The Salt Lake City skyline juxtaposed against the Wasatch Mountains. Home.

I have been living in Salt Lake City for 4 years now.  In that time I have found back routes from my house to locations that I frequent- the gym, Whole Foods, Sugarhouse Coffee, or Guthrie Bicycle for example.  If you were to measure the distance of my side-street-ventures, it would likely measure longer than taking the main roads, but I love my back roads.  There is less congestion, fewer traffic lights, and an ease with which I seem to flow from locale to locale.  Clearly I am not the only person who has lived in Salt Lake City for 4 years, I can’t be the only person who has had the option of taking these alternate pathways, and yet, my back routes still remain full of flow and free of others.  More often than not there is uncertainty involved in choosing the backroads; they are the alternative, not the first choice, and everyone wants their first choice. It dawned on me recently that these opposing paths are much like life.

I fractured my tibial plateau just over a month ago in Russia.  In a season where I was returning from a major knee surgery the year before, getting injured again was not something that I had planned on; I suppose no one ever plans an injury, but I certainly didn’t see it coming in such a flukey way, and definitely not if I was taking all the right steps in a gradual return to competition.  Last week I had a day where I was really down about having another season (my third in a row now) cut short by injury.  I asked myself, “when are you going to learn? when are you going to change so that you don’t get frustrated and down?”  The reality is that we will never change; at least not completely.

There will never be a time that we are unaffected by difficult situations that arise in our lives.  We are human, and when bad things happen, it hurts.  But we can become more aware of how we handle these moments.  This awareness is what will allow us to flow through life with more ease, even when things go awry- just like my back roads.  The traffic on the main roads never really goes away, stop lights don’t always stay GREEN, but if we are aware of the back roads we can begin to flow with what is happening around us.  Instead of remaining controlled by our ego, which was fixed on taking the main road, we open our eyes to other options.  When a light turns red ahead of us, we turn; where there is traffic, we get out of it.  We begin to see that there is more than one way to our destination and our future doesn’t have to be exactly as we had envisioned.

Every now and again life catches up with us.  Our goals and dreams suddenly seem more daunting than motivating, we dwell on the past or fret about the future, instead of staying grounded in the present moment.  Once again this year, the path that I had outlined had taken a major detour; the future I had envisioned hadn’t arrived.  The path to fulfillment is often a challenging one.  We set our heart’s intent on achieving something outside of ourselves, something over which we don’t have complete control.  Whether this goal is ending a war in Congo, like my friend Sean Carasso founder of the Falling Whistles Campaign for Peace, or winning an Olympic gold medal, there are only so many aspects of the pursuit that fall directly in our control.  The important part is following our hearts and creating the path along the way, remembering always that there is more than one road. For me right now, this means taking a little more time off of snow and a little more time giving my body what it needs more than anything: a break.  What does it mean for you?

“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up, but you don’t give up.” – Chuck Yeager (first man to break the sound barrier)

“It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It has been over a decade since I set out to become an Olympian in the sport of halfpipe skiing. When I began there were only a handful of contests a year, and only a handful of competitors.  There were no Olympic Games for us, just the idea of them.  Many of us take on goals that initially seem insurmountable.  Some of us achieve them, others fall short; but reaching a goal is not the entire purpose of having a goal.  Besides loving skiing, the concept that has propelled me to continue over the years is the process of self-reflection & growth that comes with the journey and the notion of self-actualization.  It is for these reasons that I have been able to come back from several knee surgeries, dislocated shoulders, broken eye sockets, wrists, elbows, and ribs; that is why I am continuing to fight through my current limitations with my knee, to pursue my goal of becoming one of the first Olympians in the sport of halfpipe skiing.

For some time, I got caught up in the winning- the piece of the pie that seems to illustrate one’s success.  It was in this time that my experiences had very little to teach me.  Sure, I was acquiring feedback that confirmed that what I was doing was good- more sponsors, awards, and attention, but it only made me temporarily happy, until of course, there was even more of that, which there not always is.  We enter this world with nothing and we are going to leave this world with nothing- material possessions, wealth, fame, and success will all be left behind. So why get caught up in trying to attain such things?  Why allow those concepts to determine our worth?  If we are too focused on the finish line we won’t see the speed bumps and pot holes, twists and turns, that may set us off track.  And if we only see them as obstacles in our way, challenges to merely ‘get through’ because we have to in order to reach our goal, we will likely burn out before we ever cross that finish line.

As I sit here writing this, I am sidelined from my sport once again because of a fractured tibial plateau.  In the year before our sports’ Olympic debut, returning from a major knee surgery in 2012, I have yet another obstacle in my way.  But instead of getting frustrated this time, I am loving it.  I have embraced this opportunity for what it is- a chance to be home, sleeping in my bed, going to my gym, eating home-cooked meals, focusing on health and healing.  It is not often in the life of a professional athlete, that we really get to just sit back and enjoy our lives, there is always another goal to be attained, or record to be broken.  But now I have realized that each step is a goal in itself, regardless of what that step may be.  These steps are no longer just inching me closer to my ultimate goal, these steps make up my life.

This is the same for everyone, regardless of what it is he or she is trying to achieve.  For me it has been rehabilitation and time in the gym, for my graduate school sister, it is writing papers and creating presentations, for the aspiring musician it is teaching music not just performing music, and for the photographer, shooting weddings not just landscapes.  But learning to LOVE these other aspects of our journey that allow us to work toward our goals will make all the difference in the world.  Putting these steps into the category of a “goal” themselves is a good start in making each step more fulfilling.

So, get out there. Chase your dreams!  But don’t forget to enjoy yourself along the way.

