Why you don't need to squeeze a tennis ball all day.

*a true story about the power of your mind.

Dear Kula Diaries,

Today we are going to hop in the Kula Diaries time capsule and travel back to 2005. This is a story that I’ve never shared before about my time in the Park Ranger Academy. While I wasn’t able to see it then, this is also a lesson that I would ultimately carry with me, far beyond my time as a ranger or a police officer. The content of the story might seem unlikely and unrelated to anything that I do now — but the message that it contains is obvious and important: our thoughts and our beliefs create the reality that we live in.

Park Ranger Me, Circa 2011.

A quick note: it’s very strange for me to look at these photos now, because I often feel like I’m looking at somebody I don’t know … from a different reality or lifetime. The ‘me now’ is very different from the ‘me then’. I’m sharing this story and these photos with you because I want to be completely honest and transparent about all of the moments on my journey — and that includes this period of my life too. I’m really proud of the time that I served as a Park Ranger… and of the lives I saved as a Railroad Police Officer. While I will never return to a career in law enforcement — I know it was a very important part of my personal path.

When I was in my early twenties, I went into a sporting goods store and I looked in the gun case and felt like I was going to have a panic attack. I had no interest in learning how to shoot a gun. And yet, despite my discomfort with firearms, a few years later, I found myself flying to Washington State to attend the Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy. After 9-11, the National Park Service had put a temporary hiatus on hiring Interpretive Rangers, so the quickest way to secure a job as a ranger was to attend a Law Enforcement Academy. I had no experience in Law Enforcement… and had never even considered it as a career. After a lengthy application process, in which I admitted everything I had ever done wrong in my life (including that time I took a ream of paper from the print shop where I worked), I flew to the Pacific Northwest to begin 4 months of full-time training.

A photo I never thought I’d share… my OC spray (i.e. pepper spray) training (it was as unenjoyable as it seems - ha!).

The primary purpose of our training was to teach us the ins and outs of resource protection… State and Federal law… and, how to be a Law Enforcement Ranger. In remote locations, Park Rangers are typically dealing with many of the same issues faced by city or county police officers — except that rangers are usually alone… backup is sometimes an hour away (if it is even available at all)… and many of their clientele are drunk. Since we would ultimately serve as commissioned Law Enforcement Rangers, we were also required to complete defensive tactics and firearms training and qualifications.

On the first day of firearms training, we were given the opportunity to learn all of the parts of a gun, and how to assemble and disassemble them for cleaning. We spent at least two days in the classroom learning about firearms safety and range procedures, before we were ready to head to our first ‘range day’. During one of those training sessions, the instructor very specifically stated, “Women have weaker grip strength than men, so you’ll want to work on that in order to become proficient at shooting.” I was already nervous about firearms training, because I had zero experience with guns… but now I was really nervous. I had just been told that I had a significant physical disadvantage. Quickly, I started doing research on strengthening my grip. I purchased a small grip strength trainer and acquired a tennis ball to carry with me to class — if I had a free moment, I was squeezing the grip trainer or the tennis ball to improve my grip strength.

Me (Left) on the range in the academy circa 2005.

Not surprisingly, my first day at firearms training did not go well. In fact, I don’t even know if I hit the target… which, in retrospect is pretty bad, considering that it isn’t actually very difficult to hit a target with a handgun. I was so nervous that I could barely hold the gun… and I’d sit during breaks and frantically squeeze my tennis ball so that I could continue to get stronger. Now, it’d be easy to say that that my struggle with firearms training was an isolated incident — except that it wasn’t. I was one of seven women in our Law Enforcement academy… and all of the women in the class were struggling. On breaks, we’d be training our ‘grip strength’ to compensate for our natural inadequacy. We never questioned it, however… because we had been told that we would struggle with it. It never occurred to us that we were struggling with it because we had been told we would struggle. In our minds, this inferior ability was to be expected due to our weak hands. Because, as the syllabus had pointed out, women weren’t good at shooting. We were simply reinforcing the truth of that statement. Over the months at the academy, I gradually improved — but I never felt very confident about my abilities. I got good enough at shooting that I was able to pass the qualifications, but I had to retake one of them at least twice — in my opinion, it wasn’t really acceptable.

