This last week marked one year since Hurricane Helene roared through Western North Carolina, taking with her homes, trees, and the illusion of safety. The last year has been a lot of things for all of us. Many of our critical roads are still YEARS from being open to the public. Businesses are starting to reopen, and some never will. Lake Lure is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on silt and debris removal, but it is still many months away from being usable again.
With all the progress and lack of progress, something happened last week that reminded me once again of the saying rough waters make good sailors.
Just as we were all gearing up to celebrate the one-year milestone since Helene, another storm was brewing in the Atlantic. For about 24 hours, it looked like it was likely to come barreling through Charleston and into Western NC on a similar path to Hugo from 30 plus years ago. As to be expected, my first thought was dread, fear, all the stuff.
Then something interesting happened. I thought “Well, we know how to do this.”
I went through my list of things that would best prepare us for what might come and realized that it’s not nearly as scary to face something you’ve already been through.
I’m not saying being prepared would take away the discomfort, the agony, the damage the storm could inflict.
What I’m saying is that HOW I approach it comes from building internal capabilities to face life’s realities.
We can build our internal capabilities WHILE dealing with the realities of life.
Sounds different, right? What if we looked at the difficulties in life as a mental gym?
Jesse Itzler made the Navy Seal 40% rule famous in his book Living with a Seal, 31 Days with the Toughest Man on the Planet. The rule says that when our mind tells us we are at our limit, there’s still another 60% we can give. It makes me wonder how many times I’ve quit well before my limit, thinking I had given all that I could.
Truth be told, I’ve probably never been truly at my limit. It’s both a freeing thought, and one that could crush me. How I see it decides how I use it.
As I’ve witnessed our recovery in this area, I marvel at the way everyone has shown up, day in and day out, even as the task ahead seems impossibly huge.
Fortunately for the moment, all the progress we have made is not about to be washed away. The storm that was bearing down on us is making a miraculous right turn, back out to sea. I’m feeling relief.
I have heard it said that managing change is delivering loss at the rate people can accept it. Helene did not get the memo. This last year has been an exercise in learning to be adaptable in the face of unimaginable loss. Yet, I’m pretty sure the best – and possibly ONLY – way to build true adaptability and resilience is by going through the pressures of life that create struggle.
The question is: How do we develop adaptability when things are so hard? I found the following perspectives helpful this last year.
- It’s ok to feel
In our numbed-out world where we have every opportunity to shut down our feelings with everything from Netflix binges to the latest, greatest pharmaceuticals, it’s ok to feel. Let me repeat that. It’s ok to FEEL.
In fact, we can calibrate our feelings to serve us, rather than send us off the deep end.
Recently, I listened to Andrew Huberman interview Alex Honnold, the rock climber from the movie “Free Solo.” I could barely watch the movie, because my fear of heights got triggered, creating intense sensations of falling while I watched. After he completed that climb, I read that brain scientists said “his amygdala doesn’t fire” as a possible explanation for him being able to manage a 3000 foot climb without safety harnesses. The explanation seemed to boil down to “his brain is wired differently.”
When the conversation turned to this peculiarity, Honnold explained what happened differently. To summarize, he said they showed him pictures of disturbing images – like guns, etc. – that were designed to evoke a fear response. He said “pictures never killed anybody” and thus, his brain didn’t respond. He also added if they had thrown a snake into the room, they would have certainly seen his brain respond.
Where many scientists concluded that Honnold has an inborn, blunted fear response, I would say he has a well-calibrated mindset. Throughout the conversation, it was clear that he takes measured risks, within the capabilities of his mindset. He commented that the free solo climb was not the most dangerous thing he has done, and he also noted that he had done the climb many times, working on the route AND his mindset as he went.
Yes, he IS wired differently, but not because he was born that way. His brain doesn’t react to black and white pictures, because he has interrupted his automatic responses many times to assess real risk rather than falling for mind-created fear. That’s what created different wiring in his brain, because he recalibrated his fear response.
With his comments, I realized that he was far ahead of the same thing I’ve experienced. Just watching his movie sent feelings of falling through my body, much like the sensations I experienced riding a horse down a hill after my fall. As I described in Dancing the Tightrope, recalibrating those feelings to match the situation has led me to being able to ride easily down a hill, tuned into what is happening, rather than being distracted by mind-created fear.
Events like Hurricane Helene offer a training ground for our minds. After the first few hours after the storm, it became clear that we were going to have to reset our expectations. Power would not be back any time soon. We would have to take things one day, no, one moment at a time. Feeling into each moment makes the sensations manageable.
Once it was clear that we were in it for the long haul, it was impossible to imagine that we could ever get all the work done. One of the first daunting tasks I faced was clearing the mud out of our boathouse. While Russ was out helping the community restore communications, we decided that I would “mud out” the two boathouses that had flooded. It seemed like a good idea to get started while the power was out and the mud was still mud. On Day 3, while the helicopters were still evacuating people from the flood-imposed islands, I headed down my stairs, shovel in hand prepared to begin shoveling. Right before my foot landed in the muck, I felt a little vibration inside. I listened. Was it my disgust at the prospect of getting filthy? My overwhelm of such a huge job? Possibly, but it was more. I recognized the very real risk that I could slip, and this was no time to need a first responder. In fact, this was no time to GET a first responder; I had no way to communicate with anyone anyway.
