#high lining

chelseakauai

I started highlining exactly a year ago in a canyon not too far from this one. Since then there have been many, many moments when I have questioned whether or not I even want to continue.

Because every time right before I stand up I am absolutely terrified. My instincts scream not to move and my mind yells back “Hii it’s fine I’m safe!”. It’s a pit in the bottom of my stomach and quivering fingers and lots of deep breaths. I talk to myself and say “You are strong and this is beautiful and you can do hard things.” I don’t know why it just helps.

To stand again and again even in the face of uncertain outcomes asks for the highest form of trust and belief that difficult things are worth doing.

I realize walking on some rope is trivial compared to some challenges of this world, but I do really like who I am when I highline. I’m proud of the fact that part the time I’m in tears and still asking myself to stand one more time. I give everything I am to this process of being on the line and feel a universal compassion to anyone feeling daunted on their own “line” in life. I hope you sit next to your fear and still give it one more go, bruises be damned. I hope you choose to move forward even when that’s measured in the smallest of steps.

I’m not sure what my goal is for this whole thing. Right now it’s still one foot in front of the other and a little prayer for more grace and enough grit. I think my one takeaway has been that it’s really hard to predict when the next breakthrough will happen, it has to be enough to know that there is magic somewhere in this humbling process. Suddenly, even though the fear felt the same, I unexpectedly took my most steps yet. Nine to be exact, on one inch of webbing 900 feet in the air I was, as you can see, pretty stoked on the progress :)

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"My goal in life is to show women that they can do sports like this ... that it doesn't have to be so difficult, it doesn't have to be an area that only men can do. And I think that just showing people that things like this are possible is amazing."

-Hayley Ashburn

Highlining at Cathedral Peak, Yosemite, California