Cliff jumping and trust exercises

7^th June 2016

During the jungle weekend we had to do trust falling exercises. To be totally honest, they were fairly boring and my least favourite part of the weekend. But they did actually get me thinking afterwards. When we progressed from falling back into one person to falling side to side into two people it was said “trusting one person is hard, but trusting two is harder”. Never has a truer statement been uttered. Trust is something that I have always struggled with. I’m happy to be open about certain things, but when it comes to deeper feelings (romantic feelings in particular) I rarely open up. I don’t like to show vulnerability or put myself in positions where I can be hurt. And so I don’t. I found it hard just to allow myself to fall into one person. When it came to having to trust ten people to lift me off the ground and over their heads, I simply couldn’t do it. I’d been pushed to my limit already.

Cliff jumping the next day was an amazing experience, but it hit home to me that not only do I struggle to trust others, I also don’t actually trust myself. Looking over the 15 foot drop all I could think was what if I don’t do it right? What if I don’t fall how we’re supposed to? What if I don’t jump far enough? I felt frozen to the spot for a few seconds, scared of the unknown with every instinct in my body telling me to step backwards away from the edge. And then the encouragement of the others who had already jumped into the water below took over; I took a deep breath and threw myself off the ledge. My heart was pounding, my stomach lurched up into my head and I let out a huge scream. I plunged into the refreshingly cool water, and quickly kicked myself back up to the surface. It was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done. Taking the step off the edge was tough. It went against every instinct in my body. But the reward for doing so was great. The adrenaline continued to pump through my veins long after we had climbed out of the water and made our way back to camp. It sounds so corny, but I learnt such an important lesson. It taught me that sometimes we should take that leap of faith. Sometimes we have to put our trust in ourselves or in others, regardless of how much it terrifies us. Because in doing so we may get the best reward of our life. I guess it’s true, that sometimes the things that scare us the most are the things that bring the richest experiences to our lives. Sometimes the risk of being hurt has to be overlooked for the possibility of great things in our futures.