Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Forty

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Today we are going to revisit the author Barbara Hansen by looking at another one of her other books, “Picking Up The Pieces.” We looked at “The Strength Within,” in another Bookish Weapon post.

In this book, Barbara explains what happened to her when she was nineteen years old and how that changed her life. Then she discusses the things that allowed her to thrive in the future. She says her realizations can be life-changing for us. Here are a few.

Time Doesn’t Heal Us: We Heal Ourselves

We choose how we respond to loss. She says, “I am convinced that we’re destroyed not so much by forces outside ourselves as by forces within.” We choose how we respond to loss.

She dislikes the phrase “Time Heals” and says it implies “that id we just keep breathing long enough our sorrow and grief will vanish. Nonsense. I’ve watched too many people walk through loss to accept the idea that “time heals.” The more accurate statement is “time numbs.”

Develop Internal Resources

Barbara discusses five internal resources that we can develop. These are so helpful.

Believe in your own uniqueness – “…affirm that life indeed has a pattern and determine how we fit into that mosaic.
Discover Success is Intangible – “…It is what we are and not what we have that makes us successful.”
Listen With Love – Focus on others and listen to there problems
Live Life In Small Slices – Live in the moment and not for the moment diminishes our pain.
Invest In Solitude – Get acquainted with your internal self and discover new strengths.

Exploring Some of These Five

She has a personal theology where she believes God is Love and she is a channel of that Love. This gives her meaning. And she says no matter your religious beliefs: “each of us is a tiny piece of the mosaic of life. Before we can successfully walk through a loss, we need to affirm that life does indeed have a pattern and determine how we fit into the total picture.”

She goes on to say that she believes she is a valuable piece in life’s pattern. A loss does not erase a person’s uniqueness. “Believing in your own uniqueness gives you the strength to pick up the pieces.”

She measures her success by asking herself the following questions:

Am I a loving, kind, caring individual?
Am I filled with inner peace, serenity, and stability?
Am I positive, joyful and content?
Do I like the person I am becoming?
Do I welcome each day?
Do I laugh easily?
Do I enjoy my friends and family?
Do I have a good relationship with God?
Do I have something to hope for, a goal I’m working toward?
Do I have someone to love?

These are fantastic questions to ask yourself even if the answers might make you very uncomfortable.

This book is out of print, but there are used copies available from time to time. If you can find it get it. There is so much more in the book.

Go Hiking And Live the Charged Life

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Book Titles really lend themselves to discussing hiking. I mean that if you are hiking then you are living the charged life. No doubt about it. So now you want to know why that might be, right?

Here is the deal. There are four ways hiking contributes to living a charged life. So here they are for your consideration.

Nature

Just being in nature rejuvenates the body and mind, but appreciating it is even more important. You need to love that tree and the sky and the wind. There will come a time when you won’t be able to feel the wind on your face. Think about that every time you feel a breeze. You will appreciate nature and life.

Consistently exposing yourself to the elements makes you stronger. You could even take a lesson fro Wim How, the “Ice Man” and go hiking with in shorts and no shirt when it is 30 degrees or colder. No, that is appreciating nature.

Energy

Any kind of exercise will provide you with more energy, but there is something about climbing a mountain that takes it to another level. Maybe it is that you feel you have accomplished something significant and no matter what the rest of your day holds you will have that spark to face it.

It doesn’t matter if your muscles are sore and tired. The energy is still there. It will fuel you throughout the rest of your day.

Purpose

You hear a lot about having a purpose these days. Every self-help book discusses it. I don’t think people have only one purpose, they have multiple. One purpose might be to provide for your family. Another to become physically healthy and fit. All of these keep you charged.

My favorite purpose is to make it to the top of a mountain every week. There is nothing like to keep you charged and focused.

In his book “Charged,” Brendon Burchard quotes Tom Robbins on purpose. Tom says, “Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve towards a wiser, more liberated and luminous state of being.” A great way to get to that state is to climb a mountain every week. You get wiser, more liberated and definitely more luminous!

Challenge

There is nothing like a weekly climb up a mountain to stoke your need for a challenge. Even if you have climbed the same mountain a hundred times (and I have done that), it is still a challenge every time.

