Grounded, Then I Flew
Sometimes the thing keeping us grounded isn't fear of what's ahead. It's something unresolved behind us.
Last week I wrote about the valley—that place between what was and what’s next. I thought all I had to do was start climbing.
I was wrong.
There was one more thing I had to put down first.
June was a strange month.
Twice I lit the fireplace as it hailed in Park City and snow fell low enough that I could see it from Deer Valley to the Canyons.
June isn’t supposed to feel like that.
Neither was I.
I felt numb to excitement or the future. I kept having “Book Aconcagua” on my to-do list and couldn’t seem to get it done.
I withdrew socially.
Looking back, I think I had quietly slipped into depression.
I busied myself working on internal systems but wasn’t reaching out to clients.
I canceled planned road trips to Jackson and Hood River.
I blamed the weather for how flat I felt.
It wasn’t the weather.
Something deeper was going on.
At the beginning of June, I made an assumption about someone I love.
I thought I knew the story because I thought I'd seen it before. Instead of asking the hard question, I filled in the blanks myself.
Then I acted like my story was true.
Weeks later, reality caught up with me.
Not just enough to make me reconsider.
Enough to prove I was wrong.
The hardest part wasn’t realizing I’d made a mistake.
It was realizing that, for a little while, I’d become someone I didn’t particularly like.
Petty.
Defensive.
Small.
Not because that’s who I am.
Because that’s who I become when an old wound mistakes the past for the present.
That was hard to admit.
Especially when I’m out here writing about becoming Unsmallable.
I’ve spent my whole life believing that if something was hard, I could outwork it.
Most of the time, that’s true. I’ve climbed mountains, earned degrees, built companies, and raised kids. Hard work has always been my default.
But this wasn’t a work problem.
It was a truth problem.
So life didn’t stop.
I still got up every morning.
I still hiked.
I still trained.
I still built.
I still delivered for clients.
I even started a landscaping project I’d been putting off.
From the outside, my life looked productive.
But if I’m honest, I was keeping myself busy because sitting still meant feeling something I wasn’t ready to feel.
The work wasn’t the problem.
The work was the distraction.
When I finally let myself stop...
I realized I wasn’t tired.
I was sad.
I thought I’d lost my mojo.
Looking back, I hadn’t lost my mojo at all.
I was carrying something.
The body doesn’t wait for the heart to catch up.
It will keep putting one foot in front of the other.
So I kept moving.
But I wasn’t expanding.
I was surviving.
And maybe that’s the real cost of carrying something unresolved.
Not that your life stops.
That it quietly gets smaller while everyone—including you—thinks you’re doing just fine.
Then this week I found a baby magpie in my yard.
At first I thought it was hurt.
It couldn’t fly.
It had the shortest little tail feathers and the unmistakable face of a baby bird—yes, birds have baby faces.
Every time I got close, it simply hopped away.
I wondered if I should rescue it.
So I looked it up.
Young magpies that leave the nest might be grounded for a day or two before they figure out how to fly.
Nobody carries them.
Nobody flies for them.
They simply stay grounded until they’re ready.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
Maybe that’s what we have to learn to do for ourselves.
Stay close to ourselves.
Don’t abandon ourselves because we got something wrong.
Don’t pretend it didn’t happen.
Don’t rush past it.
Just stay...
...long enough to become ready to fly.
Being grounded isn’t the opposite of flying.
Sometimes it’s the part that makes flying possible.
Eventually, I reached out.
Not with a phone call.
A text.
I asked if we could meet.
When you ask to make amends, there are no guarantees. The relationship may not be repaired. It may never become what you hoped it would be. The other person gets their own story.
All you get is the chance to tell the truth.
So I did.
I apologized.
No defense.
No explanation.
No attempt to convince the other person that I meant well.
Just ownership.
Something unexpected happened.
The conversation didn’t erase what had happened.
It didn’t magically make everything okay.
But I stopped arguing with myself.
I could finally look myself in the eye again.
And in that moment, I caught a glimpse of the woman I hope I’m still becoming.
Sometimes I picture her at eighty.
I don’t picture a woman who’s never made mistakes.
I picture a woman who tells the truth sooner.
Who apologizes without keeping score.
Who carries very little that doesn’t belong to her.
Who leaves people with more dignity than she found them.
I already love her.
She’s the woman I’m practicing becoming.
I realized that resolution doesn’t always look the same.
Sometimes it’s an apology.
Sometimes it’s forgiveness.
Sometimes it’s accepting reality.
Sometimes it’s grieving what wasn’t.
Sometimes it’s telling the truth.
Sometimes it’s simply letting go.
The point isn’t what form it takes.
The point is that you’re no longer dragging yesterday into tomorrow.
A few days later, I noticed something had shifted.
I could sit again.
Really sit.
For months, meditation had become another thing to check off my list. I was going through the motions, waiting for something to happen.
For the first time in months, I wanted to be there.
A few days after that, I booked Aconcagua.
The expedition had been sitting on my to-do list for weeks.
I kept telling myself I just needed to find my mojo.
I don’t think that’s what I was waiting for at all.
On paper, making amends and booking a mountain expedition have nothing to do with each other.
I don’t believe that for a second.
I wasn’t waiting for motivation.
I was waiting to become someone I trusted again.
Once I did...
Click.
The mountain was booked.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Unsmallable actually means.
I used to think it meant becoming fearless.
Or always choosing the bigger life.
I’m not so sure anymore.
I think life is going to make us small.
Through heartbreak.
Through disappointment.
Through fear.
Through the stories we tell ourselves when we don’t yet know the truth.
That’s inevitable.
What isn’t inevitable is staying there.
This June taught me something I don’t want to forget.
Sometimes the thing keeping us grounded isn’t fear of what’s ahead.
It’s something unresolved behind us.
July feels different.
Not because my life suddenly changed.
Because I finally put something down.
And once I did...
I felt light enough to fly again.
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I’d love to hear from you.
Have you ever discovered that what you thought was a motivation problem was really something unresolved from your past? What changed once you did?
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This post is part of my “Unsmallable 60 Project.” It’s my misogi, and let it be your permission slip.
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Whatever your edge looks like — the trip you haven’t booked, the conversation you haven’t had, the life you keep meaning to start — you’re not done.
Neither am I.
— Susan
“Have you ever discovered that what you thought was a motivation problem was really something unresolved from your past?” — Wow, this is about a year’s worth of therapy packed into one question. Very well said.