[DAWN GABRIEL]
Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, host of Faith Fringes Podcast, recording live from Castle Rock Colorado, not only where I love to live, but I also work as the owner of a counseling center in the historic downtown. This podcast is a place to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. For those desiring deeper connection with God and engaging their spirituality in new ways, this will be a safe place to allow doubt, questions and curiosity, without judgment. We will be creating intentional space to listen in on other’s faith journeys, whether that is deconstruction or reconstruction, with the hope of traveling alongside you on your own spiritual path. If you’re interested in getting even more out of this podcast, grab my free email course Spiritual Reflections on my websitefaithfringes.com. Welcome to the podcast.

Welcome back spiritual explorers. This is Dawn Gabriel with Faith Fringes podcast. Today, we are going to talk with actually a friend of mine that you might’ve heard about before, because I talked about an awesome trip we took back in episode two, when I was talking about transformational trail moments. My friend Melissa is here and we are going to talk about everything outdoors and how it’s a passion of both of us. And that is how we met. And we’ll probably share, well, she might share some funny stories that I might not want to share, but we have a hilarious story we’re going to share with you. And we’re just going to talk about how do you integrate being outdoors and spirituality when you have kids? Both Melissa and I met a long time ago. Oh my gosh. It was 20 years ago. I think when I worked at a university where Melissa was playing soccer for the college and actually she went by Rudy then.
[DAWN]
So I know her by Rudy. You might hear me interact and call her Rudy instead of Melissa, but let me tell you a little bit about her. Melissa Martynyuk is a passionate outdoor enthusiast who met the love of her life running. She is a mama to six kids, she is stretched daily as she homeschools, works from home and escapes outside even if it is only in her backyard, as often as she can. You can follow her at Brave and Wild Essentials on Instagram. Let me just welcome Melissa to the podcast.
[MELISSA MARTYNYUK]
Hello. So good to be here.
[DAWN]
Yes, I’m so excited. So I was going to say, Rudy, tell us a little bit about you more. Let’s start with the past, tell us how we know each other. I was trying to remember the first time we met. Was it before the Grand Canyon or was it before that?
[MELISSA]
It was before the Grand Canyon trip. I’d heard of you on campus and, remember our mutual friend Garys Wires?
[DAWN]
Oh yes, yes.
[MELISSA]
Saying, “You would love this girl, Dawn. She’s the president, director. You guys need to meet.” And then we both, you led the Grand Canyon trip. I signed up and then we had an informational meeting about it and I pretty sure that was our first time meeting, was the informational meeting for the Grand Canyon trip.
[DAWN]
Yes. So that was, we have to share a little bit about that trip because that was our first time. I remember like, when I think of you back then, and this was what 20, some years ago when we met, I just remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, she is awesome. She’s deep, she’s adventurous and brave.” And it was just such a good mix of, I can have deep talks, but I can laugh my butt off with her too and we can like work out really hard. Like we would run. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m running with Rudy today. I got to keep up because.” You’re like a professional athlete. Anyway, so we met, why don’t you, what’s one of your favorite stories of the Grand Canyon?
[MELISSA]
Okay. Well, I’ll tell that first best one. I don’t know if it’s the best, but it is the first and so crazy driving. Dawn, it was a 40-hour drive.
[DAWN]
It wasn’t supposed to be.
[MELISSA]
It was forever long. Yes, I think it was supposed to be like 24 hours, but it turned into 40 hours because in Illinois, we’re driving on route, Interstate 40, and the weather started changing and it is raining and then the temperature dropped and we were in Missouri and all of a sudden it started slating and the roads started turning a little bit dicey. And we came upon standstill traffic and stood there, parked in the van. It was like two to three hours, I think.
[DAWN]
How least many girls were with us? We had what, like 10 girls?

