What’s up with the mountains?
There is peace found in the mountains….
You just need to be quiet and listen.
I grew up in a very small town on the east side of the Rocky Mountains in Montana. Early in my childhood, my parents purchased a cabin on a lake on the west side of the mountains, approximately 2 hours from our home. Thus began our weekly visit to the lake. I spent many an hour sitting in the back of the station wagon listening to Johnny Cash traversing the mountain to get to and from our lake home.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the mountains give me peace. I don’t know if it is the majesty, the immenseness, or the beauty. I just know that they speak to my soul.
When I was a girl, I am not sure what the age, I wandered to the woods behind our lake cabin. I was upset about something; I honestly do not recall what.
So, I began walking and talking out loud to try to reason through my problem. The sunshine was shining down through the trees so I was walking through sunlight and shadow. I probably walked and talked for 30 minutes.
When I returned to the cabin, I was calm and strangely felt heard.
I didn’t always hold on to the knowledge of the power and pull of the mountains for me. When I was 23 I got engaged to the love of my life and moved to Wisconsin.
During that period of my life, each time I would return to Montana to visit, I didn’t feel the peace of the mountains. I was running a family business (with my husband), and raising children. I was so in my head about doing my best at work and not screwing up raising my sons that I was oblivious to the calm that surrounded me. Each time we would return to Wisconsin I would mourn, but I just thought it was being separated from my parents.
In 2019, my husband and I sold our family business and “retired”. We purchased a very small cabin on a remote lake 45 minutes from my parents’ home in Montana. This new season began the journey back to that little girl walking through the forest, pouring her heart out to the mountain.
What is up with the mountains?
After retirement I was lost. I went from managing 115 employees to being alone in my home. It felt like everyone’s life moved on without me. For me, this was the beginning of my reason for becoming a life coach. Up until that point, I could easily point to why I had value. I had endless evidence surrounding me from running the club. Now it was gone. I had an identity crisis.
Through my journey to become a life coach, I began to feel the mountains again. It took almost a year for me to realize it. This past July, we were flying in from Wisconsin, down the valley, over Swan Lake (our lake). The majesty, power, beauty, and peace of the mountains hit me. I literally could feel them again. I will never forget the moment of sheer joy that I felt as we began our dialogue again.
Now, I get to walk amongst the trees, with the sunlight streaming through to break the shadows and talk. What a gift.