Life Unchained: Rising to Face Your Fear

In October of 1995, my friend Max woke up in the backseat of his Corolla somewhere in the mountains of Southern Utah. The door was dinging, the driver’s seat was empty, and the world was inky black. He eventually found me crying like an unloved child in a rainstorm, trying to piss on a bush at a scenic overlook.

The "big brass pair" I’d strutted around with on the flatlands of Minnesota had melted in the mountain cold. Max told me to zip up and get in the car. Then he drove us the rest of the way to the neon lights of Las Vegas.

As we pulled into the neon-lit parking lot of Circus-Circus, I was still shivering with shame. I’d stepped out of my comfort zone and completely lost my nerve. I felt just like the little kid I wasn’t supposed to be anymore at 19.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d given myself a crippling fear of mountain driving. The sort of thing that’s burned into your neurons like a newborn phobia. The battle I would go through to face my new fear of mountain driving would become the blueprint I would use to face other fears that loomed large in my life.

Stuck In the Flatlands

I spent the next 15 years hiding from that fear. It wasn’t hard, when you consider that my home state of Minnesota barely has molehills, let alone mountains. Some people who knew me for decades never suspected I was absolutely terrified of mountain driving.

I found a way to stay in the comfort zone flatlands of my life, and that gave me the confidence to fake that I was just fine. It was easy to walk around with a big brass pair when nothing challenged me.

When my college buddies and I drove to Florida for Spring Break, I took the early driving shift all the way through Illinois and Indiana. That way, someone else would be at the wheel when we hit the Appalachians, and no one was going to think I wasn’t pulling my weight behind the wheel.

This is a common human coping mechanism. When it comes to our biggest fears, we tend to stay in the flatlands of our comfort zones. 

I want you to hear the gravel in my voice when I ask you this: What is the major fear you’re hiding from in the flatlands of your life? 

Whisper it to yourself, or if you’re bold, I challenge you to write it down.

It doesn’t have to be a laundry list of fears, just pick the biggest one, and whisper it to yourself eight times or write it down eight times. This repetition helps make it real in your conscious mind, without letting that fear stay partially hidden in the unconscious dungeon of your identity.

The Mountains Always Loom Large

In 2009, the Great Recession grabbed my career by the short-and-curlies. I lost my ad agency job, and the only work I could find was as a freelance travel writer. At first, it sounded like a dream come true. I loved travel, and I’d always dreamed of being a published writer.

The first assignment they gave me was the Black Hills of South Dakota. If you aren’t familiar with the area, they aren't exactly "Hills." They’re mini mountains.

I’ve learned in life that you can avoid your fears for a hell of a long time, but eventually they’ll catch up to you. The longer you wait to face them, the higher and more foreboding the peaks become.

Driving to Rapid City started out painfully boring. Eastern South Dakota is still more flatlands and rolling prairie. Then, the Missouri River Valley down into Chamberlain was downright beautiful. I had a lovely lunch in Oacoma. Then I had to drive out of the valley.

It’s technically a straight shot of a road, straight up hill. Steeper than it looks and more persistent. The transmission of my truck kicked down once, as it fell out of cruise control. The headwind howled down the valley, shuddering the steering wheel, glistening with sweat in my hands.

Desperately stomping the gas pedal to the floor, the transmission kicked down again. I leaned forward as if trying to will the wheel up against the gravity crushing down on my heart. “When will it stop!” I yelled in the empty cab.

You see, the first time you bump up against your fear, it’s going to surprise you. You’re going to get slapped with heavy doubt. There's no trick to it, you just have to push through it. And it's that little act of pushing through it, that starts to rewire your brain to believing that courage is worth it.

Baby Steps Toward Courage

I started small. I drove the wide, swooping tourist roads, with perfect infrastructure that gave me a taste of the heights without the switchbacks that haunted my dreams.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches that when you break a new skill into little pieces, it becomes manageable. If you want to face a fear of snakes, you don't wrap a python around your neck on day one. You watch a documentary. You visit a zoo. You touch a garter snake. You sleep with a herpetologist. It acclimates your nervous system to dealing with the fear in small doses.

Reaching for the Next Climb

A month later, I had to drive a contact into the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan. This meant someone would see my sweaty palms. They’d see the fog on the windshield from my panicked breathing.

