What Being 60ft in the Air Taught Me About Moving Forward.

I felt the wind rushing past me, sending a chill down my body. I heard the slight creak of the carabiner and the rope footholds as they swayed with my weight. I heard faint words of encouragement from below, and I knew that my friends--who had quickly become like my family in only a few weeks--were all imagining what it was like to be up here looking down from the sky. But, at that moment, all I wanted to do was be back there at the bottom with them. I couldn’t do this. My arms were tired and I was up too high. I wasn’t going to make it.

“Ok, you can lower me down!” I shouted to the group leaders below. I waited for what I was sure would be an easy slide to the bottom, but it never came. Then, I understood. I was only going to be lowered down when I had made it to the summit. I had to keep going. I tentatively took another step up, and then another. I began to find the way forward.

My three weeks on an Outward Bound program when I was 17 years old were made up of some of the most transformative experiences of my life. Not only did I make it to the summit that day, but over the course of the program I was consistently challenged to step out of my comfort zone, run for miles, spend days at a time on sailboats, and swim in the frosty waters off the coast of Maine.

It wasn’t until I was in graduate school at Loyola University in Chicago, however, that I realized that there was more to this trip than just doing cool things outside. As I learned more about Adventure-Based Counseling, I realized that what I had seen as primarily a recreational experience,a chance to try out some cool things, had also been a therapeutic one. I began to wonder, could I make therapy that was as “cool” for my patients as my daily swims in the frosty Atlantic Ocean?

For almost 20 years I have been looking for ways to use Adventure-Based Counseling to help people move forward. For many years I was the “adventure guy” in agency or treatment center settings, where the patients were part of the organization and I was brought in to provide additional services. Since Adventure-Based Counseling was considered an adjunctive offering, it seemed to fit in better into settings where patients were already receiving traditional psychotherapy. But this didn’t feel like enough to me. As I begun to see transformation in these patients, I wondered what it would be like if Adventure-Based Counseling was at the center of the therapeutic process, not on the side.

This is why I started Adventure Forward--because I have seen first-hand the transformational power that comes from being outside, stepping outside of your comfort zone, and pushing yourself to take just another step. Starting an Adventure-Based practice has not been easy. People can often see our services as “fun and games” and don’t understand the true therapeutic value of what we have to offer. Sometimes, I forget what we’re trying to do and get bogged down in what I think “traditional” therapy should look like. Sometimes, I wonder if I am even making a difference.

But then I remember that moment, over 30 years ago, when I had been thoroughly convinced that I could not keep going, and then my experience disproved my belief. This is what I hope to share with my clients, and why I started Adventure Forward. When I remember what it felt like to reach that summit, to look down at all my friends from 60ft in the air, I remember that so often in life we are able to accomplish what we think we cannot. And we can continue to move forward.