Fear and thru-hiking: From flight-or-fight to wisdom, transformation and compassion

We are all intimately familiar with fear. What does fear feel like for you? I recently came across a dairy entry I wrote in 2017, when I was in the grip of insomnia, something I periodically struggled with throughout my teens and twenties:

“My heart beats harder. My temperature rises. The fatigue drains from my body, like a receding tide. I’m reflexively switching into survival mode, and my limbs – so calm and relaxed mere minutes ago – are rigid and tense. Soon I’ll be so agitated I’ll have to get up and do something; clean, work, write, anything to escape this discomfort, this gnawing, raging fear. I’ll have to tire myself out – really work at it, and then try again. When I’m going through an insomnia ‘spell’, these kind of lonely long nights can bleed into one another, repeating agonisingly in a zombie-like war against self.”

I’ve been pondering on the subject of fear lately, as my husband and I are now just 8 weeks away from starting the Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike, a 4260km continuous hike through the USA, from the Mexican to the Canadian borders. This is by far the biggest adventure we have ever undertaken and in order to be able to complete 4-5months of wilderness hiking, we are mobilising and sorting many aspects of our lives, like finances, insurance, legal concerns – the list is long. As we have been engaged in this preparation period, we have been staying with my parents in South Africa, and conversations frequently lean towards risks and ‘what if’s’ (parents excel at coming up with these questions).

Scared into action by these conversations, and through researching insurance policies (that trade and profit on the assumption of fear), I have been asking myself, ‘what am I afraid of, and, what are the risky issues/factors we may encounter over a PCT thru-hike that don’t seem to make me fearful?

Not thriving in the cold. All images by Chris & Nina

What I fear about a PCT thru-hike

• Injury (through overuse/strain and through accident).
• Cold (a lot of rain and snow in particular).
• Exhaustion (related to insufficient sleep/rest and excessive exercise even when on menstruation cycle, which I already know leads to iron deficiency for me).

What I’m not afraid of (that may be considered risk factors)

• Snakes/ bears/ spiders (I grew up in the wilderness in South Africa – dangerous animals, reptiles and insects were common. I recognise that we are invading their space. They aren’t ‘hunting’ us; we follow best practice to avoid infringing on their space).
• Parasites/ gastro-complications (I have a strong stomach from ‘3rd world’ upbringing; trust water filter precautions we will take).
• Hiking partner issues/ personal dynamics (we have hiked a lot together already – 100% trust).
• Hunger (we have done several multi-day trails and I feel confident I provision well).
• Heat (my happy place).
• Getting lost (GPS, with backup physical maps).
• US border issues as foreigners under Trump administration (not in our control and just not worth stressing about).

But it’s not really about WHAT you fear, it’s about HOW you deal with fear

I did not (and still don’t) fully understand why I would slip into the ‘insomnia spells’. I did all the advised things, and took all the supplements and precautions to prepare my mind and body for sleep, and still, there it was, this raging fear that kept me from sleeping, creating a vicious cycle. As I reflect on this I see that the object of fear is not the important part, nor is it how isolating and unique your fear seems to you at the time of prevalence. Rather, what is important and worth grappling with is the universality of fear, and the choices we each make in how we deal with it.

I have found the writings of Buddhist scholar and luminary, Pema Chödrön*, on fear most illuminating. In her book, When Things Fall Apart, Chödrön talks about fear as a natural and fundamental human experience – part of being alive. When faced with fear, we’re vulnerable. And yet, fear has a “throbbing quality to it”, charged with potential. Chödrön explains that from a Buddhist perspective, when we experience fear its because we’ve moved into the spotlights. We’re faced with the unexpected, the challenging, or the unknown, and we experience “groundlessness” when all our faults and insecurities are exposed. Under the glare of fear-filled headlights, its like staring into a magnifying mirror – worts, pimples, lines and scars are achingly obvious.

Absolutely thriving in the heat on a PCT training hike in South Africa.

Reflex reactions – run, reject, avoid

Our reflex reaction in the face of fear is to run, or consume intoxicants, or to indulge in the numbing quality of overworking, for hedonistic hazes, distractions and crutches. In the context of our PCT thru-hike fears – the reflex response would be to cancel. To not go. Our consumerist culture broadcasts all the ways in which we don’t have to: Delusion, deception and diversion are the most immediate options.

Leaning into fear

But what would happen if we didn’t flee and, instead, we leaned into fear? When you look fear in the face there is nowhere to escape and its terrifying. Its the hardest thing to do. For me, it means pausing, taking a breath, feeling the feels – the gut churning, the temples raging, the bone-crashing clench of my jaw, the muscles aching and snapping along my back, the flames licking at my throat. I could think of a million more edifying things to do than that! And yet, impressed by Chödrön’s measured advice when I first came across it in 2017, I began staying present, observing my breath, not judging, not trying to cover it up.

I can tell you that its not fun. But things become crystal clear. When I lean into my moments of fear, I see with startling, painful clarity, exactly what it is I’m trying to avoid, what it is I don’t want to accept, see, or hear. In this ugly light, fear changes. As I reveal my inadequacies, so fear is unrobed as a natural reaction or gift of experience in the process of moving closer to the truth. Through these wretched ‘show and tell’ sessions, I’m coming to know myself better, more honestly.

Fear is transformative

Chödrön points out that in these skin-crawlingly uncomfortable moments there is a latent tenderness and potential. These moments of fear are shaky and horrifying, but they’re also a sign that we’re on the verge of something. As if standing on a cliff-edge, we have a choice: Lean in and embrace the fullness of the moment, or shut down, delude and feel resentful. Leaning in, she argues, is where potential for transformation and healing is found.

At the epicentre of this “throbbing potential” is the realisation that encountering fear and subsequent transformation is not about resolution. The point of leaning into fear and the present moment is not to overcome or ‘solve the problem’ of your misery. This is hard to accept. Everything in our modern, logic-driven human minds seeks out neat and tidy resolution, order, reason and conclusions. Buddhist perspectives tend to differ however. Chödrön reminds us that “things don’t really get solved”. The truth of the human experience is more about chaos, irresolution, arbitrariness, and mystery than about neat stories and conclusions: “ come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen”.

Gaining perspective from the Western Cape of South Africa as we prepare for whatever unfolds this year!

Fear is part of the journey, don’t fight, be compassionate

Healing and wisdom can be discovered in letting this pattern of dissolution and complexity, clarity and completeness unfold, and sticking with it, not shying from the blinding clarity of imperfection and flux. This is because when we’re on the verge and faced with fear, there is so much tenderness in us, and we have the potential to turn this tenderness towards ourselves. Fear is overcome not with hard-edged discipline and warrior-like muscle, but with tenderness. Fear melts with our courage to feel compassion for ourselves. Fear melts when we accept imperfection and don’t react, when we lean into, wide-eyed, and bleed from the heart, when we encounter it with unconditional compassion for ourselves and the resolve to not let our tenderness harden and concretise into bitterness, judgement, loathing or disappointment. Courageous people are not fearless – this is not the point at all – but they are consistently compassionate to themselves as ‘tryers’ and ‘works in progress’.

*I discuss this here with full knowledge that Pema Chödrön wrote When Thing Falls Apart whilst she was part of the Shambhala Buddhist organisation. She later resigned from the organisation over her disagreement with how the organisation was run and it’s lack of accountability when it was implicated in cases of sexual misconducted committed by another senior member.