Last summer, I was enjoying climbing some beautiful mountains in the French Alps with my guide, when I lived a special experience which has become today one of my most valuable lessons in life.

For our second mountain, my guide and me had left the refuge at 4:30am and we were slowly walking a very steep slope since about 45 minutes when our head lights hit a plate of snow.

I got ready to take my ice cleats in my rugsag when my guide said: “we can cross safely without it, it will just be like walking normally in the snow.”

And without further delay, he stepped in the snow.

I had never yet walked on a steep icy snow plate in the dark without ice cleats, so I felt my throat slightly tightening, but I courageously stepped in the snow too.

After three steps, I realized that it wasn’t just a normal walk in the snow, at least for me, and my legs started to shake, while my body curled up forwards, desperately clinging to my two walking sticks strongly stuck in the icy snow.

The red arrow indicates the place of the experience!

In the same time, I had to fight against the paralyzing vision of me slipping down the snow plate and then falling down the 300 or 400 meters we had already climbed since the refuge.

I could not understand why my guide kept calmly repeating that it would be easier for me to stand up and walk normally – although that is exactly what he was doing while talking to me.

It took me more than 15 minutes to reach the other side of the snow plate (which was no more than 50 meters wide), totally exhausted, breathing like a locomotive and trembling from head to toe.

My guide then said a gentle “Are you ok?”, and I pronounced a “Yes” like if it was my final breath.

Then he said, “fine, let’s go, we still have a long way to go.”

We reached the summit 4 hours later after a very pleasant climbing.

When we were back to the snow plate enlighted by a nice early afternoon sun, I realized how much my own imagination had played a trick on me.

The plate was less steep than I felt in the dark; like two kids, we glided on it to the bottom as we were skying.

If I had slipped down in the morning, I would have just made a gentle sliding on my butt for 25 meters, landing in a big pile of little rocks.

My guide knew I was safe anyway, but he didn’t tell me, allowing me to live the full experience.

I also realized that my fear in the morning was such that I didn’t trust him when he kept telling me that I could walk normally…Now that I had the full vision of the situation, it was nearly as easy as to walk on my terrace!

***

Should I further explain how this little story could easily be extrapolated to the situation of any student in the MKMMA, especially during the first part of their Hero’s Journey?

Hopefully, it should be cristal clear now for everyone how the Old Blueprint is constantly playing tricks on us, so that we could loose the trust in our guide for just the time required to trigger the “Refusal of the call.”

In conclusion, TRUST YOUR GUIDES, whatever the challenge you are in right now, because they KNOW you are safe, they just won’t tell you, because they want you to live the full experience!