Leadership and Mindset development Camp in Tahoe

Rock climbing for the first time, experiencing winter with its first snow in “sunny” California, hiking in Sierra Mountains and being enamored by amazing views of Lake Tahoe, playing with a large dog, and all of it in a timespan of a weekend. Sounds like an amazing weekend, doesn’t it?

I’m scared of heights, so with rock climbing my goal was to climb the wall no higher than my own height or just a bit higher. And that, I have to tell you, ended up being not the scariest part! When you’re done, you literally had to jump down :// That felt like committing a suicide, to be honest. I was standing there for like 15 minutes to gain courage to be able to do this. But I did! Not only did I climb higher than I had in mind, I pushed myself and jumped off. I swear I was thinking of crawling down rock by rock, but it didn’t work out. The thing is, being fearfulI usually goes with “ Oh my, that probably looks so stupid..”, and adds to the emotional toll. But no one from our group judged me, they were cheering me up in a very supportive way, so I had power to try something that actually was terrifying for me. 

Physical activities such as climbing and hiking helped me to understand that a lot of thoughts are in my head, they are not real. Jumping off the 6 feet wall is pretty scary, but I did it. Why wouldn’t I be able to do something that up to this point stresses me out? Of course, I can!

Thanks to USRF and @goodlerfoundation, we made Leadership and Mindset development Camp in Tahoe! Four days with our young leaders, peacebuilding activities, workshops and amazing conversations.  This is one of our student’s day in our camp. 

Onsite camp is secon part of our Leadership and Mindset development camp