Climbing over your wall moving beyond limits

Climbing over your walls

Yesterday I went to a park to celebrate the birthday of a wonderful friend in Tae Kwon Do.

We had cake, pizza, chips and drinks.

There was a playground there with a wall for climbing, monkey bars, slides and bars for flipping.

As the children ran out to play I decided to join them. I wanted to see about the wall. I have never understood while people want to climb walls and rocks and wanted to check it out for myself.

As a youngster I would climb, jump, crawl anywhere, anytime. As I got older I began getting a bit wheezy about heights, so it was a challenge to myself to go past my fears and just do.

I began climbing the wall one step, one hand hold at the time. I finally reached the top and stayed there for a few minutes looking around and feeling pretty good about myself.

I slowly descended and when again on the ground held my arms up like Rocky and declared, “oh yea, I came, I saw, I conquered.”.

I went on to slide, and crawl through tubes and play on the monkey bar. This was a delightful experience for me, I felt just like a kid.

I went back to our group and asked several other “adults” to come play with me. One lady came and we went back to the wall. She said she was “afraid of heights” and didn't know if she could climb the wall. I told her I had done it and if I can do it, any one can.

She climbed to the top and then back down again. Another member of our group came over and asked me if I had climbed up and the over and down again on the other side.

No, I replied, I hadn't thought of that, so back up I went climbing to the top and staying there for a few moments to let my stomach settle itself. I swung on leg over and thought, how I'm committed, I have to go over.

I took a few deep breaths and swung the other leg over and began my decent into fame and glory.

I cried out, “I did it, I moved over my fear of heights”.

I was delighted as several adults in the park told me “good job”.

As I walked around people of all adult ages walked over to me and made statements telling me why they couldn't climb the wall, or go down the slide.

They had many different reasons for why they couldn't climb over the wall on the playground.

One lady said she was too old. I said you are never to old to play. She asked my age and when I told her I was 52 she stated that I couldn't be. I laughed and said I knew for a fact that I was cause I been counting birthdays for 52 years.

I realized something yesterday. One, a lot of adults stop playing because they are expected to. Mercy, the playground equipment is really undersized for most of us. I'm lucky to be 5' 2”, I only have to duck a bit or tuck my legs to do most things there.

Two, we don't believe we can any longer. We fill our heads with all the reasons why we can't flip anymore, or do cartwheels and we believe what we tell ourselves. We set up limits and walls and then use these as reasons for never moving past them.

Our reasons range for body aches and pains to being too old, not remembering how, we'll be too sore tomorrow, I don't want to look silly, etc.

The higher we build the walls and the more limits we create, the more likely we are to stop playing.

This is true for every aspect of our lives. Once we begin telling ourself what we can't do and why, the less likely we are to even attempt it.

I read somewhere years ago that the main reason most adults don't try something new is they are afraid of failing and looking silly. They are afraid that they will not be able to do it well on the first attempt. This fear of failing keeps them from even trying.

Today take a look at the walls in your life. One foot, one hand hold at a time climb up and sit at the top a moment. Take a few deeps breaths, then fling your legs over and climb down the other side. Celebrate your victory by doing a cartwheel or two.