Leaps and Lessons

How Getting Out of My Comfort Zone Got Me Out Of My Head

Good Morning and Happy (Pizza) Friday!

When was the last time you got out of your comfort zone?

Last week, I was invited to a trapeze class at the Circus Academy New York with a friend I made on instagram, Andrea Wightwick. You may recognize this place from a Sex and the City episode or if you’ve been on the West Side Highway and you have simply looked up and wondered if you’re hallucinating or really seeing someone fly through the air (probably the latter).

Many moons ago, (exactly ten years) I actually took a trapeze class at this very location as part of my sister’s bachelorette party, and another time a few weeks later with a group of work friends. It was fun back then! But I also remember being scared and not being able to advance to the final level (my sister, the bride did - hi Katie!)

And yet, as I walked over on the unseasonably hot evening last week, I wondered “what the **** am I doing?”

I thought about how I am only a year out from major surgery…how I am still working on gaining my strength back, especially in my chest and arms (key for trapeze) and how I still have to put effort into reaching my arms high above my head. I can do it, but I feel a stretch and a pull each time. Plus, it’s no secret that my center of gravity has changed slightly.

I also thought about how I had only met Andrea in person, once. She was lovely, but now we’d be swinging high in the sky together for two hours? What was I thinking?

It turns out the last thing I needed to worry about was spending time with Andrea. Andrea is one of those people who puts you at ease with her warmth and ability to remember small details, she tells a great story and is incredibly interesting and encouraging. She also is a near expert trapeze artist.

I admitted I was having doubts and even as I climbed the creaky metal ladder 50 feet in the air, and she cheered me on, I yelled down to her “get this on video because this will be the only time I do this!”

I told the instructor at the top of the platform, “I seemed to have developed a fear of heights on the way up, and I’m not sure I can do this,” as my legs shook with terror looking at all the New Yorkers who looked like ants several levels below (the school is on the roof of a 4th floor building above the bustling West Side Highway.)

But then I thought about how scary it would be to use the same ladder I had just ascended on the way down and decided I’d rather pathetically swing through the air, drop onto the net and then never, ever do this again.

So with the support of the kind instructor, I held onto a monkey bar and flung myself off the platform, screaming the whole way.

And when I landed onto the net safely and counted all ten fingers and toes, I decided… “hmm that wasn’t that bad. Maybe I could try that again”

For the net two hours, each time it was my turn to climb the ladder and progress in the trapeze moves, I accepted the fear but I also accepted the fun, the surprise and the feeling of impressing even myself.

By the end of the class, I was one of the only beginner level students who managed to make “the catch” with an instructor on the other side of the swing (obviously Andrea did too!). I was so proud of myself, and yes, it was so fun. My Cirque du Soleil trick captured in this video, please indulge me…

Now, this Substack isn’t serving as my announcement that I am joining the circus, but I love what this class taught me. Not just that I am stronger and more healed physically than I expected, but that in the span of just a few hours, if I allow myself to be pushed out of my comfort zone, really amazing things can happen.

Surprising myself is a really wonderful feeling.

It felt like exposure therapy.

I can fly through the air hundreds of feet above New York City, AND…

I can take a leap and it can work out.

And that is a metaphor I am willing to lean into, even if my feet will most often be firmly planted on the ground.

I am so curious what other activities can activate this sense of growth and accomplishment -- surfing is another one, my writing class is too! Do you have any ideas of activities or experiences that push you out of your comfort zone and give you that incredible feeling? I’m all ears.

Love, glimmers and leaps,

Alison