On fear, failure, and growth

I'd seen downhill mountain bike trails on a few dog-walks, and wondered. It's for kids, isn't it? Or young people? Not for middle-aged road cyclists. You might not have the reactions, the instincts. My inner child pleaded with me: "pleeeease. It looks, you know, fun?" The Forest cycle centre had well landscaped downhill trails divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. There was fear about my skills, about my bike and its ability to withstand the trails, about failure. I didn't want to badly hurt myself or break anything. Fear, failure, growth, pain: it's a complicated and common mix. Climbing a steep trail through the site, I saw mostly young boys and teenagers hurtling down trails to the side of me, flying much faster than I would dare. At the bottom I'd overheard one tell his dad that he'd fallen off three times on the way down. Maybe you fear failure and injury less as a kid. My inner child woke up again, feeling like he was at a swimming pool, climbing a ladder to a high diving board, unsure if he was brave enough to jump. We felt like we should and could, but we were terrified. Surely it was possible to temporarily back further away at the top, go and practise a little more, grow confidence and skills, gain the courage. A groaning of self-doubt in my belly, a jangling twist of fear and excitement. Reaching the end of the steep path, I mounted the bike and decided no, not yet, and pedalled away to give myself more experience on lesser trails. I passed a few more dads and lads. Surely I could do this, especially if I kept it steady. Slowly my confidence grew. I took an intermediate blue route. 'Is this the route for you?' a stern signpost checked. 'Don't know!' I shrieked back in my head. ''Let's find out!' I'd never been skiing but wondered if this was anything like skiing. The high-sided slalom runs, the quickly reacting, the adrenaline rush. No wonder it was popular. There was a deeper parallel about the need for forward motion, a combination of self-propulsion and gravitational pull to successfully round sharp corners, fly over obstacles. The required acceptance of incomplete control. You need to experience a rhythm and momentum to grow into it.  

Downhill mountain bike trails are like time. Time is our forward motion, our speed and pace. We will face challenges and we'll need to adapt or navigate around them. Hopefully they won't come quite as fast and suddenly as that solid looking tree, but there are no guarantees. They might. Some could be impassable. Some might unsaddle us, hurt us badly. Risk is part of life. We have to keep going, feeling our way. Downhill mountain bike trails are like a talking therapy session. There might be hesitation, discomfort and uncertainty in how to approach certain difficult obstacles or subjects. There might be pauses. You might need pace and rhythm. You might need to just talk and see what comes out, sense how it lands, feel how it feels. You won't die. But it often takes an acceptance of vulnerability, which takes courage. Onto a harder trail, feeling my bones being rattled and thumped through the frame of the bike. At no point did I have any supreme confidence that I would not falter at the next turn, fall and hurt myself. At no point did I feel anything but a novice, a rookie, a beginner. That was part of the experience. Some say an awareness of our mortality is what makes us human, what makes us alive. I felt alive. And yet I felt myself smiling and laughing, incredulous at this ridiculous challenge and at my ridiculous self, and at the fact I was doing it. In the face of fear, failure, and possible pain, I was doing it.