Hello again. It’s been a couple of months since I wrote the first blog post and I received so much incredible feedback from everyone all with their own stories. Whether it was them telling me how they could relate to what I wrote or that they just enjoyed the read, I really appreciate all of the kind words and it’s also just another reminder that everyone has their own battles and you don’t really know what everyone is going through. I’ve always wanted to follow up with another post, but I didn’t want to blog just to blog. I think that’s why my first post resonated with so many people because it wasn’t a forced blog post, it was just something that I really felt like talking about and sharing my perspective. Well, yesterday on a flight back home from Florida, I had another experience and perspective that caused the wheels to spin in my head and I decided to write down some thoughts.

I was visiting a friend in Fort Myers for the weekend and had a connecting flight to Charlotte on the way home. I’m usually not bad with flying, but I guess there’s always a chance for things to go awry if you have problems with anxiety. I was in the middle seat between two other passengers and the beginning of the flight was going fine. I noticed myself starting to get anxious as we were experiencing turbulence, but just closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. It was only an hour and a half flight so I figured by the time I woke up we’d be there. The anxiety continued to build until finally having anxiety about the fear of having a panic attack snowballed past the point of no return. My heart started racing, I started to get the cold sweats, I was short of breath, and frankly just felt like I was going to throw up. In the moment, the fear and panic was so real. I frantically looked around and the girl on the left of me was sleeping and the guy to my right put his head down on the tray the second the flight started and hadn’t looked up since. I felt trapped. And honestly, I really was. All I wanted to do was get up and leave. I just remember thinking I had to get off the plane or the plane had to land or they had to let me walk around, I don’t really know what I was expecting to happen, but I just knew I had to get out. But what was I going to do on a plane 30,000+ feet in the air? I looked down at my watch and my heart almost beat out of my chest when I saw we still had an hour on the flight. I just remember thinking, “There’s absolutely no way that I can make it an hour”. With really no choice, I took a deep breath and said, “Alright it’s an hour. Take it as four 15 minute quarters”. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking.. I’m crazy and it’s too classic that I am using football terminology to help me) So I sat there listening to music, focusing on my breathing, just staring at back of the seat in front of me trying not to obsess about the panic going on inside of me. 15 minutes went by. “Alright you made it through 1 quarter.. you can do another”. 30 minutes went by, but still no real sign of the anxiety letting up. “Alright you made it halfway, just focus on making it to the 4th quarter”. And I did that all the way until the plane landed on the ground and I was able to get off to calm myself down. Once I got off, I caught my breath, calmed down and treated myself to some lunch. Now that I was calm, I was just sitting at the table eating laughing at myself for how crazy I was on the plane. It all seemed so crazy that I would let myself get like that. But in that moment, in my heart of hearts, I honestly did not think I would make it an hour on that plane. But somehow, I did.

Now I’m simply using my experience on the plane as a platform to convey the message, I know there are far more daunting obstacles and trials that people go through than having anxiety on a plane, but the fact of the matter is a lot of people reading this have been in a place where they didn’t know how they were going to make it through that time in their life. But you did. One day you woke up and somehow, someway, you realized things were getting better. Or maybe you’re currently in that place now. Whether its depression or anxiety or just something going on in your life that makes you genuinely wonder how you’ll ever make it through, the idea of ever getting through this rough patch may seem so improbable to you. It’s perfectly natural for us to just see how far it seems we have to climb and be so fixated on how high the summit looks.

After graduation I went on a road trip to some national parks with my friend, Ryan, from college. When we were at Zion National Park, he really wanted to hike Angels Landing. This trail involves going up a narrow summit up to about 6,000 feet I believe, but the trail is so steep and narrow that they have chained ropes bolted into the mountain you have to use as you scale to the top. I’ve never been very good with heights, so even though this trail was one of the most famous in the park, I was planning on sitting that one out. If you’ve never been to Zion, this trail is set up at the top of another trail. So you have to hike up a trail and then at the top, you can branch off to hike Angels Landing. So we hiked up the first part and got to the start of the next climb, and I remember just looking up and thinking, “There’s absolutely no way I am doing that”. Ryan could tell I wanted nothing to do with climbing this part, so he suggested we go up a little ways, rest, and if it’s too much I can turn back. So we’d hike up to a spot where we could rest and he would ask how I was doing. I was frozen in fear just bear hugging the chain rope giving the look like, “What. Are. We. Doing?!” And he would just look at me and say “Look at the start, you’ve already made it all the way up to here, we can go a little farther and then see how we are doing”. (He later admitted he never had any intention of ever stopping) But we did that the entire way. All the way to the top. Every time we would stop, I would think to myself, “I have no idea how I have made it this far up”. But I had. Seeing how far I had come, gave me a little bit more hope and a little bit less fear every time.

Life will throw the “I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get through this” moments at you and it can seem impossible to overcome. So take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, whatever it takes to help you keep you going. As MLK said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward”. Day by day things may seem like you’re not getting anywhere, but when you look back to where you started, you can see how far you actually have progressed. If you’re in a place right now that may seem like there’s no hope or that there will never be a way through it, focus on the small victories. I’ll never try to downplay the struggles and the hand that anyone is dealt in life, but no matter how dark and hopeless things may seem, reach out to a friend and do your best to keep moving forward. I’m not saying the pain of a loss or the struggles every truly go away, but day by day you get stronger. Slowly, that summit won’t seem so high anymore. So keep climbing. Have someone help you along the way. Stop to rest and enjoy the view. And don’t forget to reflect on how far you’ve already gone.