Going beyond the mind

I recently watched a documentary about American free solo (without ropes) climber Alex Honnold alone on the wall. This rather gangly and unassuming guy climbs the largest and steepest cliffs in the world with just his bare hands and a bag of chalk to keep his fingers dry. In this National Geographic film he soloes the 1000 foot ‘Moonlight Buttress’ in Arizona (a first), followed by the even more impressive first free solo ascent of the 2000 foot North West face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Besides the astonishing nature of these feats, his mental state during these gravity and death defying climbs clearly illustrates one of the premises of Awareness Works.


This idea asserts we seek a state of wholeness, of well-being in our lives, infused with peace and freedom, but this can only occur when we go beyond our limited mind to the present moment of awareness. When Alex Honnold climbs free solo he faces certain death if he makes even one small mistake. The sheer intensity of this threat has the effect of stilling his mind. When Alex climbs the North West face of Half Dome, he only really gets in trouble when his mind becomes active, full of fear and doubts. He has to completely stop climbing when this occurs, to take time to work through this, so he can get out of ‘my little prison’ (as he puts it). He can’t resume his climbing until he gets back to a place of ‘not thinking’. So how does Alex Honnold describe how he feels when he climbs, when he’s ‘in the zone’, beyond the ‘little prison’ of his mind?

He calls the experience ‘peaceful’, ‘mellow’ and ‘free’, words that don’t make sense when our typical reaction facing such extreme risk would be fear and terror. But for Alex, with his skill and athletic ability, pushing himself to these limits actually brings him to a state of pure awareness beyond his mind. When this happens he knows wholeness, he knows well-being. Rather than fame or fortune, rather than risk or adrenaline rushes, this experience of well-being draws him to free soloing. Fortunately for the rest of us who can’t scale enormous cliffs (maybe I could do a couple of chin-ups before losing my grip!), many other pathways exist that allow us to go beyond our minds to know well-being. These efforts (yes they do require ‘work’) form the ‘core’ of our path to wellness.