My horoscope for 2025 told me, this year I need to watch my words.  Fear immediately struck.

Fight, flight, freeze and fawn get a lot of attention for being our bodies’ first and loudest responses to dangerous situations. No one really gets to choose which of these Fs our nervous systems will pull out of the hat to keep us alive in the moment, and then the moment is over.

My dad has been visiting me this month and we’ve been climbing together a lot. Back when I was 10 he taught me to tie a figure eight knot and how to be scared to death belaying, and he’s still teaching me today.

1. Feel the pain of this moment. How does it make you feel when you realize every day again and again that there is something big you need to change. You can write about how much it sucks in your journal or cry about it in your car.

Today is a practical message.  It’s for dealing with a moment when you thought you would die. A reminder to do instead of stay cool.

I used to sleep, or rather not sleep, in tents, or rooms in the country with windows but no curtains, and imagine them sliced open with long claws, strange men or the will of the piercing wind.  I’d lie down with clothes on, ready to bolt, fall almost asleep with the light on, but then switch it off real quick because, horrors, when I can’t see them, they see me.

I’ve been hanging out with climbers since I was a little kid. What I’m about to say is born from my silent observations as a shy 12-year-old, to deep conversations murmured over campfires in the wilderness, to the stories my students share with me weekly.

There is no optimum state on my horizon, nor am I there now, nor do I plan on figuring out what it is.

I don’t believe in optimization.

So many people want my secrets for a better head.