I served on the Honor Guard as a park ranger (I’m at the end of the line).

Once I was hired as a Park Ranger, I was required to requalify on my newly issued firearm, which was a double-action only Beretta Cougar. The Beretta had a very ‘stiff’ trigger pull… and again, I cited my weak grip strength as my primary issue. When I told the firearms instructors that I was having problems because of, ‘weak grip strength’ — they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. In fact, one of the firearms instructors was a woman and she seemed pretty confused as to why I kept mentioning how weak my hands were. I spent hours squeezing my tennis ball, and never noticed an improvement. Eventually, the firearms instructors stuck me with an instructor from a different agency for some additional coaching, who very quickly realized that the problem wasn’t my technique or hand strength — it was confidence. He could tell right away that I was so ‘in my head’ about shooting… that I wasn’t able to do it. After working together for a few weeks, I slowly developed my confidence and very quickly started morphing into a very skilled shooter. Within a few months, I was acing my qualifications. By the time I was serving as a police officer with BNSF Railway, I was one of the better shooters in my department. In fact, oddly enough — I did like the (strangely) meditative aspect of shooting and the stillness that came in the moments when I was focused on my breathing.

Working at an event at Peace Arch — WA/Canada Border.

When my shooting improved, I forgot about my weak grip strength — in fact, I actually believed that due to the extra training, I must have finally honed in my grip strength. Surely, that was why I had become so proficient at shooting. Sometime in 2013, nearly 10 years after I had graduated the academy, I had the opportunity to attend a ‘Street Survival Seminar’ — which was a class that focused on giving officers a positive mindset about their own safety. During the class, the instructor began telling a story about the power of a positive mindset. He recalled a time where he had been brought in as a consultant at a police academy that had a strangely disproportionate amount of women cadets who were predictably failing the firearms portion of the course. As the consultant glanced over the syllabus, he noticed something and pointed it out to one of the academy instructors, “In your firearms training manual it specifically says to, ‘tell women that they have weak grip strength and that they will need to work on it’… why on earth would you tell them that?”. Shocked that this academy was teaching a class that didn’t promote a winning mindset, he made a simple suggestion to improve the success of the program: “Tell women that they are naturally gifted at firearms… and tell all the men that they are going to love it too… and that everybody is going to leave feeling confident in their training.” A few months later, he checked in on the program to see how it was going. The results? The women were not only passing the course — they were excelling. The men were doing great too. The entire class, as a whole, was the first class in the academy history that hadn’t failed anybody.

As I sat in the audience of this seminar … I felt heavy in my seat — a strange sinking feeling that made me gasp. I felt like I was hearing my own story told back to me. I couldn’t help but reflect back on the years of my life that I had spent squeezing a tennis ball… mistakenly believing that I was not good at shooting… because somebody, one day in a classroom, had told me that I would not be good at shooting. While I do believe that the instructor was trying to be helpful — I also realized that the struggle I had with firearms had nothing to do specifically with my grip strength… and everything to do with the fact that I believed I wasn’t going to be good at firearms. In the process of obsessively attempting to strengthen my grip, I was exhausting my hands — and actually making my situation worse. The power of the incorrect information that was taught that day had a ripple effect on my life that lasted for years. Why? Because I believed that those words were true. And, since I believed that they were true — I proved myself right. In fact, not only did I believe that they were true — but I perpetuated that belief by telling other people about how my ‘weak grip strength’ affected my abilities.

As a railroad police officer, I started an Honor Guard — which included designing the uniform myself and representing BNSF at memorials and other events.

While it’s true that people are born with different grip strengths — the biggest factor in determining proficiency is a very multi-faceted approach: proper training, proper sized firearm, properly adjusted trigger, etc… Simply put — you could have the strongest grip on the planet, but if you have poor training … or if your firearm isn’t ideal for your hand size… it isn’t going to matter. While my grip strength might not have been such that I was going to be free soloing El Capitan anytime soon… it certainly wasn’t inadequate. Had I been told a different story in those early days of training, I know that my positive mindset would have more than compensated for any slight curve in needing to bolster hand strength.

Me and the business train locomotive at a special event in Chicago!