I think there was 10 of us in the van for two to three hours and then finally myself and I forget who walked up with me, another one of the girls, we decided to just go walk up ahead and just see what was going on. So we walked up probably about a half a mile and a trucker had his window down. So we’re like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And he told us that he had been there for four to five hours already and that there was like a 20, 30 car pile up. The weather had changed so drastically, cars just lost control, there was like massive cars just piled on top of each other. So we walked back to the van thinking, oh my goodness, we’re going to be here for a really long time.
[DAWN]
We’re going to run out of food and water.
[MELISSA]
We had a lot of food, but we were concerned, I remember us talking, you and I, we were going to maybe miss, we could potentially miss our window for our permit to go down into the Grand Canyon because you only could start on that day that you had the permit to go down in and then we had two nights of camping and then we had to come out. So it was really dependent if we missed our window by eight hours, they weren’t going to let us down. If we started hiking at 8:00 PM, they wouldn’t let us because they just knew the conditions. So we had to get there. So I came up with the idea that we were driving alongside old route 66, paralleled I40 at that point. So I’m looking over there, this road that you have to go down through a median off the right side of the highway to get onto, but I’m thinking we were looking at the map and we’re like, this could work. We could get around all this traffic if we drive through the medium and take old route 66. And people had to go to the bathroom, like we needed to get off this road.
[DAWN]
But hold on a second. I just want to put my perspective in. I was the one that was on staff with the college with, so I was like in charge of this whole expedition and I was terrified because we’re in a university van, like one of those big white, 15 passenger vans. And I’m like trying to think of like my liability and then Rudy’s like, “Let’s do it.” So go ahead. You can finish that then I tell my perspective.
[MELISSA]
Yes. So I was like, “We could do this.” I was a junior. So I had started to drive the vans actually for our college, a soccer team when we would go close by. So I felt a little bit confident because sometimes it would actually drive the vans with a trailer attached. So there was no trailer, but anyways, I was like, “We can do this.” So I had everyone get out of the car, because I just knew that would lighten the load going, because there was snow on the ground at this point. So we did it like, I just like got some speed, ramped the median. I do remember I got a little bit too much speed over collected, everything ended up turning out fine. We parked the van. The best part was that we kept watching other cars do it after we made it over successfully.
[DAWN]
We were leaders.
[MELISSA]
We were leaders, but we made it all the way to the Grand Canyon alive and we camped in snow. Like we woke up the next morning to snow on the ground.
[DAWN]
And frost on our heads.
[MELISSA]
Yes. It was really cool.
[DAWN]
Yes. We had to use crampons to get down for the first mile or so until it started getting warmer, I think. It’s a canyon, it was a great trip.
[MELISSA]
Such an amazing trip. That was my first true backpacking trip.
[DAWN]
Okay. Yes, because then, was it that summer you did the Pacific crest trail?
[MELISSA]
It wasn’t that summer. It was the next summer. So I hiked the Grand Canyon and then the next year I ended up doing the Knobstone Trail in Indiana, that big knob stone, and then I did the BCG. So I only ended up doing 900 miles, which is amazing, still but I feel like I got to put that caveat in case somebody is listening and thinking, “Oh, she did the whole thing,” because it’s like almost 3000 miles the whole thing, but I( did —
[DAWN]
Which part did you do?
[MELISSA]
We started in Manning Park, Canada and we hiked south all the way to, I got off the trail right before Crater Lake, right before Elk Lake actually in Oregon. So there I was with two guys and they ended up going all the way south into California and they got off in Northern California. So yes, it was life-changing.
[DAWN]
Yes. Say a little bit more about that. What was so life-changing about being on that trail or any trail really, but that one specifically.
[MELISSA]
Yes. So I think the first thing was, I mean, you really, you carried everything you needed. And while we did that for the Grand Canyon, it was for two days versus this, our first scheduled interaction with society was six days. So we really, we had to take everything that we needed for those six days, all the food, we were able to get water from the streams. And then also it was just so, especially within hiking and backpacking, that was the first big trip I ever checked but it also helped me realize, like you got to assess the risk all the time. So there was one guy that was a very experienced hiker with us and he was very aware of where in the trail was it quicker to go back if we got in trouble or to go forward.