Challenge in life is seriously important. Think about the people that enter Spartan races. My guess is most of these people are extremely successful and live a comfortable life. They need adversity and challenges in their life so they go looking for it. At my age, a weekly climb up a mountain is plenty of challenge and I don’t have to pay an entrance fee.

Go Hiking And Don’t Hurry?

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No, it is not possible. When you are hiking, as I have said over and over again, you go to beat your personal fastest time to the top. There is just no other way. Is there?

Well, maybe. You could slow down once in a while. How often? Say every three months take your time. No!

Rhythms

With hiking, you are going to follow the natural rhythms of life. You don’t need to purposely slow down. You will know when your body is overstressed or overly tired and adjust the day’s hike. Find a smaller mountain. Still, you want to go as fat as you are able.

Then there is the rhythm of the hike itself. Some areas are not as steep as others so you go faster. Then on the steep stretches, you naturally go a little slower.

Life

Life itself will slow you down on its own. You might get sick and need to cancel the hike. That is one reason why you never miss a hike because you are going to miss one for some reason anyway.

Consider the situation we are in now with both the State and National parks closed due to the Pandemic. Nothing you can do. No hikes.

Alternatives

How can there be an alternative to a hike? Nothing can replace it. True, but you can be creative when for reasons beyond your control you can’t hit the trails.

Design an “at home” training schedule for yourself. One that will help you go FASTER when you get back on the mountain.

Adapt

One of the things Navy Seals discuss is their ability to adapt to circumstances. So let’s say, like me, you live in a small apartment, you’re broke, and have no “home gym” equipment. What to do?

First, you can use that backpack for weight-bearing exercise. Fill it up with water bottles. It can get pretty heavy. Then progressively add a bottle every week. You can do light squats (better than air squats), curls, shoulder presses and even push-ups with the pack on your back. Do everything FAST!

Then use those big multi-gallon jugs of water to do Farmer carries. They have nice handles on them and they weigh about 50 pounds.

Make It Harder

When you design a workout for yourself keep in mind that a hike is four to five hours long. So make your workout at least three hours long. If your gym is closed you are doing daily workouts as well. Those should be at least an hour and a half. Do multiple rounds with Burpees, Mountain Climbers interspersed between shoulder presses or squats.

The idea is to make it harder than the gym workout. It won’t be harder than hiking but do your best.

Go Hiking and Stop Doing That Sh*T

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This one is pretty straight forward. Instead of sitting around on your rear end get outdoors and go hiking. Stop doing that “sitting around sh*t.”

Many of us are sedentary. Unless you work at a physical job you are a sedentary person. I myself sit at a desk all day. Sure I exercise at the gym, but that doesn’t matter much. It is the constant sitting that takes its toll. So what should you do?

Go Hiking

Sure you should go hiking. If I could go hiking every single day I would. That would solve a lot of problems for me personally. I met a woman on the trail last week and she climbs a mountain multiple times a week. She was very fast. However, I can’t and you probably can’t do that. You can go hiking on the weekend so do it.

Hiking on the weekend will improve your cardio and your resting heart rate will drop. I am almost 75 and my resting heart rate is 46.

Stay Active All Day

In the meantime, between hikes when you’re sitting on your butt hour after hour you can do something. Get up every hour and do kettlebell swings. If you don’t have a kettlebell use one of those cloth grocery bags they give you at the store and fill it with five five-pound water bottles (1 liter). Then every hour, get up and do those swings. Do 15 reps at least. Maybe every half hour. That way you are active all day which is best.

Does this mean you can skip the gym? No, the gym is necessary for mental stability. It is your daily Zoloft. Yes, it has been proven that exercise is the same as taking anti-depression medication (without the side-effects). Can you get addicted to exercise? Sure! So what? It is much better than getting addicted to many other things. And you probably won’t.

Don’t do it

Remember, don’t do the sh*t that you know keeps you fat and sick. Don’t eat the cookies and the donuts and the cakes and the ice cream. If you don’t stop doing that sh*t it will set you on a path to Type II Diabetes or even worse. Experts on the Covid-19 pandemic say that people at major risk are those that are obese.

Maybe you are not a sugar eater. Maybe you like salt so you eat chips and frys. Maybe, you eat fast food. Well, stop doing that sh*t. Your body will thank you. Your future self will thank you and you should be looking out for your future self all the time.

