Habits & Resilience
I arrive in the Sequoias alone at dusk, 200 hundred miles from my family, the night of the wolf moon.
I’ve only been on this road once, but I know where I am. I have a mental map of the big features. The large pond beyond the trees, the road bridge at the bottom of the hill, the stables on the far side. I can’t see them yet, but the knowing helps me relax my shoulders and take a deep breath.
I decide to trust my feet. The wolf moon is covered by a slight haze, but it casts just enough light to see the path stretching ahead. I walk in silence, as quiet as the silhouettes of the trees. Despite the darkness and the unfamiliarity, I feel safe. I have an understanding of the lay of the land.
That sense of safety doesn’t come from visibility; it comes from preparation.
I prepared myself with the same foundation of stability and safety I work to build with my clients before they face the complexities of a technical trail. That’s how I know what to teach.
When I work with clients on balance, I often have them stand on one foot and count backward from 20. I tell them we are actively practicing imbalance. We aren’t doing this because we are afraid of falling; we are doing it so that when the terrain shifts in real life, your body has already practiced the response.
I always ask the client, “Do you feel safe to do this?” That question matters. It gets the mind and body on the same page. It acknowledges that tiny spark of anxiety and transforms it into a deliberate physical investment.
In the Five Miles Further Community, we are beginning an eight-week process of Grounding for Growth. For the first 30 days, the only job is creating the habit. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, reminds us that “results are a lagging measure of your habits.”
For the next month, we drop the weight of expectation and focus only on showing up.
Don’t look for the summit. Don’t judge your pace. Just focus on building the baseline.
I practiced this myself when I started this journey. I didn’t know what “success” felt like yet—it wasn’t something my family modeled or believed in. So, I followed the lead of Dr. Joe Dispenza. In his book, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”, he explains that our cells don’t actually know the difference between a past memory and a future visualization. To the body, the experience is the same.
I began a daily practice of experiencing the outcome I wanted with all five senses. I didn’t just “see” myself as successful. I leaned into how I’d feel having already reached my goal: the feeling of a warm cup of tea as I walk into my virtual home studio; the sound of my own voice instructing a client, the smell of fresh air as I step out to meet a client in the early morning. I went through the motions until my cells believed the growth was already a reality.
To move past anxiety and toward progress, you must close the gap with your breath.
When I teach group classes, I ask for “10 more seconds” of muscle fatigue. They’ve already done the work; what is ten more seconds? That is usually when I remind everyone to breathe. Biologically, breath is the only difference between nervousness and excitement. Your cells recognize them as the exact same emotion. Your breath is the bridge that carries you from “I’m worried about this” to “I am prepared for this.”
In the Five Miles Further Community, we are just starting to build the foundation with a 30 day grounding protocol that will pave the way to small but meaningful shifts. There is no judgment, only the daily commitment to two habits.