There is only one way off the mountain and a post about zip lining

I guess technically there are two ways, because sometimes you hike it out.  But if you are going to climb, then you have to repel.  I could climb hundreds of feet and be fine, and then when it's time to repel back down I hold on to the rope for dear life as if I have any control at all.  I have no control.  My belayer has basically complete control over my descent.  But I tense up and grip the rope with all my force when really I should be able to just relax back into my harness and walk my feet down the side of the mountain.  I'm never able to do that.  It is hard to relax into the feeling of not having control.  That moment when you have to repel in order to climb up, that step backwards over the edge gets me every time, and I'm not even afraid of heights.  You are dangling over a cliff and someone else is hanging on to you.

That lack of control is not unlike doing the zip line or some of the other challenges here.  Some of the challenges here really challenge you mentally.  They are really mind games more than physical challenges.  Others are challenges in letting go which for some people are metaphors for letting go of things in life.  Both types of challenges are equally good but just different.  The challenges can be about a lot of things.  It's really about something different for everyone and for some people the challenges really bring up a lot of emotion or things that people didn't realize were there.

My goal for this challenge, for the zip line, was not to go last and not to hold on.  If given the option, I will always choose to go last.  And usually I hold on to things with a death grip like in repelling off the mountain.  I do this elsewhere in life - hang on tight like I have any control over it.  When in reality life is so much easier when you let go because for most things, you can't control them anyway.  So to go outside my comfort zone I went first and I let go.  I didn't hang on to the line connecting me.  I hesitated for a second before I jumped but the thing is, the only way off that tower is to jump.  Once you jump, there really isn't another feeling like it.