And once again go hiking!

Go Hiking And Attack Adversity

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What are you doing when you go hiking, but attacking adversity? Every log, rock, even every step is an adversary. You have to overcome them. Subdue them. Conquer them. Attack them!

Being on offense is key to climbing a mountain. It is faster too!

The Trail

Every trail is different and has its own challenges. Attacking it needs to be nuanced according to its particular obstacles. Any offense needs tactics. If the hardest part of the hike is the last two miles you might want to conserve your strength.

Alpinists say it is one thing to get to the top of a mountain, but you need to remember that you are going to have to have energy left to get back down the mountain. This isn’t such a big problem when you are going on a typical hike, but it is something to keep in mind.

The Weather

When it is cold and the snow is blowing, how do you keep yourself from just turning around and heading for the car? You do it by having that offensive mindset. You beat that cold into submission.

It also helps to have the proper clothing. When it is cold you do not want to overdress. If you do it will cause you to sweat and then you will get even colder. Actually, on shorter hikes, it doesn’t matter as much because you won’t be out in it the long.

As I have said before be sure to have cold-weather gear like Yaktraks or Microspikes. Most mountains do not require regular Crampons.

The Mindset

You need to be ready for anything the mountain can throw at you. Mentally ready! It is a mindset. Get yourself psyched up for the hike. It is just like a motivational rally where people are standing on their seats chanting or singing, but it is all inside your head.

How to do this? Use triggers. Find something simple like preparing for the hike. Looking at your pack, your boots. Getting everything set up. That is what triggers me. Then it is game on.

Go hiking!

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty-Five

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You are saying you never heard of this book? Well, not many copies were sold. Quite a few were given away. The author, me, has decided to review it three years after it was written. Al little self-promotion doesn’t hurt once in a while.

Why would I want to do that? After all, if you read the review maybe you will figure you don’t need to buy the book. Well, I just thought it would be fun and I didn’t get many reviews on Amazon. Primarily because I was unable to afford to promote it.

There are four strategies for overcoming adversity in this book, all of which I used to get through difficult times in the past. They are so simple, but like everything, not easy.

Exercise

This is, of course, basic, but not many do it. Recent studies have found that exercise is just as effective as Zoloft. That is why it is critical if you are facing adversity.

If you hate it and I have talked to people that really hate it, you can still make it a habit. I hate brushing my teeth. It’s boring, but I, like most of us have made it a habit. By the way, get the book “Atomic Habits” or “Tiny Habits. Both will help you eliminate bad habits and add good ones like exercise. If you are primarily visual get the “Tiny Habits” book. Maybe you will lose some weight too if that is what you want.

Diet

However, you won’t lose much weight exercising! Diet is eighty percent of weight loss. Again this is basic. If your diet is all out of wack you will not be as effective dealing with adversity. My book discusses various diets in what I thought was an attempt at humor.

The reality is that the best diet is personal. It should be based on your genetics and your ancestry. Northern Europeans do better with some foods than people from South America and visa versa. Get a genetic test done and then find out what is best for you. When I was going through my difficulties none of this was available. I went on a strict vegan diet, which helped but I ruined my health long term because I did not supplement.

Therapy

If you are struggling in life then chances are you need to talk about it. Therapy is expensive. If you are homeless or just broke it is not an option for you, right? Wrong! In the book, I talk about this and how I found “free” therapy.

For those of you that are not penniless, you could consider a more conventional form of therapy. However, you could still use the one I suggest in the book. Either way, get some!

Journaling

This has been discussed so much in the last year or so in book after book. I discovered it on my own during my struggles. I detail my method in the book, but it is basically getting your feelings down on paper. Do it every day! It will help you deal with any depression you might experience.

Journaling will also give you a method of comparing the present to the past to see how you have changed or not.

Quotes

I love quotes and the book is in some ways a just a series of quotes. At the end of the book, I have five pages dedicated to quotes from Louis L’Amour, the famous western novelist. They were compiled by his daughter and arranged by subject. I think this may be the best part of the book.

So now you don’t need to read the book, but if your curious head on over to Amazon and order it. Thanks!