Helvellyn – It’s a mountain (and a volcano) I’ve wanted to climb for years.

One of those illusive ones that I could have done a number of times but just never got round to.

That was, until earlier this month, when my fiancé and I made our way up to England’s Lake District for a long weekend.  

So why has this volcano been on my radar?

For starters, Helvellyn is a damn cool name.

It’s also the third highest mountain in England at 950m.

And obviously it’s got some great walking routes up and some spectacular views.

From a volcanic point of view, for anyone who is interested, this is a very ancient and dead volcano – or rather, the rocks from this area that make up the mountain range were formed in the caldera of an old volcano some 450 million years ago. Then glaciers during the last ice age carved out the summits and valleys we see today.

My quest to climb 40 volcanoes by the age of 40 derailed several years ago as I came up with excuses and held myself back and then placed my priorities on walking the length of New Zealand – but it would have probably faltered anyway when covid hit.

It’s easy to look at the challenge as a failure; that I failed to achieve what I set out to do.

And in the past that would have upset me. I would have let that mean something about me, like that I wasn’t good enough or there was something wrong with me.

I certainly tied myself up in knots a lot when I struggled with my self-doubt and fears and came up with excuses and held myself back from ticking off the next volcano on my list. I would constantly beat myself up for not being good enough.   

I don’t think that way about the challenge now.

Learning how our minds work and how life works has made me look at things from a different perspective.

It’s taken the pressure off the challenge. It’s not something I have to do in order to prove I can do it, or prove I am successful. It’s not something I have to achieve in order to be happy or to feel good about myself.

Because I’ve come to terms with who I really am and understand where my worth is coming from.

And that means that it makes the challenge less of a “I must do this” or “I should do this” and a bit more fun with flexible timelines that I haven’t attached any meaning to.

It becomes something where it doesn’t matter if I do it or not because what I decide and what the outcome is doesn’t say anything about me.

There is peace in that.

#ownyourawesome

PS – Our society can be a hamster wheel of things to achieve and expectations we feel we should meet. It can be exhausting. If you want to step off that hamster wheel and embrace life in a different way with more peace and freedom and less pressure, get in touch. I can give you a new perspective.

PPS – If you know someone who might benefit from coaching or this newsletter, please share.