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Now that the snow has mostly melted off the trails at 8,500′, I can finally ride my mountain bike again. To say riding a bike is important to me is an understatement. Except for the Colorado winters we moved into 15 years ago, I’ve probably ridden my bike a couple days a week for nearly 50 years now. The last two homes we’ve lived in were chosen due to their proximity to biking trails. It’s that important. When I’m on my bike, I’m five years old again … and I love that!

Yet at the beginning of every bike season, in some ways, I need how to learn how to ride a bike again. Just the other day I was able to get out for the first time since last November. At one point along the trail I found myself veering off the narrow single track and into a dirt berm. As the dirt gripped my tire tread I started to lose my balance. I wasn’t going particularly fast and the trail wasn’t particularly difficult but my balance on a bicycle is something I’m particularly proud of so beginning to lose it was unnerving, to say the least.

But being quarantined for the last however many weeks had given me the ‘opportunity’ to hone my mental balance so I didn’t freak out and fall. I could feel the calmness in my mind as I let go of the thoughts of panic and humiliation that passed before me. As a result, I was able to stay with the moment and just observe as my hands and arms gently moved the handlebars back toward the center of the trail and I rode away with a smile.

It might take me a few more rides (and a few more close escapes) to get my physical balance back up-to-snuff but I love knowing that my mind is well conditioned to keep me in the present moment, free of those dangerous fears of failure, and able to bounce back to our innate sense of calm and clarity where life is lived.

If having this ability to stay calm in a crisis would be helpful for you, message me here, email me at jeff@thelogosgroup.net or call (415) 298-9139. I can help you find your inherent balance … it’s what I do.

I had just spent the week living out of an Airbnb off the Metro line for Denver Startup Week. My actual home is an hour away, high in the Rocky Mountains west of Boulder, but I didn’t want to commute in everyday for the early breakfast sessions and evening cocktail hours and was looking forward to the change of pace ‘City Living’ brings. I really enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to commute by rail, walk the city, ride the elevators, meet some ‘movers’ and some ‘shakers’ and just get into the urban grit. 

Three days later I find myself at Wolf Creek Pass, standing on top of the Continental Divide at 10,857′ in a remote part of south-western Colorado. I’ve just hitched a ride from where I parked six miles below and hoisted my 45 pound pack to head into the unbelievable Weminuche Wilderness. Launching into a 4-day, 40-mile solo backpacking trip along the spine of the Divide feels especially surreal in the moment because, unbeknownst to me, I haven’t really left the city… 

I’m no more than a quarter mile in when I catch the horrible scent of fresh feces and think out loud, “Who in the Hell dropped-trou in the middle of the trail?” What it took me a few too many seconds to realize was that my reaction was based on the City Living mindset that I hadn’t shaken. I was still mentally on the train rolling through Denver where the smell of human feces wasn’t all that unusual… 

In that instant I realized it wasn’t human feces I was smelling but a bear! That flipped the switch immediately from ‘City Jeff’ to ‘Mountain Jeff’ and all my senses became hyper-aware as I felt more homo sapiens sapiensthen I had in months. Now I could feel the wind circling around me, disguising the source and direction of the scent. I saw that the narrow 12″ trail I was walking was loose from recently melted snow and fell off dramatically to my left. I wound through a burned forest where every tree held widow-maker branches creaking in the wind. My head, now on an orbital swivel, helps me to clearly make out two sets of bear tracks – a mother and her cub – coming toward me, thank God (this means they’re most likely behind me). I take a breath now that I don’t necessarily need to worry about meeting them around the next bend… I can hear, smell, see and even ‘taste’ and ‘feel’ things I hadn’t noticed as I become deeply attuned to the incredible natural environment I’m now enmeshed in. 

One of the highlights of my route was a spot described in the guide book as “completely taking your breath away” by giving the “sensation of being led on some rickety old platform right into the void.” I couldn’t wait to be THERE. As I was moving along the Divide the following day, a sheer cliff came into view with a snow-filled trail zig-zagging its way down from the saddle, perilously close to the far edge at one particular turn toward the top. I exclaimed out loud, “That must be the spot!” It was still close to 10 miles away so I had the ‘pleasure’ of watching it come closer, loom larger, and definitively become ‘the spot’ for the next 4 hours… 

Finally arriving at the base of the cliff, I could see that the trail was fairly clear until about half-way, where it became completely snow filled. When I got to that point, I found that the balance was, indeed, impassable and decided to leave the trail and climb directly upward, connecting the few barren spots and rock outcroppings to create a relatively snow-free path to the top. What I didn’t expect was that the barren spots were moist from the recent melt and that the entire cliff-face was unstable. This realization came as I attempted to use hiking poles as climbing axes and still found myself slowly sliding downward. I looked down between my legs and saw the 1,000′ drop to a rock garden at the face’s bottom. 