So that was really, really important for me and I referenced that in my brain so many different times, because at one point while you’re experiencing a trail and or any life saying, sometimes it’s, even though it’s hard, you have to keep going forward because it’s safer and it’s quicker to go forward versus, but other times you’re closer and you’re closer to safety if you turn around and go back. So that was pretty huge for me. And then just the remoteness of it. I mean, we were in the Northern cascades and I remember the first day coming out of Manning Park, keep going as if we’re going south, and we get to this first overpass with just this 360 degree view and it was just all snow-capped mountain peaks. And I just thought to myself, “Oh my goodness, we’re going to hike through that?”

So right away, I just felt way overwhelmed and just like, how are we going to get through this? And we did, just one step in front of the other, we got through it and we just had to just keep moving forward. So that was pretty like, I don’t know, just the whole experience was pretty transformational, but there was one time in particular that I referenced in my brain. So the first two weeks we hiked, we had crampons and ice axes because the snow was still so deep. A lot of people hiked north on the PCT, so then that way they avoid the snow in different aspects, one place in California specifically, and then the Northern cascades. But we, just because a time in the section that one of the gentlemen needed to complete, we decided to hike south. So there was a ton of snow on the trails still.

So we practiced with our ice axes, we got pretty good at navigating the trail, just looking for the depression in the snow because that’s how it would end up working with a snow melt. But a couple of days there was really high avalanche risk because we were hiking so high up in the mountains. That was where the trail was. It was just high up towards the peaks. And we talked about it and we knew come the afternoon, when the sun has been hitting that this no longer, you have a higher chance of avalanches happening. So that was a big risk and then there was also snow melting, but it would usually melt underneath first. So there would be places where you would be walking and you can hear the water rushing, gushing underneath your feet.
[DAWN]
Wow, I didn’t know that.
[MELISSA]
Yes, especially where there’s already an established sort of like creek, there’s, the rocks already, like the water knows its path. They’re called ice bridges. So there were several times in a couple of days where there was super high avalanche risk and then we were kept crossing just these different ice bridges. So there we came to one in particular and I was in the back, we took turns breaking trail, because it was actually, you had to kick in your steps because we were so high up that there was a risk of like losing your footing and needing to self arrest with your ice ax. So like, serious, and I’m an adventurous person. So I was all for it. We practiced, like we all felt confident, but we just knew the gravity of the situation. So I was in the back this day, this timeframe, and the guys went across this ice bridge and I could see that it was an ice bridge, because you can sort of start to see the snow depressing where it’s really melting underneath and forming those creeks.

So they got across and I’m thinking, oh my goodness, okay, I got to get across. And I stopped at that moment and we’re still early on. This is probably day four or five. So we’re still getting to know each other. I’m away from home, family, friends, like this is the first big, college was that. But also I was, my sister was at the college. My parents ended up moving down to the college. My mom worked there. So like I had an initial break when I went to college for my family, but then they like moved there. So when I went on this trip, it was really like, yes, it was just a really separation time. But so I’m standing there at this ice bridge and I’m thinking I’ve got to go across, but I’m paused and in the moment, I didn’t realize why I had paused, but I thought about this moment because it was so impactful on me looking back.

So I wanted the guys to look back. I wanted these men, one was a man. One was the college-age guy. So they’re still men, but very big age difference. I wanted them to look back and I wanted them to make sure that I was okay. I wanted that assurance that, I don’t know, that they were just going to see it, me if something went wrong or just wait for me. And they weren’t. They were just going. So I paused and I looked and I was like, okay, I’ve got to go across. And there are visible holes in the snow. Like it was scary. So I got across it just fine and I paused again because my heart was racing. I was like, “Okay, I did it. I didn’t fall through the ice and we’re all safe.”

But I’ve thought about that time, many, many moments in my life. I went on to grad school. I had a really hard time in Colorado, shortly after we knew each other in Colorado and it was really fun. But I remember looking back on that timeframe and thinking what I took away from it was that I didn’t need anyone, that I possessed what I needed to get me through situations. So, and also just, I can do hard things. And this theme, especially on trails has resurfaced and in my life, I don’t know how many times, like I need to do hard things. And I believe we all are but so many times we shortchange ourselves and we say like this circumstance or this experience or this life circumstances, it’s just too hard. I can’t make it through it, but it really just solidified inside of me that I can do really hard things.

