Dispatch From the Edge

While at Transform, I found myself sharing a story with someone, who – in tears – asked me to write about it, because it had a great impact on her. It had never occurred to me to write about it, because it was just something that happened to me that seemed like no one else would care about or find relevance in.

Yet, I’ve seen the story makes a point that can definitely improve your relationship…all your relationships, which is why I’m sharing it with you, along with the lesson you can take from it if you like.

In 1993, as part of a transformational workshop that was my first foray into any kind of inner work that went deep, the group (which also included my wife) was taken to Pinnacles National Monument, near San Jose, CA.  At that time, I was unknowingly in the final few years of my life as a Corporate Big Shot.  When we all got to our destination, which was a solid wall of rock, we were told we were going to climb said rock.  I had a horrible fear of heights back then (since gone from horrible to mild), so this was very daunting.  However, I did it, found it exhilarating, and committed to myself that I would do that a lot more (which I did).  I felt very full, and proud, of myself!

Then, we all trundled off to another part of the Park, and were all taken scrabbling up what seemed like a pretty mild-looking boulder.  Yet, when we got to the top, mild-looking quickly switched to terrifying.  We had unknowingly just climbed to the top of a 175-foot cliff.  Before even hearing what the instructions were, all I saw was how high up and exposed we were.  I literally dropped to the deck in a fetal position, as scared as I could remember feeling in many a year. While lying there, wanting to suck my thumb in the worst possible way, we were all told that each of us was going to be harnessed in and taken to the edge of the cliff and given the opportunity to lean as far over the edge as we were willing…arms outstretched.

I was too terrified to give much thought to what they were saying, other then “Are you f*in kidding me?!”  So, here I am, Mr. Executive, trembling behind all the others in the group, as my wife Sarah boldly ends up being the first one to do it.  She leans over that edge like the late Mr. Knievel getting ready to do a motorcycle jump.  Then, the leaders tell her to turn around, jump off the cliff, and repel down to the people waiting at the bottom.  At this point, I’m now literally trembling like I’m having a seizure, I’m so scared.  Oh yeah…I’m also feeling like the biggest wuss on the planet, particularly after seeing Sarah go first!

One by one, every other person in the workshop leaned out, turned around, and leapt off.  It took the remainder of the afternoon.  As dusk was beginning to appear, and after hours of lying on that rock, shaking like a leaf, the two course leaders (one of whom was my best friend from kindergarten on) came over to me and got down on the ground with me at eye level.  My friend Dean asked me if I wanted to do it now, and that he knew I could, if I’d only let myself.  Ridden with shame and humiliation, I told him I just couldn’t.  That’s when the other leader, David (who became one of my best friends to this day), got nose-to-nose and honored me for meeting my inner Edge.

You see, he explained to me that ALL of us have edges beyond which we’re reluctant and/or unwilling to go at any given time.  Some are external, but most are internal (and my internal one was totally activated by this external one I was lying on).  He told me that we all have to honor where our edges are, and honor the courage it takes to even face, much less transcend, them.  It became clear that even staying on that rock all afternoon was me conquering one edge…it just wasn’t “The Main Event” my mind felt should be achieved.  In that moment, this man helped me go from shame to some level of inner redemption.  But, it also did another thing as he and Dean literally carried me off the rock back down the way we’d all climbed up.

As soon as I got back to where all the others were, and was given big hugs and reassurances that I wasn’t the Caspar Milquetoast I’d felt like all day, I suddenly made a decision.  I decided then and there that I was not going to let this damn thing beat me.  I made a commitment to myself that, no matter how long it took, I was going to lean over that edge with my arms held wide open.  I got clear that I was going to volunteer to staff all their future workshops and, each time, go farther than any previous time, until I’d actually done the whole shebang.

Over the course of about 1-1/2 years, I staffed several weekends, going farther and farther toward the actual cliff edge each time (scared you-know-what every time), until the day came in Pagosa Springs, CO that I finally went over, feeling exhilarated, exonerated, empowered, and – funnily enough at the time – no less scared.  Each time required me to go beyond a series of edges.  It truly was a case of the journey being just as transformative as the final endpoint.

So, you may be asking by now…what’s this got to do with relationships?

It’s pretty simple.  When was the last time you explored what your internal edges are that could be unknowingly keeping you and your partner from really having the emotional (and even physical) intimacy you really crave?  Have you ever stopped to think that all the things that seem to drive you crazy about your partner, that piss you off with great regularity, could actually be about you frantically running from the possibility of your Edge(s) being exposed? I see it all the time with couples I work with.  The issues they label “The Problem” (usually projected onto the other person, by the way) isn’t really the core problem.  It’s a symptom, or effect.