What a Grueling Ski Trip Taught Me About Therapy, Discomfort, and Moving Forward

A few weeks ago, I set out on my first ever overnight backcountry ski trip.

I didn’t do too much to prepare aside from packing — I grew up going to Girl Scout camp, I led outdoor recreation trips. I know good practices, how hard could this be?

Based on my past experiences I know very well to, say, not start a hike at 6:00 PM. But those were the circumstances we found ourselves in. Off to a great start, right?

A friend had reserved a backcountry yurt up Logan Canyon, and according to the description, it was 3.6-miles on a trail we had hiked and cross-country skied in years past. Due to work and other obligations we couldn’t leave earlier but…it sounded doable.

Spoiler: It was not as doable as I thought.

To keep a very long story short — it got dark (obviously). There was no way we were skinning (uphill skiing) 3.6 miles between 6:00 PM and sunset in April. My feet and shins hurt like hell. The trail was much steeper, much harder than I had imagined. After about two miles, we had to abandon our ski trailer because dragging it uphill was impossible. We crammed the remaining gear into our backpacks and kept going.

We didn’t reach the yurt until 11:15 PM — five hours after we started.

And when we finally checked our mileage? It wasn't 3.6 miles. It was closer to 5.5.

I cried only once. But honestly, that doesn’t even begin to capture the amount of physical and emotional misery I was in.

And yet — in the middle of that misery, standing under a nearly full moon, far from the car and with no clear sense of how far we still had to go — I had a realization that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for weeks.

This was not a situation where I could opt out.

There were only two options:
1. Turn around and endure the discomfort of skiing down frozen, crusty snow in the dark with bruised shins and cramped toes, or
2. Keep moving forward into more uncertainty, more fatigue, and more physical pain — but toward my goal.

Both options were painful. There was no choice that led to immediate comfort.
The only choice I had was which discomfort I was willing to move through.

Laying down in a tree well and giving up, while extremely tempting, wasn’t an option.

This is therapy.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), there’s a core idea: Rather than avoid discomfort, we can practice moving forward with it — guided by what matters to us.
If we constantly turn away from discomfort, we also turn away from the life we want.
It may be easier in the short term to backtrack. But eventually, the same discomfort catches up — and we’re still far from the place we dream of reaching.

That night on the trail, there was no shortcut out of pain. There was only choosing the pain that moved me closer to something I valued.

In the same way, therapy isn’t about removing people’s pain.
It’s about helping them move forward through it.

As a therapist, I often sit with people during some of the most uncomfortable moments of their lives.
Sometimes it's their first time ever facing these feelings.
Sometimes it’s a familiar pain they’ve turned away from over and over.

I can’t take their pain away.
Even if I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t — just like no one could make that ski trip easier for me.

My role isn’t to erase the hard parts.

It’s to walk alongside them. To help them keep moving.
Sometimes that looks like taking one literal step at a time (on the mountain, I counted out 50 steps at a time and then allowed myself a break. I did this over and over again for hours).
Sometimes it looks like gathering resources — snacks and water on a hike, or coping tools and support systems in therapy — so the load is still heavy but more bearable.

Sometimes it's just about not being alone.

• Having someone there, even if they can't carry your pack, can make the difference between giving up and pushing through.

• Having someone who has walked the trail before — who knows the twists and false summits — can make the unknown less terrifying.

• Having someone who believes you can make it — even when you don't — can be the fuel that keeps you moving forward.

Therapy isn't about feeling better immediately.

It's about building the strength to keep going when everything inside you wants to stop — because you’re moving toward something that matters deeply to you.

Just like reaching that yurt, exhausted and aching, meant far more because of what it cost me to get there —

The life you want isn't on the easy path.
But it's waiting for you on the other side of discomfort.

And you don't have to walk it alone.

Just to reiterate- I am smiling in many of these pictures…but don’t be deceived, this was the hardest thing I have done in a very long time. The highlight reel does not capture the internal battle.