In the early 90’s, I was walking out of a barber shop in Bristol and suffered my first ever panic attack. Little did I know that this was the start of several years of panic attacks, agoraphobia and depression.
I can remember feeling like my life had been taken away, what a waste it was…a deep feeling of despair.
After a few difficult years, trying different treatments and methods, I eventually found a way to slowly but surely drag myself back to living my life again.
Now, that’s not to say I never had the occasional set back. But with time, they became less frequent, and less disruptive. Not by chance, but because I had learned some new life tools.
As I resolved these challenges, my resilience and self-belief grew. I changed career (from Accountant to Recruiter), I set up my own company…..and a few more things besides.
But the pinnacle for me was when I started hiking. In 2018 I decided to hike a long way for charity, to mark my 50th birthday the following year.
Whilst training, many times I found myself in exposed places, an agoraphobic’s worst nightmare!
In these moments, I would smile, and realise that my life had not been taken away after all. Far from it. In fact, those hill tops were all the more special for having had that tough period of my life.
A couple or so months after I completed the hike, feeling unashamedly proud of my achievement, I decided to combine this success with tackling my fear of heights.
So, with a good friend of mine, we walked up Snowdon. Now I appreciate for many this is no big deal, but for me it was. Not for the physical challenge, but because of what it represented – where I had come from, and where I was now.
So, what’s the point of this? Well for me, it’s what I learned, summarised below:
Don’t despair if you’re going through difficulty.
Take each day, or each step, one at a time. Don’t peer into the future when to do so makes you feel worse.
Try to shut out unwanted “noise”, slow down, breathe…and focus on what you have, and can do.
I’m not a fatalist by nature, but so often growth and strength comes from struggle.
And the passage of time will often offer a radically different perspective.
So much is in our heads, and we’re in control of this…we just need to realise, and re-author what we tell ourselves.
Oh…and one final point – hiking IS fundamentally good for the soul! 😊
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