I left my career in Law Enforcement in 2017 to start a career, ‘in the outdoor industry’ — which I’ve previously mentioned was code for, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’. As the founder of a pee cloth company, I don’t have to attend firearms training anymore — but I’ve never forgotten that lesson, because it allowed me to pinpoint a very specific result from a very specific moment when I had developed a very specific belief around my own inability to perform.

We all have beliefs about, ‘the way things are’ — and we rarely question them. We are told things by people that we trust, and we accept their words as a fact. We don’t know that we internalize those thoughts… and that the more we think them… the more we repeat them to others… the more we believe them… the more power we give to them… the more they become real. For me, the ‘weak grip strength’ story became a shining example of what is possible when you believe that a thought is true. Abraham Hicks often says that, “A belief is just a thought that you think over and over again.” Simply put: just because you think something a lot… doesn’t mean that that your thought is correct. When I look back on my life… and on widely held beliefs of our world in general… I can easily pin point the beliefs that helped to shape the first few decades of my life:

• You can’t make a living doing what you love

• All businesses always fail

• It’s foolish and reckless to pursue your dreams

• Stability and security are the most important things to have, and leaving a secure environment, even if you are miserable, is reckless and foolish

• Artists and creatives are always poor

• There is one way for you to make a living… and that is through your paycheck.

• You need to have a detailed business plan and contingency plans before you should try anything new.

Not only did I believe these things… but I repeated them to others… effectively bolstering my own belief in the things that I was saying. I remember specific instances of other people telling me about their ideas or dreams… and I’d pepper them with fear-based, ‘what-ifs’ about the feasibility of what they wanted to do… and I’d ask them questions that would contribute more doubt to their dreams. In reflection on those moments, I know that I was acting from a good place — but I also know that it was not helpful. It is not helpful to plant seeds of doubt or worry. It is not helpful to proclaim beliefs that may or may not be true. In fact, none of the things I’ve mentioned in the bulleted list above are true… because ‘truth’ leaves no room for the nuances and the infinite variety of life. If I were to re-write that list right now, it would look something like this:

• You can make a living doing the things that you love, and, in fact, there are plenty of people on this planet who have turned their passions into their career. I don’t know exactly how it will work out for me — but it is completely possible.

• There are so many successful businesses on this planet, and running a business is a rewarding and beautiful endeavor with infinite opportunity for growth, learning and expansion. I don’t know exactly how this will work out — but I’m excited to see where it goes.

• Pursuing your dreams is the process of following your heart — and when you feel a sense of energy, abundance and love it will always lead you to a place where you will discover a way to create the things that are important to you. I can’t imagine where this could lead… but I’m going to remain open to the possibilities and trust that the more I do the things that inspire me… the more I will be inspired to new ideas and opportunities that open the door for more good to flow into my life.

• Stability and security come from within me — from a place of knowing that in this moment, I am OK. In this moment, I am here … my heart is beating… my lungs are breathing… and I am doing my best and will figure it out. Nothing is permanent in life, and placing my sense of security or stability in external conditions is like building a house on the sand — the foundation will ultimately crumble, and I will be left looking for another temporary balm. True security comes from a deep knowing that I do not need to live in an imaginary future that hasn’t happened yet — it comes from knowing that all I ever have is right now.

• As an artist or a creative, there are infinite ways to make a living and there are so many artists who have been wildly successful in their careers. I am open to the possibilities of what this could look like — knowing that my path might veer off trail and take me to places that are new and unexplored. I am open to the effortless abundance of life, and I am excited to feel my creativity working through me to create the life that I desire.

• There are infinite ways to make a living — and I am open to all of them. I am not limited to one means of allowing abundance into my life — I am open to all of them. Abundance flows to me easily and effortlessly in surprising ways. When I look around the universe and I see the countless stars… trees… and expansive landscapes, I am getting but a mere hint of what this feels like. Most importantly, I know that true abundance is not based on anything outside of me — it is a feeling I can cultivate now… and as I find the feeling of it, I allow more to flow into my life.

