Part Two: Forging the Mind for the Dance

In my last posting I detailed my understanding of the wild, in that we are the stripped-down Bones and nature is the unstoppable Bull.  We cannot fight it so we must learn to dance with it.

But how to do that when our boots are soaked, lungs are burning and the storm refuses to break?  The physical toll is heavy, but the true battleground of any adventure is in the mind.  To survive the dance, we forge a specific set of mental tools.  These are not about thinking positively and expecting everything to just turn out fine.  The tools are about brutal, unvarnished survival.

1. Radical Acceptance (The Anchor)

The fastest way to break your spirit in the wild is to cling to the word "should."  The weather should be better.  My pack should feel lighter.  This trail should be easier.  The Bull doesn’t care what should be.

Radical acceptance is the tool that eradicates thoughts of "should" and anchors us into reality.   It is the mental act of looking at a miserable, dangerous situation and simply stating, "This is how it is."  We do not have to like freezing rain, but we must accept it as real if we are standing in it.  The moment we stop arguing with reality, we stop wasting precious energy.  Drop the anchor in the present moment and deal strictly with what is now and ahead.

(inspiration for this design: Anchored in Reality - Crew Socks – Bones & the Bull)

2. The Three-Foot World (The Focus)

When exhausted and the Bull is still bearing down on us, looking at the miles left to cover can be crushing.  The sheer scale of the wild can induce a paralyzing panic.

When the horizon is too heavy to carry, shrink the world.  Do not worry about tomorrow, or the summit.  Focus entirely on the three feet of dirt directly in front of our boots.  Can we take one more step?  Yes we can and so we do.  When that step is done, assess the next three feet.  The overwhelming force of the elements are reduced into a single, manageable action.  We survive the dance one heavy footprint at a time.

This is also true not only of physical challenges, but mental challenges too.  In the wild that three-foot stretch of dirt is a physical thing, but if the mental task is too large to comprehend as a single task, find the metaphorical three feet and chip away at it.

(Inspiration for this design: Summit - Crew Socks – Bones & the Bull)

3. Surrendering the Watch (The Yield)

The ego operates on a schedule.  It demands itineraries, precise arrival times and neat conclusions.  The wild operates on seasons, tides and storms.

To dance with the Bull, we must take off the watch.  If a storm pins us in our tent for two days, our frustration will not make the sky clear any faster.  The mental tool here is yielding to what is.  Recognizing when the elements have taken the lead, we save heartbreak by surrendering our timeline and waiting.  This is incredibly uncomfortable for the modern mind, but I promise, it teaches profound patience.  We move when the mountain allows it, not a second before.

4. The Quiet Centre (The Eye of the Storm)

When the elements are raging around us and when the wind is howling and everything is chaotic, our mind will naturally want to panic.  It is almost like the default of the mind is to match the outer external chaos.

But we can learn to cultivate a quiet centre.  It is a mental space to retreat to, a place of deliberate slow breathing and cold logic.  While the Bull thrashes outside, we keep the inside steady.  We can feel useful by checking our gear, assessing our body and being truthful to ourselves on what we find.  Then when we make decisions it is based on fact, not fear.  We become the eye of the storm.

The True Souvenir

These tools will not make the dance easy.  We will still ache and still bleed, but these mental calluses will keep us from shattering when the Bull hits.  

And the best part?

When we finally walk out of the wild and back into the loud, demanding modern world, we carry these tools with us.

That radical acceptance, that unshakeable focus and the quiet centre are the true souvenirs of the dirt.  They belong to those that use them, etched right into the Bones.

Bones