Awhile back I had the opportunity to listen in on an interview with an Olympic runner. When asked where she believes her success comes from she answered, without hesitation, that she chips away at her goals. She talked about running in the Olympic trials a number of years ago and realizing, with only a few laps to go in the 5000m race, that she really wanted to be on the Olympic team but had fallen back into 8th place. I may have this detail a bit wrong, but what I do have right and remember clearly is this: she said she made her way onto the Olympic team the way she made her way through her running career: by chipping away. That day at the trials she did not focus on what seemed like (and probably was) the nearly impossible feat of winning the race, she focused on the runner right in front of her--just that one runner. When she caught her, she focused on the next runner, and solely concentrated on passing her. She entered the final lap in 5th place and in that one lap she chipped her way into 3rd place and a spot on the Olympic team.

I was mesmerized by this story and strategy. I went home and promptly made a sign that said CHIP AWAY and hung it over my desk. It's a very simple concept, but like many things that are easy to grasp, the application was neither simple nor easy for me. I thought chipping away would be exclusively reserved for running and daily tasks, but fear exposed areas of my life where I am faint of heart. As it turns out, the first priority was chipping away at fear.

A year had gone by and the chipping away was front and center, but I was making little progress. I was trying to chip away at a boulder of fear with a paper clip. I needed a jackhammer level experience to make some impact on my fear. And that jackhammer experience was a hyperbaric chamber.

A hyperbaric chamber is a small chamber that provides pure oxygen at a pressure that is 2 to 3 times higher than normal air pressure, and can be used by athletes as a recovery tool. In order to achieve this you have to be sealed into this chamber; and by chamber I mean a small, soft-sided, claustrophobic, coffin-esque thing. And by sealed in I mean you zip it up from the inside, and then someone zips a second zipper from the outside. And for good measure they also buckle it from the outside.

Fast forward to the next summer and I'm back at Dream Run Camp in Flagstaff, AZ, the same place I listened in on that interview with the Olympian a year earlier. During that first visit I had seen the hyperbaric chamber for the first time in the recovery lounge at camp. Lots of athletes use it to go the extra mile to level up their recovery and, ultimately, their performance. Honest to god, all I've wanted for a long time is to just run a little better, a little stronger, a little more easily. I would try anything to give my unnaturally athletic body a boost. Anything but the hyperbaric chamber. I was never going to do that. I'm never doing that. No f**king way. I was pretty clear about this as a few of us stood looking at it one of my first days at camp.

Later that evening my fellow dream runner and new friend, Saeed, approached me and asked, point blank, if I wanted to face my fear and get in the chamber. And, if I did, he would help me do so.

Shit.

Like I said, I would do just about anything to boost my running. I'm not going to turn up my nose at "free" opportunities to gain little improvements, as long as the cost is time and work. But fear? Terror, actually? If that's the price, it's a pass. The idea of being zipped in, and then zipped in again, and then latched into a small space in which I am depending on someone else to help me get out of, just for a teeny-weeny running boost that isn't guaranteed...well my claustrophobia yelled a resounding NO. I'm not going to the Olympics. I'd be lucky to go to the front of my age group in a local 5K. But he wasn't talking about improving my running. He was throwing down the gauntlet about facing a fear. And, for whatever reason, that I could not resist.

Saeed had a well thought out plan--basically immersion therapy. I'd climb in and lay down and I'd climb right back out--as many times as it took to feel okay. Next, I'd climb in and lay down and stay there for five minutes--no zippers, no latches, and with Saeed standing right there--as many times as it took to feel okay. Step three was to build up the amount of time I would lie there. Step four was to zip it from the inside--that's me having to choose to zip it--and unzip it as quickly as I needed to--as many times as it took to feel okay. Then I'd lay there for 5 minutes with it zipped, then 10, then 15...After I mastered this, I'd zip from the inside and he'd zip it from the outside. There were tears and hyperventilating and endless awkward, ungraceful climbs in and out of that chamber. All the while, Saeed's patience and compassion were chipping away at my untrusting exterior while I was chipping away at my fear.

Then one day, two weeks after we had begun our daily hyperbaric chamber therapy, it was time for the real deal. We had reached the point of all the zippers being zipped and the latches being latched while I laid inside and breathed and often cried--Saeed standing nearby and periodically coming to peer in the little plastic window at the top of the chamber to check on me and encourage me. Every experience in the chamber was a new milestone. Every time I emerged he greeted me with genuine admiration for chipping away one more little step towards my goal. And now there was nothing more to do but the big thing itself: get in and lay down, zip the zippers, latch the latches, and turn it on and really experience it.

