Finding My Brave: Blind Challenge Ropes Course

This week I am attending a retreat designed for blind women and based on the work of Brené Brown around shame, vulnerability, strength, bravery, courage, strength, and empowerment. The retreat is titled "Rising Strong" as this experience and the work involved, has as its focus on the Rising Strong portion of Brené Brown's literature. The leader's of this retreat, have taken great care in planning our time in such a way that we are challenged--physically, emotionally, mentally, as well as individually, and as a group, to stretch, grow, and conquer.
Today, our first "full" day of activity, began with a challenge some of us were originally terrified of, and others, like myself, thought would be easy peasy, super fun and adventurous--but scary--not so much. Yet, not long after I began climbing that 35 foot wall, all of me--body, mind, and emotions, became overcome with fear. My breath quickened, my arms shook, and while I can look at the video and cognitively recognize that this ENTIRE group of people I love and respect was cheering me on.... in the moment, I was hardly able to attend to or focus on their encouragement. I was scared, and I needed every little bit of my focus to find my Brave, to keep going, to get to the top (even if tears were streaming down my cheeks by the time I made it!), and do my best to play, have fun, challenge myself, and allow myself to fully experience this--whatever that looked like.
As you'll see, while the first half of the experience was pretty overwhelming, one of the pulls for me in all of this, was being able to go down the biplane. My bucket list DEFINITELY involves zip lining in some sort of crazy wild location. I LOVE ziplines!
For more information on the blind women's retreats offered through the Oasis Center for Hope:
oasiscenterforh...
For more information on the National Ability Center in Park City, UT:
www.discovernac...
• National Ability Cente...
For more information about Brené Brown and her work:
brenebrown.com/...

[@wubby57]

I cannot thank you enough for your videos, they are so inspirational. My journey as a VIP started almost 2 years ago when I had a minor stroke which damage to my optic nerves. Seeing videos of such as yours has giving me the motivation to move forward. I am starting to hike again with my family and I look forward to February when I will attend my training class at GDP and starting another wonderful journey. Once again I thank you for sharing your heart and your passion for life.

[@theblindmomnextdoor]

+Mike Wubker Sr MIKE!!! That is so fabulous!!! I LOVE that you're hiking with your family! You might like another video coming soon then--we did a five mile hike while we were here! It was amazing! We communicated a lot with each other to help one another avoid the roots and rocks we would trip on. You and your family may also want to look into the NAC--even if only one family member has a disability--it's all about the entire family being part of the experience and seeing the family member doing these things as well--I'm looking forward to my girls SEEING me doing these challenges!!

[@GardensLadyBug]

Wow!

[@MyBlindMamasMessyKitchen]

what an amazing experience this must have been. Thank you for sharing this.

[@theblindmomnextdoor]

+My Blind Mamas Messy Kitchen I think you might love this retreat series--if you're ever interested to hear about it let me know! I'll upload a more personal take on it soon as well, and a video showing some of the 5 mile hike we went on yesterday. It was beautiful. And perfect for all we've been working on and processing.