Step Outside Your Comfort Zone (Life Lesson #5)

Photo Source: Jane Ellen Hana Robinson

Last Sunday, a series of photos popped up on my phone: sweeping views across shadowed dark mountains, emerald green valleys, Alpine meadows dense with flowers, rocky hiking paths, and…whoa!  A view down a sheer cliff face to the valley and town below. A hiking boot was visible in the photo, stepping on a metal rung protruding from the stone mountainside.

I was standing at my kitchen counter doing nothing more exciting than making breakfast, but I suddenly felt lightheaded. I was imagining that I was on that cliff face. That I was the one taking that photo. I had to sit down.

I am afraid of heights. It’s not quite the extreme and irrational fear of full-blown acrophobia, but I get queasy standing at the glass railing on the second level of the local mall, and it takes a pep talk to myself to move across the clear glass walkway at the Soho Apple Store in NYC. Just thinking about the Grand Canyon West Rim glass Skywalk makes me nauseous.

Most of the time, I manage this fear by pretending I am not afraid. Instead of my usual imaginings of the railing breaking and me falling over the edge, in freefall, I focus on good thoughts and take deep steady breaths. In short, I psych myself out. I think my psychologist friends would call this “Do It Yourself Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.” In this way, I can go to the top of the Empire State Building, climb the steps to the top of the Duomo in Florence, and ride the ski gondola to get to that perfect run. But it takes effort.

The photos on my phone were sent by my daughter after her morning hike along the Mürren – Gimmelwald Via Ferrata. Jane is studying abroad in Geneva this semester and on her first weekend there, she and some classmates rented climbing helmets and safety gear and had some fun.

I have heard of via ferrata hikes—literally “iron Path” in Italian (or for the sake of the Blue Car, klettersteig in German)—and was curious. The first via ferrata was constructed in the Italian Alps during World War I, to provide protected and safe routes for troops to move through the mountains.  Hikers wear harnesses and have two special lanyards and auto-locking carabiners that attach to metal cables and rungs set into the rock. While these via ferratas (or vie ferrate in Italian) range in difficulty level, most allow normal people in good physical shape to experience extraordinary views and the exhilarating sense of adventure typically only enjoyed by traditional rock climbers with advanced technical skills.

I talked to Jane later that day. Despite my need to sit down after looking at that photo, I was intrigued and wondered if I could do a hike like that. “Yes, mom, it was scary but not difficult. No exceptional strength needed but descending is tough on the knees.”

We finished our call, and I got online. The Swiss Tourist Website extolled the thrills of the experience:

The via ferrata leading from Mürren to Gimmelwald requires courage and no fear of heights, but in return offers plenty of thrills and an adrenaline booster.

Hmmm…. “requires no fear of heights.” That certainly not me, but inexplicably, I began to imagine edging my way along the steep rock face, secured by the ropes (the more the better) and seeing the spectacular view of the 14,000-foot-high Bernese peaks in the distance. I imagined being high above the Lauterbrunnen valley in Mürren, breathing in fresh mountain air, and descending 1000 feet in altitude along the almost 1.5-mile-long route into the steep valley to Gimmelwald.

I want to do this.

Just thinking about it, I get a rush of adrenaline that is part fear, part exhilaration, and part something else.  The something else is the satisfaction of doing something out of my comfort zone.   

I am wondering what my totally unexpected and slightly crazy desire to hike the Mürren - Gimmelwald Via Ferrata means for my 2026 road trip plans. I have intentionally kept my itinerary loose, but I am at the point where I need to consider specifics. Aside from the “Blue Car winding back roads” vibe I am coveting, there will be specific tours and experiences that may need booking ahead.  So, it’s time to make some decisions.

 Do I want a trip filled with Via Ferrata-type experiences? Days of stepping outside my comfort zone? Or a trip filled with easy and comfortable moments?

It’s not absolute either/or of course, but the very nature of travel implies a break from routine and I see routine—the things we do repeatedly—as synonymous with comfort zone. Routine is making my favorite recipe for a crowd when I have made it dozens of times before. It’s walking the same route to the grocery store each week. It’s the easy nature of hanging out with long-time friends with no worries about what I wear or my frame of mind.

Not routine? Hanging from the side of a cliff with nothing but a thin iron rung and safety cable protecting me from sudden doom.

The Via Ferrata in Mürren – Gimmelwald has me thinking about comfort zones—why we develop them, how the boundaries can shift over time, and what leads us to break out of their confines to discover new ways of looking at ourselves and the world.  

My embrace of the Blue Car in the last five years has caused me to move outside my former comfort zone, enlarging the boundaries over time. It’s been an eye-opening experience.

At first it was simply a matter of my limited patience and available time. I was not comfortable spending time I felt I didn’t have on car matters. Why is everything more complicated with this car? Why do I have to spend time fixing ‘x” when I could be doing what I really need to do (spending time with my kids, completing work projects, mowing the lawn, cooking dinner, getting more sleep)?

Then it was about driving; I had never really tested the car or myself on the road. Can it handle this curve at 50 mph? 60 mph? More?  And autocross was a whole new and slightly terrifying experience. How close am I to that cone? Will the car spin out around that turn at this speed? Will I make a fool of myself in front of all these people?

Scarier things included unexpected weather conditions on my road trip. Like driving from Gallup to Santa Fe in that sudden snow/ice storm.  Where the hell is the next exit? Should I pull to the side of the highway and risk someone slamming into me? Damn, I didn’t know a tractor trailer could slide sideways like that! Where are the highway lanes?

All these Blue Car experiences helped me go beyond my comfort zone. Some required tiny movement past those boundaries and others a bigger step or two. The real leap outside my comfort zone? Slowing down. I was defined by my busyness, my competence, my tendency to say yes to everything and everyone. It took the idea of the road trip, my subsequent sabbatical from work, and 3-1/2 months behind the wheel to realize I was running at such a fast pace to avoid grief, assuage doubts, and prove myself. And that I had been doing it for so long that I didn’t even realize it; it had all become routine.

There’s nothing wrong with routine. For a long time in my life, I needed routine to simplify things. I was a single mom with young kids, had two jobs, and at one point was even renting an extra bedroom to a grad student. Every part of my complicated day that could be reduced to routine was one less thing to worry about. My kids were growing and changing, my career was shifting, and with all those moving parts I needed a foundation. Routine enabled me to concentrate my limited energy where it was really needed: my kids, work, community connections.

Now, however, routine doesn’t offer the same benefits. It seems the opposite: I have fewer moving parts in my life these days so I want to shake things up. To be alive in the fullest sense is to change and grow. I think my fascination with the via ferrata is an interest in expanding my world, in having that unbeatable satisfaction of doing something that really stretches me mentally and physically. My daughter told me that at the end of the hike, one of her friends said, “That was the scariest thing I have ever done; I won’t ever do that again. And I am so glad I did it.”

Will I do a via ferrata on my road trip? I don’t know. I hope I find something that helps me test myself in calculated ways and that offers me the thrill of satisfaction and pride in myself when I am done. Maybe it will be a glacier experience in Norway, or an overnight camping and hiking excursion on new terrain. Perhaps it will be something less physical and more cerebral like an intensive week-long language class. I will know when I find it.

One thing is for sure: I want those boundaries to be in constant motion. When I step outside my comfort zone, the boundary often moves along with me. My world gets bigger and more interesting.

And that’s exciting. Even if it’s sometimes scary.