By Hanny Allston

This article was featured in the latest "Travel Play Live" magazine:

I am doubled over.  With hands on hips, I gasp air into my lungs.  My head feels heavy and achy… a dull throb enhanced by the altitude.  This Italian mountain is a beast!  I look up to where the trail squiggles near vertically above me and try to make out where the track crests the pass.  It is somewhere up there where the bare rocks merge into the mist.  I look down.  My hotel where everyone else is still sleeping is just a mere 100m below me.  I have barely started and I am feeling… vulnerable.

 Vulnerability is…

•  Embarking on a mission to explore somewhere new. 
•  Opening the car door in a remote car park at the foot of a mountain.
•  Asking where the bathroom is in a foreign place and not being understood.
•  Sitting next to someone new on an aeroplane.
•  Asking for help.
•  Telling someone you are proud of yourself.
•  The day you find yourself at the back of the pack and wondering how everyone else is making it look so easy.
•  Looking deeply at yourself in the mirror and accepting your curves and imperfections.
•  Admitting that you have taken a wrong turn.
•  Asking for help to recuperate from disordered eating.
•  Realising you have misplaced your passport in a foreign country.
•  Standing on the start line of an event that you have been purposefully preparing for.
•  Being told that your injury may be life changing.
•  Taking the keys to a hire car in a foreign country.
•  Throwing your expensive raincoat in the washing machine for the first time.
•  Calling your mum to tell her you are setting off on a solo adventure.
•  Looking someone in the eye when they give you a compliment.
•  Accepting you cannot be perfect.
•  Admitting fear and vulnerability.

 The TED Talk by world-renowned vulnerability researcher, Brene Brown is one of the most watched TED talks of all time. Her books are a New York Times bestseller.  So when I first stumbled across Brene’s teachings and realised almost everyone was listening to her, I realised in turn that EVERYONE must struggle with vulnerability… even me.

 Until this awakening I had used exercise, nutrition and perfectionism to combat emotional discomforts, especially fear and what I now recognise as vulnerability.  When I was faced with career ending injuries, a fracturing family and that famous question, ‘who am I?’, vulnerability and shame screamed in my face.  There was no hiding from these moments and I found myself tugging on my vulnerability armour and kicking into self-protective overdrive.   Whilst I achieved successes during these years, the accomplishments were like eating Weetbix for breakfast in Italy - a little dry and leaving me wondering why I didn’t just eat the cake.   And so I strived for a tastier goal, one that would surely say ‘you are enough’ when it was accomplished.

 On and on I ran. 

 At the age of 30 I have finally stopped running.  Not literally.  I still love a trail, especially one with a mountain finish.  But 10 years and a Brene Brown TED Talk later, I have finally realised that on my current pathway to destination Enough there will never be enough.  And no matter how fast I run, vulnerability will always accompany me. 

 So doubled over near the base of my Italian mountain I decided to confront vulnerability.  I stopped, acknowledged my fear and looked outside of myself.  Shear mountains rose up into the mist and the sun was painting small highlights onto the contrasted green meadows.  Marmots cheeped.  In this moment I realised that despite my fear & vulnerability, there was no where else on earth I would rather be, especially not indoors.  I turned towards the trail and told myself to take just one step.  Then another.  Soon my hands were pumping my thighs, turning my legs into pistons that powered from my greater sense of purpose.  As I headed up and up with increasing courage I realised that at last I really understood the power of vulnerability.  This is what I learnt. 

 Vulnerability is:

• When my confidence falters and my inner doubts ask, ‘Can you really?’
• When I need to take a deep breath to plunge onwards.
• When my heartbeat reminds me that I am alive and when the skin on the back of my neck prickles in anticipation.
• The emotional discomfort that highlights me in my most honest form.
• Where I find courage and gratifying success.

 An hour later I stood at 3052m on the summit of Piz Boe.  There was no audience.  No medals.  No photo evidence.  Just a few struggles, sweeping views from sheer cliffs, sweat, a goofy grin and a long descent back home.  Up there I found my new definition of success, one that is so much more fulfilling.  It didn’t require a race entry, a medal or money.  It just required the courage to be vulnerable and to say ‘maybe…yes?’  when my body language was screaming ‘NO!’.   On top of my mountain I realised that success requires: the acceptance of vulnerability, daring greatly and being content with the result.  Success is simply saying, ‘I am enough’. 

 After sliding and whooping my way back down the peak with scree slopes shifting beneath my feet, I pulled up somewhat breathless at the doorway to my hotel.  Here I was greeted with a cheery grin from a local mountain guide.  Through a smooth Italian accent he asked, ‘Where did you venture this morning?’  I pointed to up there.  After following my gesture he looked straight back at my sweaty face.  With a slight rise of his eyebrows, he claimed, ‘I can see it in your eyes - you really like to run!’

 I ate cake for breakfast that day.  And Nutella.  I was highly satisfied. 

 And so here I urge you to never settle for Weetbix when there is delicious cake on offer!  Get to know and accept your vulnerability.  Befriend it and listen to what it is indicating.  Then take a deep breath and step in any direction that shifts you from comfortable to uncomfortable, onto the pathways less travelled.  Because from here you can dare greatly. And afterwards you can remind yourself, “I am enough’.