• I’m going to figure this out, and I’m going to take steps one at a time — following the path that feels best to me, and trusting that I’m heading in the right direction. If it feels good to me, I’ll plan when I need to… and write down my vision and my goal… but I also trust myself to handle things in the moment. I am not worried about future events that have not happened yet — I am simply grateful for exactly where I am, and I trust that things are unfolding exactly as they should. The more that I find the feeling of freedom, creativity and abundance in my heart — the more that I will learn to trust that I will always be in exactly the right place at the right time.

After my near death incident, I had a cataclysmic moment of being able to see — with perfect clarity — that I was the one who was standing in my own way. For so many years, I had blamed my lack of progress on things outside of myself. It was really easy to blame other people… or money… or lack of security… or the idea that I was being foolish and reckless. Those beliefs were easy scapegoats for me — and so, I’d sit… year after year… wondering how I ended up where I was, and feeling more and more stuck as time passed. I remember at one point saying that I felt like I was living in a deep rut — there were moments when I could pull myself up to the edge and peek out… but I couldn’t see much beyond the edge, and so I’d hop back down into the rut, because it was more comfortable there.

The Railroad Police Officer version of me — circa 2012-ish.

Walking into the unknown feels scary, because we’ve been told that we shouldn’t do it. We have been told that it’s silly or reckless to do it — and we believe that. And, just like a person who has been told that they have weak grip strength … we spend our time squeezing a metaphorical tennis ball to avoid the real obstacle: the thoughts in our mind that we believe are true. On some level, my personal fears kept me feeling safe and comfortable — how could I ever fail, if I never tried anything new? How could I look stupid if I just did the same, predictable things every single day? There is absolutely nothing wrong with staying where you are… and if you like where you are, I’m certainly not suggesting that you are doing anything wrong. But, if you find yourself at a crossroads of wanting something else… but feel like you are squeezing the proverbial tennis ball instead of actually taking steps forward with a positive mindset — it’s quite possible that one of those pesky, outdated beliefs is snagging you on your trail.

And also, I want to point out, that’s OK too. We all get snagged. In fact, getting snagged is a part of the process — and there is nothing you are doing wrong, and you haven’t messed anything up by feeling stuck. In fact, it’s usually those moments of being ‘stuck’ when we are in the process of creating the things that will bring the most beauty and joy into our lives. Think about it for a second: when you bake a chocolate chip cookie… sometimes the most satisfying part of the experience is mixing the ingredients. If baking were as simple as tossing something in the oven and having it magically ‘pop’ out — the baking experience wouldn’t be the same. If you are feeling stuck… or lost… or not sure where to go, I’d recommend trying to look at it through a different lens: You aren’t stuck at all… you’re just mixing all of the ingredients. You’re sorting through things you’ve believed, and figuring out which ones you want to add to the mix… and which ones will ruin the flavor. You are finding the perfect combination of thoughts… and beliefs… and confidence… and abundance… and creativity… and love. And once you have it? Well, I can’t say exactly what will happen — but I can say that when you’ve got the ingredients just right… you’ll know.

Throughout this post I’ve shared photos that feel like a very distant version of somebody I used to know. While logically I know that I’m looking at myself in the photos — I also know that person doesn’t really exist anymore. As I let go of the beliefs that had previously prevented me from the creative, outdoor life that I wanted — I slowly replaced that version of me with a new one… and this version was very much open to the infinite, unexpected, and joyful possibilities of life:

Friends — thank you all so much for being here today. This post was, oddly enough inspired by two things: a conversation with my husband, where I was telling him the firearms story that I shared with all of you… and, a recent podcast interview with Papa Bear Hikes, which you can listen to right here:

This conversation with Martin was a cathartic reminder for me of how far I’ve come in a few years — and it was, particularly special, to be able to talk about the role of being an uplifter. As a reformed-fear-monger, I don’t take it for granted that I now have the opportunity to intentionally encourage folks to pursue and follow their dreams. I take this responsibility very seriously, and if you ever need a voice of support in your life — please know, that I am here to cheer you on. I’ll never tell you that you have weak grip strength… and, it goes without saying, you probably don’t need to sit around squeezing a tennis ball all day.

I’m sending you all a lot of love, friends. Thank you so much for being here and for taking a little trip down Park Ranger memory lane with me!