I was immediately overcome with panic. My mind raced with thoughts of death and all my external senses ceased. I felt trapped within myself, hanging on the side of a cliff, paralyzed with fear. I have had enough experience exploring ‘mindfulness’ to recognize the danger of this thought process and told myself, “Self, if you don’t get over your fear, you’re going to die falling off this mountain.” This realization flipped the switch again, snapping me out of City Jeff’s fear and bringing Mountain Jeff present into a place of clarity. My heart stopped racing, the tension in my head relaxed, my whole body cooled and I could feel things again. I felt normal, I just happened to be hanging from a cliff. But I wasn’t going to follow the fear. Now I could see a path of rocks and earth and vegetation above leading me out, as long as I kept moving upward. So I did. I never made it to the spot fantasized in the guide book but was just fine with that. My breath had been sufficiently taken away… 

The next day I found myself soaking alone in the Rainbow Hot Spring on the bank of the San Juan River, tired and sore but quietly ecstatic. I had once again been connected with my real ‘human’, feeling what it’s like to move like an animal through wilderness on the same wave length as the flora and fauna, resonating again with the Earth. It is from this place that we are able to see our thoughts for what they are and engage with them as WE wish. It is in this place that we find clear thinking and inspiration. I was thrilled to know this perspective is just one thought away and that I have the ability to move from thought to consciousness and back, whatever the circumstances, whether it’s to save my own life or just to relish in the full-body beauty of a natural hot spring. We all have this ability, we just don’t necessarily know it … yet.

‘Western’ school of thought: “Panic! Panic! Panic! Everything is out of control!”

‘Eastern’ school of thought: “Relax… Everything is out of control.” 

How is it that there can be two, such different reactions to the same circumstances?

We first need to come to grips with how our minds work:

1. Something happens (i.e., circumstances)

2. Our minds generate a thought (or a thousand…)

3. We make meaning out of that thought (because we are the animal who ‘knows’ we know – homo SAPIENS sapiens)

 So what in there is actually under our control?

The circumstances? Good luck with that! Despite our best intentions and efforts, things tend to happen in their own sweet time, regardless of how hard we work to influence some control over almost any situation [pause for moment of reflection]. In the end and in the face of our frustrations, we succumb to the mantra, ‘shit happens’. 

The ‘creative writing department’ between our ears (i.e., our thoughts)? Believe it or not, the advent of the fMRI machine shows us that we have 30-70 THOUSAND unique thoughts each and every day (no wonder we struggle…). Fortunately, most thoughts we don’t even notice. Yet, there are some we can’t get out of our heads. Think of the last time you didn’t meet your own expectations … how’d that conversation with yourself go? Did it last for a few hours or a few days? How many thoughts went through your head then? So, how much control do you really have over the thoughts generated in your head? Try as we might, the pink elephant remains… 

How about the meaning we make of the thoughts? Now we’re onto something! You see, we may not have any control of our circumstances or the thoughts our brain kicks out about those circumstances, but we can decide how seriously to take those thoughts. We even have this phenomenal somatic sensory system built in that generates a visceral feeling associated with certain thoughts. When I get really stressed out, my heart tightens, my head gets hot and my body tingles. I’ve learned that when I feel these sensations, I know my mind has grabbed onto something fierce and my body sounded the alarm. So, I welcome that feeling in to see what I can learn from it (queue Rumi’s ‘The Tavern’). 

PRO TIP: This awareness, alone, tends to stop the thought storm in its tracks. 

You see, we can’t actually change our thoughts (they just come along too quickly), but we do have the ability to let them go by and wait for the next one. When we understand that life, thought and our related experiences are fluid (don’t get me started on quantum wave theory…), we know that another thought will soon follow and then we can decide, through consciousness, what to do about that one … or the next one, or the next. I’ve found that in conversation, when my mind gets sped up and I’m anxious to add my $0.02, I see that ‘thought’ for what it is and can decide to let it go. When I do chose to let it go, my mind gets clearer, I get more into the conversation (in other words, I listen more deeply) and when the silence hits (like the other person actually finishes their thought), an appropriate insight seems to flow right out of me (usually in the form of a question, which I always find interesting … a quiet mind is where curiosity lives). When our minds are ‘busy’, there is no room for true insight. It’s like a snow globe that’s cloudy when shaken but clears when set down. 

There is tremendous freedom (joy, contentment, etc.) in understanding that we have no control over our circumstances or our thoughts (advantage, Buddha) – especially in times of crisis. Think about it: why is it that when under duress, so many lose their minds while some remain calm? 

Which do you want to be?

If you’re not the one YOU want to be, let me help you. This is what I do. Give me a call at (415) 298-9139, message me or email jeff@thelogosgroup.net. Thank you!