What's Holding You Back? [Snowboarding in Whistler & Mammoth]

Have you ever wondered, at what age did we learn to be afraid of things?

After 9 years, and never really learning how to properly snowboard, I agreed to go on a snowboarding trip with my cousin and her friends to Whistler, Canada last month. We went for a whole week. I was extremely nervous since everyone I went with were about intermediate to advanced snowboarders. So for my first day at Whistler, I opted to take a full day of lessons. My transformation before and after my lessons were like night and day. So the next day, my friends decided to take me all the way to the top of the mountain and follow them everywhere they went.

Needless to say, I was the slowest and fell multiple times but I think I held my own for being the only beginner in the group. I ended the trip with multiple bruises on both my knees and my butt. When I showed them to my cousin, she said, “your bruises are no indicator of how you were on the slopes.” Yea, that’s right, I’m a badass. Haha! I'm just keeding, I just didn’t want to be left behind.

And last weekend, exactly a month later, I went to Mammoth Mountain, California. Both places were REALLY great snowboarding spots.

While taking a short break on the slopes, my friends and I were watching all the different people of all different ages skiing and snowboarding. Then we noticed a group of really small kids maybe no more than 6 years old zipping down the mountain and doing mini jumps. We all looked at each other and was like, “how is it that those little kids are sooo much better than us?” “I bet if our parents started us young, when we weren’t scared of anything, we’d probably be pros today.”

We started talking about how we only really have two innate fears: fear of falling and fear of loud sounds. The rest of our fears are acquired and if we can get through them, then we’ll be good. Which makes a lot of sense because when I first get on the slopes, I start off really scared and after warming up a little bit . I actually had a nightmare one night that I fell off the side of the mountain because there are parts that are really narrow and if you fell off, it looks like you'll fall to your death. What actually would happen is you'd just fall onto the lower part of the slopes.

This got me thinking, how many irrational fears do we have that hold us back from living our life? If I let my fear take over me on both snowboarding trips, I probably would have missed out on a lot. Sure, I fell and hurt myself a few times, but I had a helmet and (thankfully) I'm physically fit so I can bounce right back. And I also had amazing friends who encouraged and helped me improve my snowboarding skills. Such is life, as long as we push through the fear, and are surrounded by people who are there to support us, we will only come out with great experiences.

What fears are holding you back today that keep you from enjoying life?