thank the mountain

A few winters ago, I was skinning uphill toward a 10th Mountain Division hut deep in the backcountry of my home range when I found myself fully in the suck.

The light was fading quickly in that particular way winter light disappears in the mountains. My pack felt impossibly heavy. My hips were aching. Each step became more mental than physical. I started calculating distance obsessively, tunneling into how far we still had left to go.

My mind narrowed.

Why does this feel so hard?
Am I this out of shape?
Am I getting too old for this?

The familiar spiral of stress and self-judgment started tightening around me with every step uphill.

At some point, I stopped trying to mentally overpower the experience and returned to something simpler: breath.

I remembered that to breathe well, I have to exhale well.

So I started there. Matching the rhythm of my skis dragging uphill to the rhythm of my breath. Lengthening the exhale. Letting my body settle back into movement instead of argument.

Gradually, my attention widened again.

The mountain was still steep.
The pack was still heavy.
But I was no longer fighting reality.

And somewhere in that shift, a thought came quietly into awareness:

Thank the mountain.

Thank the mountain for the resistance.
Thank it for the weight.
Thank it for demanding presence.
Thank it for revealing where my mind collapses into fear, story, and limitation.
Thank it for asking more of me than comfort ever could.

That experience stayed with me.

Over the years, it became a metaphor I return to often in my work with people navigating chronic stress, transition, recovery, grief, performance pressure, and uncertainty.

Many people are carrying immense weight without ever clearly naming the mountain they are climbing.

Without orientation, stress easily becomes suffering without meaning. The nervous system contracts around confusion, helplessness, and survival. We begin reacting not only to present conditions, but to the stories we attach to them.

Part of the work is learning to name the mountain honestly.

Sometimes the mountain is real: healing, parenthood, leadership, grief, recovery, building something meaningful, telling the truth, beginning again.

These mountains ask something of us. They require energy, adaptation, humility, and endurance. But they also shape us. The resistance itself becomes part of the strengthening.

Other times, we discover we are climbing mountains built from old survival patterns rather than present reality.

The need to prove ourselves. The inability to rest. Chasing worth through exhaustion. Carrying identities that no longer belong to us. Continuing uphill simply because we do not know how to stop.

These are not true mountains. They are often inherited terrain shaped by fear, conditioning, unresolved stress, or old strategies for belonging and safety.

Learning the difference changes everything.

One path expands capacity, and the other quietly depletes life force.

The nervous system responds differently when effort is connected to meaning, choice, and clear orientation. Even difficult terrain becomes more navigable when we understand why we are climbing and remain connected to ourselves along the way.

The mountain does not always need to become lighter.

Sometimes we simply become more honest, more present, and more skillful in how we carry what is ours to carry.