Climbing Snowdon Mountain
ServiceSpace
--Ana Miller
2 minute read
Jul 2, 2013

 

When 5 weeks ago I was invited to climb Snowdon Mountain in Wales, I had no idea of the challenges that were to come both physically and emotionally. On the 12 that were to go only 5 showed up. Our first challenge was to overcome the clouds of mosquitoes happy to have a little bite on us. The evening before the climb we got together for a meal and it was lovely to hear life stories. Our youngest member of the group who is at university, told us a lovely story about her room mate of only 19 years old who takes her tea to bed every morning, I thought it was lovely so when I got everyone a gift to celebrate our adventure I also got the lovely teenager a gift too :-)

Our group climbed the mountain in 7 hours, it was the most compact life lesson of my life. I learned that when you are there, the only way is up, and the fact that even though you are with other people, the real deal is you and the mountain a great lesson in mindfulness and humility. One becomes just a dot among the green of the grass and the shades of brown and grey of the rocks. I was amazed to see children as young as 7 years old going up the mountain, their resilience was just awesome. Everyone becomes a friend, and there is always a kind word, a smile, even when you are frozen to the bones and the wind wants to blow you away. Some times kindness comes in form of a hug when you think you are not going to make it, or a hand to hold, or a bar of chocolate to keep your energy up or words of encouragement.

Gratitude also becomes a part of every step, you fell grateful that you reached 1 peak even when there are more on the way, you feel grateful that in spite of everything your body has not given up completely, you feel grateful for the strength and resilience that you are discovering and that you didn't know that you had. When I finally got to the top and in front of warm cup of coffee; I felt a completely new person and decided there and then that I would make July a very special month by doing as many random acts of kindness as possible.

 

Posted by Ana Miller on Jul 2, 2013


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