And I firmly believe that we should ask people for help. And I know that if I would have asked those guys for help in a heartbeat, like they would have had my back. They would’ve waited. They would have helped me feel secure and safe, however they could. And we did need to rely on each other at different points on the trail. So it wasn’t like we were always just on our own. So I firmly believe that we need each other and we need to ask for help when we need it. But I also know that I can do hard things and that I just need to do that next right thing, which a lot of times is just taking the next step. Like literally taking the next step in front of you.
[DAWN]
That is huge. I mean, you’re right. I believe in community a hundred percent, but there is something so powerful about a moment or moments in your life when you are going to be alone. And at that point you have to do one more step and realize, oh wait, I am way stronger than I think. I think that’s so powerful. And that’s where I say, it’s almost spiritual too, because it transcends what’s going on in the moment. And it impacts like your whole life. Like, would you agree, like it’s almost like a spiritual moment too?
[MELISSA]
Absolutely. Yes, because I am a Christian and I’ve been a Christian most of my life, but it’s really, college was very transformative in my personal relationship. And then I’ve gone through some really hard things where I really questioned my faith and questioned my relationship with God and who he is and what he says. And I’m glad I had this experience out on the trail that I can do hard things, but also really cool thing that was very spiritual is I was raised in a more traditional, definitely lean, more legalistic Christian culture. So I being the good Christian, I brought like the new Testament with the Proverbs and Psalms. Like it was a very tiny book of scripture, but I thought like, “Oh, I need to bring the Bible with me on this backpacking trip.” And I went to a Christian college. So the guys that went with me were very strong Christians and the older gentleman, he was like, “Oh no, there’s no, I didn’t bring in the Bible.”
[DAWN]
There’s no room for that.
[MELISSA]
Yes. Well we hiked very lightweight, which is why we were able to cover as much ground and as many miles as we did, because we took, we went a very minimalist, lightweight approach. So he just said, he challenged me on it and he straightened like 20 bucks, Christian things and religion and all this stuff and he’s questioning me, “Why did you bring the Bible?”
[DAWN]
Wow. That’s a powerful. I love it. I love when people can challenge our realistic thinking and like, why do you need it? What was that there for you?
[MELISSA]
Yes, and he challenged me on it. So honestly, after a week I didn’t bring it with me anymore. I think I ripped out a couple pages maybe of the Psalms, but he really just challenged me, not with like actual, challenging words, but just with questions and leaving space, like literally blank, nobody talking. And for me to draw upon description that I had in my heart and, or just looking at the, he did say this, I remember distinctly. He’s like, “We have God’s creation all around us. This is our scripture.” And not that he was making me feel like it was wrong to bring the Bible in any way, but he challenged me from a weight perspective and my thinking, like I felt I needed to bring this. And he wrote an entire book and had that summer. He said he went home after that trail and he typed up a book.
[DAWN]
That’s awesome. I think we need to shout out his name because he is pretty phenomenal. I don’t know if he’s still a professor, but he’s —
[MELISSA]
Yes, it’s Keith Jury. Yes, he I’m going to have to think about what book, it might’ve been the call to worship, that he wrote in his head while hiking that section of the PCT.
[DAWN]
I agree. I feel like, and that’s one of my pillars of this Faith Fringes podcast is, I experience God way more in the mountains, on a trail than I do in church or than I do sitting, reading my Bible. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate reading the Bible. I just feel like I grew up also in more legalistic and read so much of it that I’m more about experiencing God on a personal level. And for me, that’s in the mountains. So in His creation, I feel way closer to Him. Yes, just kind of shedding some of those legalistic checklist.
[MELISSA]
Absolutely. I agree.
[DAWN]