I'd like to say I strode up to that chamber like a boss, but that is not the case. I sat outside with my friend, Matt, Dream Run Camp's leader, and sobbed while Saeed finished up his own session in the chamber. When we heard the hiss of the machine turning off and the pressure releasing, we came inside. You would have thought I was facing major surgery without anesthesia, and Matt said "You don't have to do this." It was a baller move. He was right; I didn't have to. I had to choose to. All that building up trust and chipping away at fear only meant something to me if I climbed into that chamber, allowed myself to be sealed in, and trusted these people to stay by my side.

It takes 5-10 minutes for the chamber to become pressurized, and a few minutes on the other end for it to de-pressurize, so we decided I would stay in for 20 minutes to get a full experience; with the caveat, of course, that I could say uncle at any moment and they would turn it off and get me out. So with Saeed, Matt, Matt's wife Nataki, and their little dog Clementine standing in a row staring at me, I made my awkward climb inside. I took a deep breath and zipped my zipper. "Make sure to tug it all the way to the end so it seals", Saeed reminded me. That last little tug into place also made it difficult to undo when it was time to come out, but I was prepared for that and we had practiced that to negate any panic, so I pulled the zipper all the way to the end with a little tug for extra measure. Why go through all of this and not have the damn thing seal? I laid back while I listened to Saeed zip the outside and latch the buckles. He smiled through the window and then Matt looked through and asked if I was ready. I gave a thumbs up and began deep breathing--trying to keep my head in a bigger, universal mind and not let myself start thinking about the logistics of where I was.

The loud, hissing sound started and the chamber began to fill and pressurize, and the little container slowly expanded--a silver lining of allowing myself to have the actual experience. Tears were streaming down my face, and yet, amazingly, I felt relatively calm. Over the course of the prior two weeks I had practiced breathing and staying acutely in the present moment. Not letting my mind wander was key if I were to master this experience, so I chipped away each moment with a breath and a simple repetition of I'm okay. Randomly through this process of immersion I had allowed my mind to wander, and it had quickly wandered into the minefield of what-ifs: what if the zipper gets stuck? what if the machine won't turn off and I can't get out? what if they can't hear me say I've had enough? what if there's a fire? what if the electricity goes off and now it's pitch black and I'm sealed in this thing and they have trouble getting it turned off and getting me out... Not surprisingly I didn't last long during those sessions, but getting back in the next day and using a new strategy, a new tool to chip away at that fear, almost always resulted in success. And if it didn't, then the next day probably would. That's what chipping away is: steadfastness, perserverance, consistently showing up. It looks like nothing, until it looks like something.

I opened my eyes and stared up at the little, round, plastic window above my head several times during my twenty minutes in the chamber. I saw Saeed smiling down at me, and Matt and Nataki took turns looking in. Even little Clementine, who was on her own journey of chipping away at fear, was held up to the window to get a good look at the crying lady inside. I was so grateful for these people who stood outside to bear witness to me facing this fear. I was so grateful for Saeed, who, with such quiet certainty of success, offered the gift of walking me through this experience. It wasn't so that I could possibly reap the benefits of the hyperbaric chamber, it was so I could reap the benefits of knowing that I have within me some grit that I can draw on when something might seem too scary to take on. I learned, too, that there are people who are trustworthy, and I can learn to trust them. I learned that there are people who are willing to give of themselves, and I can learn to receive the gift.

Twenty minutes went by and Saeed looked through the window: "You did it! Twenty minutes! Are you done?"

"I'm done," I said. I had remained calm through the process, but I knew I needed to maintain my focus, because it wasn't over until the chamber was depressurized and opened up. When it was time, Saeed helped me out and gave me a big hug, then Matt, then Nataki. I knew that I had just completed something big, which could (and would) have far reaching impacts for me. But I was also so moved by how invested the people around me were. I could not have done this on my own.

So, am I all fixed from my fear of closed in spaces? Nope, not by a long shot. But has my knee jerk I-can't-do-that reaction shifted? Yes, it has. Whether or not I get back in a hyperbaric chamber isn't that important, but the ability to take a deep breath and walk into and through circumstances that feel challenging or even impossible is vitally important for a life to continue to grow and expand. I am aware of limitations I might put on myself in a new way, now. And I am equally aware that if I just chip away at the goal step by step, and don't try to lone wolf my way through this life, that I will likely get somewhere.

Maybe fear and goals do present as a boulder, and maybe my first instinct is to say it's too big; I can't do that. But I learned that, with a chisel and a friend, you can shift almost anything.