4 important lessons learnt from ziplining
By: Swati Shetty
Tags: Life Lessons, Trust, Life Experience, Ziplining, Fear

The wooden platform

Riding a zipline is optional, so is embracing life. I choose to do the latter.

This was on my bucket list for long. I finally mustered up the courage to zipline at the world’s longest zipline certified by Guinness world records located on top of the Jabal Jais mountains in the UAE.

I suited up and took the 30km drive towards the start point in a minivan, not knowing what to expect. Once there, I climbed up a wooden platform 1680 meters above sea level. I looked down into endlessness with my heart pounding a mile a minute.

I was then harnessed, learnt the safety rules, took my fear and my pounding heart and jumped off the mountains to sail through the air at a speed of 120 kph.

It was both terrifying and exhilarating. I loved it and loved it more and definitely would do it again! However, it took me an enormous amount of guts to do this for the first time and in the process I learnt some very valuable and important lessons.

To achieve or conquer a goal, you need to want it more than you fear it.

This activity was on my bucket list for long but I never came around to doing it until the fear of regret, the fear of listening to others talk about their amazing experience and not having a story of my own, the fear of not inspiring my kids to be the best version of themselves and most of all the fear of staying where I was, became too overwhelming to not take action. These fears were much more in magnitude than my ‘fear’ of doing the zipline and I wanted to do the zipline more than anything else.

Differentiate between excitement, anxiety and fear

Fear is an indispensable emotion that helps us keep ourselves safe and respond effectively to danger. However, when we push ourselves out of our comfort zones, what we experience more of is anxiety or apprehension of what is to come than actual fear. We imagine the various threats or dangers that we might encounter and create intense (often skewing towards the worse) stories in our minds.

On the other hand, very common evidences of fear as well as excitement are — increased heart rate, shallow breathing, dry mouth, butterflies in the stomach, sweating etc. Both emotions trigger the same ‘fight or flight’ mode in humans. These bodily sensations are enough to send us into a panic mode as they signal the brain of an impending danger while we are actually not in danger. There is very little physiological difference between excitement and fear.

During such situations, it is very hard to recognize and/or separate the feelings from each other and hence, it’s important to step back and feed our brain with some fact based reasoning.

As I stepped on to the platform to take off, I told myself — numerous people have ziplined here before me and all had shared great reviews, the establishment which I had chosen to do this activity with, had an excellent safety record, all precautions were very seriously being followed as I could see myself. If other people could do it, I could do it too and there is nothing to worry about. This calmed my nerves considerably. I now knew that I was excited and after the initial, very brief time, first few seconds of being in the air, my anxiety vanished completely, and I enjoyed the ride!

Show some self-love

It is common to push ourselves out of the comfort zone and do things. However, to truly enjoy the process it’s important to step back and really show some self-love rather than ignoring the overwhelming feelings and just powering forward.

I told myself that it was completely ok to back out if I did not feel like going through with this activity even if it was at the last minute. My body and mind now knew that there was an option and that it was ok no matter what the outcome was. I dealt with myself in a calm and caring manner. This clarified the mind and I was genuinely enjoyed the whole process of ziplining from the beginning to the end!.

Trust your instinct

I was at the mercy of other people and machines during this whole activity. It required me to place my trust on the team harnessing me, on the crew that suited me up, on the establishment to ensure that all safety aspects were taken care of and the equipment itself etc. But sometimes, we just have to trust our instincts.

The following quotes say it all!

‘You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens’ — Mandy hale.

‘Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel’ — Mitch Albom

This was a leap of faith that earned me an experience of a lifetime!

In conclusion

Life is a series of choices. We either choose to ‘play it safe’ or choose to explore the vastness of it. Holding on and being in the comfort zone causes more pain than letting go and the discomfort that letting go causes leads to some amazing experiences and opportunities.

‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover’ — Mark Twain.