I recalled how excited I would get each year heading into town, thinking of the great halfpipe that we would be able to ski, story-lining my imagined success of landing new tricks and landing on the podium.  I’ve never driven to Aspen for X without the belief that I could win, but this year I have.  My knee is not yet 100% normal from my injury sustained over a year ago on January 10, but my strength is at 98% of what it was at my strongest in the fall of 2011.  I am able to ski, but the image that I have of the skier I once was is something I have let go of.  That’s not to say that I will never do the tricks that I once did before, or that I will never stand atop a podium again, but it’s not going to happen right now.  It’s a humbling feeling and an honorable one, to still want to go out, naked, exposed and vulnerable, to allow a judging panel to tell me that I’m not number 1.

For the first time in my career I’m not worried about wining, being the best, or being better than everyone else.  I’m focused on doing the best that I can, with what I have, where I am.  It’s a mindset that I’ve been told about for the last decade, one that is written about in every sports psych book on the market, but one that is scary to adapt, when the will to win carried you so far for so long.  It’s exciting to be in a place where I can watch these young girls throwing both way 900s, filling their runs with more technicality, switch hits, amplitude and grabs, and just feel proud- proud for them, and proud for myself, that I am still here, now, just skimming above the dogfight, doing my own thing.  I can’twait to do some of the big tricks that are in my arsenal, but if I don’t respect my body and I don’t accept where I am right now, I will never be able to do them again.

My sights remain set on competing in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia and the only way to get there is through living every day doing all I can.  Though my circumstances have changed, my end goal doesn’t need to.   Sometimes we have to take a few steps backward in order to move forward again.  It’s in this time that people often doubt themselves, doubt their ability to improve and decide it’s time to quit.  But a lot of the time, this is when you are inches away from your greatest success.

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and get up eight times.  Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” Paulo Coelho

Do not look back on what you can't change, look ahead to what you can create.

Loss: what a powerful four-letter word.  Loss is one of those inevitable uncontrollables that we all, at some point or another, have or will experience.  Whether it comes in the form of losing a job, your health, a loved one, or even your motivation, loss packs a punch.  In a matter of two rough weeks in January, I lost all of the things that I just mentioned.  On January 10^th, I blew out my knee thereby losing my health and my ability to partake in my job (skiing professionally); on January 19^th I lost a dear friend, my mentor and my idol, Sarah Burke.  Quickly following, my motivation to return to the sport I once so loved seemed to be drifting away.  I found myself entering a seemingly devastating state of hopelessness and knew I could not stay there for long.

So how do you overcome loss, grief, and the long plateau of stagnation that often accompanies these times?  It is a question I asked myself repeatedly until I began to find my way out.

Last October I was in a really great place in life.  I had made some changes over the preceding months that made me feel as if I could do anything, achieve anything and could live happily for the rest of my life.  Reading Ekhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” enhanced the effect that these small changes had on me. Tolle presents the concept that anxiety and guilt come about when we stop living in the “now”.  That is to say, when we begin thinking of the future we rouse “what-ifs” which in turn create anxiety and stress.  What if my knee doesn’t heal… What if I can’t ski again… What if my Olympic dream is now awash? Thoughts of the past create feelings of regret and guilt.  If only I didn’t hit that jump… Why Sarah and not me? Neither of these thought patterns is productive since we cannot foresee the future and we cannot change what has happened in the past.  We can only ever truly be in the current moment; we are where we are, NOW.

Living in the now is an easy philosophy to live by when things are going smoothly.  When the present moment feels good, staying there is simple.  So last October, I readily embraced this way of living.  “Why bring undo stress into my life, when my current moment is going great,” I pondered.  This philosophy worked then, but got drastically harder when life got harder.  What if your present moment is not pleasant?  What if it is filled with constant reminders about what your life “used to be like” but no longer is?  (Like when I could walk and run with ease.)  When your “now” is filled with pain, how can you tolerate living in it?  Your brain tries to find a quick way out.  Instinctively we think about the past, retrace our steps and find that pivotal moment that would change it all, as if we could somehow defy the laws of the universe and turn back the hands of time.  When that notion fails us, we think about the future and remind ourselves of what is to come.  For a moment this provides hope, and gives us something to which we look forward. But as the long road winds on, and we are not noticeably closer to those goals, we begin to DOUBT. Will I ever get there? Will I ever feel like me again? Will I live with ease and smile at the simple things, ever again?

Last Wednesday, February 29, 2012, marked the 4^th week post-surgery on my right knee.  With that came some freedom that I haven’t experienced for a while: I was able to drive my car again and I was allowed to begin partial weight bearing.  But the gift of “being able to walk again” was a double-edged sword.   When I was non-weight bearing I was able to tell myself “okay, things are hard right now because of all of the limitations on your knee… the swelling won’t go down until you can move your knee through walking and some biking… once I hit the 4 week mark things will improve!”  Well then I hit the 4-week mark and began to put some weight on my right leg after 7 weeks of non-weight bearing.  Reality, I am nowhere close to being able to walk…the road ahead of me looks longer than I imagined: bring on the DOUBT, bring on the fear.

I had stopped living in the now after my injury and Sarah’s passing, because it was too painful to just be here.  What I didn’t realize was that by projecting myself into the future or dwelling on the past, I was making my present moment that much harder.  By setting my sights on what was to come, I was setting myself up for disappointment.  Sure, my “now” may currently be tough, but it isn’t ever going to be any better or worse than it IS.  As the present moment changes it drifts away into the past and brings me to my next “now,” and nothing exists in the future, until the future is now.   The only way to get past hard times is to live through them.  Though that may seem disheartening, look how much there is to learn.  And just know that you are strong enough to get through this moment, and if you can get through this one, you can get through the next one, and the next one and the next.  Soon enough, that future will be your now.  In the words of Francis Bacon Sr., “we have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.”

To all my ski friends: shred on, and enjoy every moment out there.  We never know when it will be our last.