05/23 | What I learned from walking on the edge of the CN tower...
May '23 - 'inside lauren's brain'
FYI -I wanted to publish a "special' b-day celebration reflection entry instead of the usual monthly recollection in honour of May being my birth month. 👶🏻
This year I gave myself the gift of being uncomfortable to celebrate my birthday.
I’m certainly no stranger to anxiety 😳 & fear. It didn’t help that I grew up spending all my evenings and early mornings at my (former) gymnastics club 🤸🏻♀️.
At the tender age of 11, I became immune to pressure and fear.
Who wouldn’t be when multiple grown adults yell at you daily? (yep, this really happened & contributed to my broken tibia ‘era,’ if you will - but that’s a story for another day... proof in photos below ⬇️)
Gymnastics-related trauma aside 😅, I needed to fill my void of familiarity + comfort this year. I promise this is where the CN tower 🍁 joins the story…
As a native Torontonian, I have become somewhat unfazed by the 116-story tower. That was until I registered for the infamous “highest external walk around a building“(in the world 🌎), also known as the “EdgeWalk.”
Here’s the attraction description as listed on Ontario’s tourism website…
“EdgeWalk CN Tower is the first attraction of its kind in North America and has adventure lovers taking a walk 116 stories above the ground around the circumference of one of Canada’s most famous landmarks.”
“In fact, in November 2011 EdgeWalk at the CN Tower was presented with the Guinness World Record for the “Highest External Walk on a Building."
I haven’t particularly feared heights in my life thus far. But this proved incorrect during the 60-second elevator ride to the platform of the edgewalk. It seems like a pretty natural thing for anyone to feel while walking on top of a 116-story building… IMO 🤷🏻♀️
I purposely refrained from telling people about this to reduce any possible external influences of stress, + I wanted to do this for me… not for anyone else but myself.
& On May 22nd, 2023,
I completed my walk on the CN tower 😆🥳🎉
My main EDGE-WALK takeaways…
Fear is inevitable, but Regret is FOREVER.
The simplicity of anxiety-provoked emotions is typical for being alive (*this excludes debilitating anxiety symptoms. If this is you, please know that it does get better 💗💗 and you are so loved).
Subsequently, the action of NOT stepping out of your comfort zone allows you to feel regret for your failure to do so (at least, this is accurate in my experience).
Life is short. Give less Fucks (pardon my profanity, but it’s true!)
While looking down at 100s of people going about their daily life, it was the first time in my life that I had my entire mental clarity 🧠 focused on myself.
Some may interpret this as being selfish, but since when did the object of taking personal authority over our actions become so negative? 🧐
If walking a thousand and one hundred meters in the sky taught me anything, it helped open my eyes to a rather stoic interpretation of self-worth. 🗻
I love that quote “Fear is inevitable, but regret is forever.”!!! Super powerful :)
The ultimate discomfort challenge! And I second, give less fucks --it's one of the best ways towards growth!