Wow. I love hearing, I haven’t heard all your PCT stories. I didn’t hear that one. So I’m so glad you shared that one about, well both of them, about the ice bridge and then just, and that you’ve recalled these moments in your life, looking back that these were super important moments. And I do, I think so much happens on a trail that you can look back and say, “I physically did more than I thought I could and I’m going to relate that emotionally and personally into my life at this moment here.”
[MELISSA]
Yes. The big trips and even, I don’t know about you with the Grand Canyon we were only hiking backpacking down there for two and a half, three days. But I recall it and the PCT is forever etched in my brain. And it can be a run, it can be a smell, it can be an experience that I’m going through. And I will go back. My mind will go back to those mountains, to the trail, to a river that we crossed in a heartbeat. I’m there and it just, it stays with you. I think it’s why it’s so powerful when we step outside. And especially as you’ve said, resonates so much with me when you’ve been sharing in your previous episodes about getting outside and hiking and the outside just it’s powerful. It’s powerful.
[DAWN]
It’s so powerful. And that, and the one thing I definitely wanted to talk to you about and transition into is now we have not known each other since we’ve been moms and we have had kids. So I’m so curious because for those of you who want to follow Melissa on brave and essential, Brave and Wild Essentials on Instagram, she posts some of the coolest pictures of her kids doing crazy adventurous things. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, of course. Of course Rudy would be so adventurous with her kids.” And I’ve noticed that my adventure, like I adventure more with myself, but with my kids, I’m a little more conservative and little more fearful. So I’m always loving your Instagrams. I think one time I saw, I don’t know if it was your son or somebody was like up a 50 foot tree at the top. Like, I don’t know if I’m exaggerating, but it seemed like it’s 50 foot tall. And I was like, “Holy cow.” So yes. Tell us how, like how have you, how has that impacted and infiltrated into your motherhood with your kids, lke adventure yes, outside or anything?
[MELISSA]
Yes. So, oh man, I was thinking about this, knowing you were going to want to talk about kids.
[DAWN]
And we haven’t ever interacted as moms. So it’s fun.
[MELISSA]
It is super fun, but outside is just always been so important to me. So it wasn’t even a thought process when I became a mom of how I would do it. It just began. So I lived in Colorado when I had my oldest daughter and right away, I coached soccer in Colorado, I hiked a lot when I first moved there. I started hiking a ton of fourteeners.
[DAWN]
I remember that.
[MELISSA]
So it was just part of who I was. I met my husband running outside. So when I had her, I just naturally started as soon as I was strong enough from recovery. I started walking outside with her and even before I could really put her in a hiking backpack, I would have her on the front carrier on me and I would just do easier walks in the mountains. So it really started then. And I distinctly remember my husband and I hiking up Mount Evans with her in the hiking backpack. And she went, I don’t even think she was one yet. She was definitely old enough, like strong enough. She was getting close to a year, but we had that little thing bundled up so much and we brought an extra blanket with us so that when I nursed her, I could like cover myself and her so we wouldn’t be so cold because it was still snowy up on top. I think we hiked it in June. So yes, that was probably, that was the first big hike I did with kids was on Mount Evans.
[DAWN]
And that’s a fourteener? Oh my gosh.
[MELISSA]
Yes it was.
[DAWN]
How did she do in the altitude? I’m just curious.
[MELISSA]
She didn’t great. I never noticed any difference with her. She never really fussed much. She took a nap in the hiking backpack and yes, I do remember I learned, I learned a lot with her too, and I learned that you have to warm their toes up. Because I was running with her a lot and I, she got really, really fussy and when I got her home, her toes were frozen, even though she was super bundled, she was just her toes, because they’re not moving and they’re dangling. So we made, I forget what we did, but I do think that I ended up, while I was nursing her, taking her socks off and actually rubbing her toes just to make sure that they were warm and then putting her, wool is super important. So having the right gear, that’s one thing we’ve always invested in. We got a hiking backpack, a really good one right away, wool socks, and then wool booties to go over that. And yes, just having the right gear so that the way they can stay warm.

