit of riding and then you catch up on the next six minutes on the chairlift. I, I've really been missing those, those shared experiences with friends and I'm. I'm super excited to hopefully be able to get back into, back into the outdoors with people again in a few weeks 

Claudia: it's really great that you mentioned that because more so than focusing on big adventures like multi-day adventures. this summer I'm really focusing on getting on my bike, and I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I am a beginner mountain biker. I've owned a mountain [00:46:00] bike for four years, and the last two seasons have logged virtually no days on my bike.

And so one of the things that I'm really struggling with right now is the notion that everybody that I want to ride with is so much better than I am. And, and rather than feeling really excited to cross the threshold that I keep talking about. I am a little bit paralyzed by my fear of not being fit enough or not being able to keep up or Mm.

, being too scared to do the things that everybody else wants to do. And our next episode I think is gonna be about a beginner's mindset, which is , what I'm really trying to adopt this season. And I'm so bad at it, but I know that , if I want to get to, the skill level that I really want to be at in order to be able to hang with my friends in a mountain biking context, like I need to get started.

Mm-hmm. And nothing, , [00:47:00] except putting one foot in front of the other and getting out the door with my bike is gonna get me there. So shared goal, getting on our bikes. Yes.