I could have stiffened my upper lip and faked it, but I knew I’d eventually break. Instead, I was honest. In a joking voice, I said, “It’s been a long time since I drove in the mountains. Be gentle with me.”

Asking for help is a critical component of learning to face your fears. That man didn't judge me. It actually gave him a little ego boost to be the dude who could show off his mountain driving experience, teaching me. He showed me the technique of things like how to hit the apex of a turn. How to lift off the gas going in, the power out of a switchback, and how to let the transmission wash off the speed.

Pushing Yourself Higher

Up to this point, facing my fear of mountain driving had always been thrust upon me. Yet if you’re only reacting to what the world throws at you, you’re not really someone who’s in command of your destiny. To truly conquer your fear, you have to choose to lean into it. 

Another month later, I was summoned to the Black Hills again. This time to take a band of group travel agents on a tour of the Custer State Park Wilderness Loop. The problem, I would have to drive through the nefarious Needle’s highway.

A twisting stretch of asphalt rife with serpentine switchback curves, tunnels, and oncoming traffic. The sort of thing that would’ve made me piss myself back on the side of the road in Utah. Stepping up to the challenge, I went out a day early and drove the Needles alone.

Just me, my fear, and the twisting road ahead. No clients to impress, no schedules to rush off to. Just me alone with the kind of mountain roads I once terrified.

Turning the radio off, I put the truck into gear and started up the twisting road ahead of me. The transmission whining with each steep uphill grade. My hands sweaty but not wet with panic. My foot tired from braking and accelerating but not weary with doubt.

I negotiated the one-way tunnels with other drivers, patiently taking my turn without taking the mirrors off. Stopping off at the overlook to catch my breath while letting the scenery take my breath away.

I’m not going to tell you I was cooler than the flipside of the pillow every moment along the way. I simply took it on with grace and patience. I faced the fear before me with the kind of confidence that is built by challenging yourself with small steps.

So, when it came time to face that road the next day, I wasn’t just struggling to perform with the clients. I was a dude taking his eyes off the road telling humorous anecdotes, while the guy in the passenger seat kept fake braking!

Rising to the Final Test

I’d come a long way and really felt like I’d conquered my fear of mountain driving. Then came the day no son ever wants to face. My father, on his deathbed. Driven half mad by the fear of the end, he started shooting out pieces of advice and last wishes like a Pez dispenser. Two stuck out the most.

Driven half-mad by the end, he shot out advice like a Pez dispenser. He’d always likened me to Tristan Ludlow from Legends of the Fall. He grabbed my shirt and told me: “Find a good woman to love. She’ll keep you from running off to the mountains and leaving the world behind.” Then, he whispered: “Take your daughter to all the places I took you… And go a little bit further.”

I followed his wishes, leaving postmarks from his stamp collection at every park we visited. But there was one place left on the list, I knew I’d have to face eventually. The infamous Beartooth Pass. It is one of the most intimidating mountain roads in the country. I could have avoided it. I could have taken a lesser pass, and my daughter would never have known. My father was gone; I wasn't worried about him judging me from the afterlife.

Owning the title of fearless requires you to stand up to the thing you’re afraid of, when no one else is watching. Because in the end, the person you’re really facing off against, is the one in the mirror.    

Parked at the gas station in Red Lodge, Montana, I looked up at that 11,000-foot beast. I remembered my own mother howling when my dad took us over this pass. I saw the twisted guardrails destroyed by avalanches. I chose it anyway.

I put the truck in gear and started the ascent.

Switchback after switchback, we climbed into the snowpack, winding around narrow stretches with no shoulder to save us from the plunge. We snapped a picture at the summit. I didn't tell anyone the story then. I just picked up a rock and slid it into an envelope.

My daughter asked what I was doing.

“Someday when I’m gone,” I said, “I want you to put this rock back.”

We descended into the Lamar Valley with my hands dry, my resolve firm, and my faith in myself fully restored.

 

Holding Your Head Up High

I want you to hear the gravel in my voice when I tell you this truth. “True power doesn’t come from being really good at hiding from your fears. True power is found by rising up to do what needs to be done, in the face of fear.”

We all carry immense fears in the cold corners of our minds. It took me decades, but learning to face the objective mountains taught me how to face the subjective ones.

You’re likely sitting there right now with something lurking in your thoughts. It is time to leave the flatlands. It is time to face the climb. I believe in you because I know how powerful it is to finally believe in yourself.