We need to feel in order to make good decisions, and if our feelings are to guide us, we must train our minds not to run away with us.
- Small steps get the job done
Every large task is comprised of thousands of tiny steps. Focusing on the next thing makes the impossible a reality.
After communications were back online, and the first responders were a tiny bit less busy, I resumed my work on the boathouse. The first few shovel loads were the worst, because they seemed so small in comparison to the many shovels yet to come. However, when I simply focused on each step, one shovel full of dirt at a time, I had the boathouse mostly cleared in much less time than I imagined at the beginning. I quit thinking about getting to the end and focused instead on what had to happen in each moment. The work became a form of meditation rather than drudgery.
When I acknowledged each step of the progress, it refilled my cup, giving me the energy to keep going. And interestingly, the mud was much lighter than it would have been if I had started when it was still so wet.
That’s been the theme for this whole recovery – taking things one step at a time, even when the work in front of us seems impossible. In early April, the US Army Corps of Engineers began moving equipment into the lakebed in front of our house. One scoop at a time, they filled dump trucks with the mix of dirt, debris and chemicals to be moved to a location about an hour away. All day long, seven days a week. Scoop. Dump. Drive. Repeat. Week after week, I went down to my boathouse and took videos. At first, there appeared to be no progress. Now, after six months of steady work - Scoop. Dump. Drive. Repeat. – it’s clear that we are almost there. The progress was there to see the whole time, but only if you really looked.
The same step by step progress has been true in every venue. Some take many more steps than others. Rather than see them as drudgery, we can see them for the tiny steps to progress that add up.
- Improvisation is more than comic relief
Improvisation is a dance between what just happened and our choice for what to do next. Our favorite improv happens when a brilliant comic adds a little magic to whatever was just handed to them. They must be fully present as they listen deeply for what’s really there, so that they can respond WITH the event, while adding their own flair. We can do the same with almost everything.
We were handed many moments of opportunity to dance with how to handle it. One episode in particular stands out for me: clearing the lake at Mystic Waters. Everything that was in the boathouse at Mystic Waters, plus a few things on the shoreline, got scattered out into the lake, along with a few downed trees. I noticed that my paddleboard was no longer on its hook, and there was no sign of the paddle either. A picnic table was missing. We had a few sections of dock sitting next to the lake, and those were floating all over the place.
A couple of weeks in, Jen and I decided to get in the kayaks to bring those docks back to shoreline. We loaded up some rope, gathered our paddles and set out to tie them off. Jen reached the far dock while I took the long route, looking for missing items. I expected she would have the rope already attached to the dock by the time I got there. However, as I paddled up, I saw the problem. The dock had nothing on which to attach a rope. Jen said, “I have an idea. How about I get on the dock and paddle it back? We’ll attach the rope to my kayak and you paddle the kayak while I manage the dock.” We went through a couple of other options. We could paddle back to shore, find a cleat and the tool to attach the cleat. Lots of work, and it would not have been centered. We could push it with our kayaks. That might work.
But instead, Jen let the dock “tell” her the best way to get it to shore.
We liked this solution – IF she could get up onto the dock, which sat about a foot higher than the kayak. Now we had to solve that puzzle. We realized that the kayak would scoot out from under her as she made the transition, leaving her in no man’s land for a moment. So I positioned my kayak perpendicular to hers like a “T”, and held my position steady. Jen quickly made the leap. I tied off the kayak and began the trek to the takeout point.
Even dragging a kayak, I managed to get to shore much more quickly than Jen. I snapped a picture as she made it to the boat ramp, laughing, ‘This thing was not made for paddling.” However, on this day, paddling was the best improvisation for the moment.
We had countless moments of improvisation over the last year, and I’ve come to recognize it as one of the most important internal capabilities we can cultivate: be present, listen deeply, respond to what is happening and let it tell you the answer.
All of this reminds me of the quote by John A. Shedd, who wrote, "A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for"
We can wish for “bad” things not to happen – but that’s not what we are built for. Weather happens and we can’t control it. All we can do is ride out our part in every “adventure.”
This last year has highlighted a hidden thought pattern that interferes, while apparently seeming to help. Some call it destination addiction. Others call it focus on the goal. You could even put it under the heading of perfectionism. Whatever you call it, wishing to get to the end takes us away from our life. Thoughts like “once this thing happens, everything will be ok” interfere with being in this moment.
In Dancing the Tightrope, I found myself rushing to get to the end while saddling the horse. That kind of energy took me out of the moment, causing me to miss signals I needed to feel, and kept me from listening so that I could respond in an improvisational way.
In other words, expanding our internal capabilities – building our mental tools – requires us to view the journey as the gold.
Just this simple shift changes how we feel inside and changes how we show up when the pressure is high.
I’m not gonna lie – there were so many moments over the last year where I wished away all the trouble caused by Helene. Unfortunately, my magical thinking didn’t change anything. So, when I could, I caught myself and remembered that I could only do what I could do.
I also caught myself ready for the next storm. Not loving it, but ready.
So when rough waters come, I’m reminded that it can be a moment for growth.