Fight, flight or freeze.
Hi
How are you? It has taken me since Wednesday to publish with email. Technology is making me work for it this week.
The weekend just gone Scott, Tom and I went to visit my sister on her cattle property in Southwest Queensland, a place where the closest neighbour is kilometres away, where as far as the eye can see is open land that is within their boundaries. Where on my morning walk down the driveway (that takes 15 minutes) on the east side the sun was rising and, on the west, the full moon was hanging low in all of its incredible glory. The beauty of them accompanying me in the stillness of a new day gave me a tear in my eye.
On Saturday afternoon, the 9 of us piled into one car, ladies in the front of the ute, men and children (the children are aged between 14 and 18) in the tray, we drove to one of the far paddocks to climb up to “the caves”. In the 19 years we have been visiting Christmas Creek we have never been to the caves.
The caves are on top of a very steep hill, from the ground the caves are not visible behind the trees that cover the side of the hill, a hill covered in fallen trees, rocks, gravel, small shrubs. By the time my sister and I stopped chatting and got out of the car, one of her girls was already near the caves with the others not far behind. Scott waited for me, and we started up to the caves together.
About halfway up, overwhelming fear overtook me. I could not lift my head or my eyes to what was in front of me, I could not look back; I could only look at my feet. Scott was holding my hand and trying to pull me along, the fear of going higher up this mountain put me in the grip of fight, flight or freeze, and I was stuck. My heart was racing, I could not talk to Scott, my whole body was frozen except for the tears. I could hear my family laughing and chatting in the caves, which I could not look at. At one point I could hear them cheering me on telling me to keep going, I was nearly to the top. This made the fear of going higher up the cliff even worse. My mind was racing with how much higher? Scott was clutching my hand, I was barely moving my feet, but they were all I could look at. I was focussed on the new hole in the toe of my old sand shoes I was wearing because I didn’t care if they were covered in red dirt or prickles.
By the time I sat next to my sister in the cave, a sob came out of my throat in sheer relief, I still couldn’t look down, only out at the tops of the trees and the paddock beyond. I sat and let the emotion of fear run its course through me, and looked at the details of the cave that could have only been created by water. The texture of the sandstone, the shape of the cave we were sitting in, the fall of the land, we could see that at one point in history everything would have been underwater. It was truly incredible to have an experience realising how short a human life is compared to the ancient, majesty of the cave, while also realising how insignificant fears are, I did not die walking up that hill, nothing terrible happened. I was so fearful of it, that it froze me, that it had so much power over me that I could not be anywhere but the present moment looking at my feet and through that fear once I reached the top; the hill gave me the most incredible gifts of trust in myself, that I can overcome my fears, to say in the present, to keep moving one step at a time.
When it was time to come down, Scott was walking beside me and I was determined to go on my own after watching my nieces and my boy make their way down laughing, joking and with confidence of each step. I kept my eyes again on my feet and took one step at a time on the steep slope and turned and thanked the caves when I reached the flat ground at the bottom.
We went back to the house, sat around the fire, appreciated the full moon, ate steak and drank champagne and promised myself that every time I go to Christmas Creek, I will go to the caves.
Have a think about these.
When was the last time you said yes that scares you?
Where are you challenging yourself?
Where are you pushing your own boundaries?
What is something you can do today to make yourself proud?
Who is leading you by example?
When was the last time you celebrated doing something you have done?
What is one big audacious dream?
Who do you want to be?
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