We all create stories in our minds.  Some of those stories take the form of wishes and dreams.....maybe hopes and visions for the future. 

But let’s be honest, some of those stories aren’t fairytales. 

Some of our stories that we create are rooted in fear, shame, vulnerability and served up with a healthy helping of doubt. 

Some of the stories you have told yourself about yourself are so unkind you would never speak something like that to someone else. 

But yet……those are the stories that seem to play the loudest on a loop in your head.....especially when you attempt something outside of your comfort zone.  

Julie Traxler wanted to climb the mountain at 29029.  She wanted to wear the red hat.  She wanted to watch the brands on the ascent board add up until on Saturday, she would stand atop her Everest at Stratton Mountain Vermont.  

Julie hadn’t even started to climb on Friday when the stories she was telling herself…..not the fairytale and rainbow stories…..but the shameful, hateful poisonous stories......started to play over and over in her mind.  

Julie’s experience at 29029 is raw and blissfully unfiltered.  It is a story of a woman who saw the parts of herself that she hated the most reflected right back to her in the mirror that was her mountain.  

The work that it takes to climb the mountains in our lives is hard.  Sure, we love to share the beautiful pictures with breathtaking landscapes and exhausted happy people wearing red hats. We all love a good ending.

But to only share those images and those stories does not do justice to the journey that takes place inside the messy middle when we choose climb. 

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