Live and Let Go

I am scared of heights. I don’t even like metal staircases where you can see through the floor, which makes it slightly odd that I have now done five bungee jumps.

A different version of me

I did my first jump at 26, single and backpacking through South America. Three more followed, including one over a gorge in Nepal. Then there was a 12-year gap before the 220-metre Verzasca Dam in Ticino, the GoldenEye jump I had wanted to do for years and the highest bungee in Europe.

What I remembered most was the afterglow. I’m alive. A feeling of being completely present. By the time I had been living in Switzerland for six years, I still hadn’t done it.

Listening for the yes

Eventually I stopped asking when I was going to tick it off my bucket list and asked a different question: Do I actually still want this now?

I listened to my body. There was fear, obviously, but there was also anticipation and a sense of opening rather than closing. My body was scared, but it wasn’t saying no.

Some parts of me were apprehensive. One wanted safety and responsibility. Another wanted play, curiosity and room to do something that had no practical purpose beyond the experience itself.

I had also absorbed a familiar cultural script: study, work hard, build a career, settle down, get married, be responsible. Perhaps eventually stop doing things just because they are fun.

Bungee jumping is completely unproductive. Perhaps that is part of its value.

A framework for letting go

I have a reputation for being organised and prepared. Some parts of me take that responsibility very seriously. They believe that if I don’t stay on top of things, no one else will, and if I stop working this hard, things will start to fall apart.

That can look like a need for control, but it isn’t quite that. I actually long to let go when I trust the person or structure holding things. I like unpredictability within a solid framework. If leadership feels uncertain, parts step forward and take over. When it feels competent, I can follow.

Sociologist Stephen Lyng used the term “edgework” to describe chosen risk at the boundary between control and uncertainty. The jump team knew what they were doing. My job was simple: listen, follow, jump.

When the thinking brain disappears

There were several steps to remember for getting myself back up afterwards. None of them seemed particularly complicated while I was standing safely on the platform.

“I might forget all of this once I’ve thrown myself off the dam,” I told the staff.

I knew what was about to happen to my nervous system. When our threat system is highly activated, it can become harder to think flexibly, hold instructions in mind and problem-solve. Something that seems straightforward when we feel safe can suddenly become surprisingly difficult when our body believes something enormous is happening. And, to be fair, something enormous was happening.

“Don’t worry,” they said. “We’ll shout instructions down.” That was enough.

From screaming to problem-solving

Beforehand, I had enormous nervous energy. I was doing star jumps and joking, and there was an easy camaraderie among the jumpers. You could almost tell who was jumping and who was there to support someone just from the energy. My husband was watching from the sidelines too, supporting me while desperately trying not to drop my phone into the dam as he filmed. Then I jumped, and I have never screamed so much in my life. Afterwards I was still shaking, and for a while I simply hung there swinging upside down beneath the dam.

Then I heard a noise from somewhere above me and remembered I was supposed to do something. I reached for the pulley and pulled.

Nothing happened. For a moment I could feel the beginnings of panic. Then another thought arrived: Don’t panic. You won’t be able to think. So I stopped, told myself to engage brain, and tried the other direction.

That worked. Seconds earlier I had been screaming my head off. Now I was calmly problem-solving while dangling upside down.

I hadn’t needed to remember everything perfectly, and I hadn’t needed to do everything alone.

Live and let go

Later I asked a first-time jumper whether he would do another. I’m not sure why I bothered. He was beaming, and I recognised that look. There was a small sense of connection between the jumpers too. We did not know each other, but we had all just done, or were about to do, the same slightly ridiculous thing.

Psychologists sometimes use the term subjective vitality to describe the feeling of being vividly alive and engaged. That comes closer to what I remember than simply “adrenaline”.

Perhaps that is part of what interests me about the experience. Feeling vividly alive did not mean feeling calm or fully in control.

Perhaps therapy asks something similar of us. Vulnerability can feel like a jump into the unknown. We cannot always know what will surface or how our nervous system will respond once we get there. Sometimes our capacity to think clearly narrows. Sometimes the things we understood perfectly well beforehand suddenly disappear. That does not necessarily mean something has gone wrong.

A strong enough relationship and frame can mean we do not have to remain perfectly regulated, articulate or in control. Someone else can hold part of the structure while we do the part that belongs to us. We do not need certainty. We need enough trust to jump.

Letting go does not mean giving up our agency. Sometimes we surrender. Sometimes we listen for instructions. Sometimes we stop ourselves from panicking long enough to find the next step.

I had checked the risk. I trusted what was holding me.

And then I let go.

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