And then different seasons have required us to do different things with our kids. So we could be a lot more adventurous. And then when the second one came along at that point, there was a good age gap. So she was able to walk, our oldest and then we, once again, just started out. We always start out in the front carrier on me and then, as soon as they have had control, so we don’t ever go hiking without height control. So we might do small little walks here and there, but we have never really hiked until the baby has really good height control. That also helps when you need to feed them. If they’re six to eight months old, you need to feed them outside. it’s important.

So we always sort of wait to do anything big until height control and then we can feed them easily outside. so I was trying to think about, so yes, different seasons require different things. We’ve had to divide and conquer with the kids. So whether I’m pregnant and then I just don’t have the energy or the more kids I’ve had, those round ligaments get really sore and so I just can’t go as far. So he would take the kids out and go on hikes. Just this past winter, he wanted to do a winter hike with the kids for his birthday, the end of December. So I stayed home with a baby, which I really wanted to go, but we couldn’t find any childcare. It was 18 degrees out.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh.
[MELISSA]
They summited this mountain at sunset because it was also a full moon that night of his birthday. He actually went on his birthday. This is what he wanted to do. So he actually took two other guys with him and a friend’s boy. So there was six kids, three dudes, hiking up this mountain in 18 degree weather. They watched the moon rise, they made a bonfire. It was amazing, but that’s a lot of how we keep our kids adventuresome as well. We recruit friends because we always want to be safe. So I won’t take five or six kids by myself and he won’t either, just sheer numbers of kids versus adults. So we’ve just gotten creative. We had twins thrown in there. We had them almost six years ago so there was a timeframe where we didn’t hike very much at all.

I actually hiked three days on the Appalachian Trail, pregnant with the twins. I didn’t know yet that I was having twins. So I was almost 20 weeks pregnant. And I just like had never hiked on the AT. We live so close. We live in upstate New York. So I just was so close to the AT, but I’d never done any hiking on it. So like, I’ve got to do this, I’m pregnant again. Like we’ve got to do this. So I hiked, pregnant with the twins, but anyways, after we had them, we didn’t hype for almost a year, I think. We just did —
[DAWN]
How did that impact you? I mean, I’m sure that was hard.
[MELISSA]
This one were really hard in more ways than one. I didn’t get outside a lot. We have one twin that developed [inaudible 00:30:42]. It’s a whole other subject, but it was really traumatic, really hard. He was on the failure to thrive spectrum and just couldn’t eat a lot of foods. I couldn’t eat a lot of foods because I was nursing him, a lot of doctor’s appointments and there was two of them. So thankfully the other twin was, did not have any difficulties with food, but it just made life really interesting for well over a year. And then yes, just not being able to get outside really impacted me. And it was, they were over a year old and I told my husband, I said, “Either I’m going to therapy or we need to make time for me to run,” because I was going insane. I literally was so overwhelmed with life. We had five. So we went from three to five, having the twins and when we had the twins, our next oldest was one and then our next oldest was three and the oldest girl was seven.
[DAWN]
Wow.
[MELISSA]
So there was a lot of small kids and it was a really hard time. But it was really fun. We enlisted my father-in-law, the twins had just turned one and he was out and he was adventurous enough. So he carried a twin. I carried a twin and my husband carried our three-year-old and we got to hike out here. We have mountains that are called Forty-Sixers. So in New York, in the Adirondacks, we live right just south of the Adirondack Park, and there are 46 peaks that are over 4,000 feet tall. So they call them Forty-Sixers. So we decided to hike a Forty-Sixer with the twins in backpacks and our three-year-old in backpacks. Our four year old at the time, the girl, she was four, almost already turned five, she hiked her first Forty-Sixers at the age of 4.
[DAWN]
Oh, that’s awesome. I was going to ask you if your kids just as adventurous as you.
[MELISSA]
They really are Dawn. It’s just, I think our kids end up becoming who we are for the better and for the worse.
[DAWN]
Was just going to say that.
[MELISSA]
There’s things that I say, that I look at myself and I think, “Oh my goodness, that’s my mom.” Some of them I like and some of that I don’t like, and I know that will be my kids as well. There’s things that they’re going to be and things they’re going to say that are the good of me and also the bad, but they have definitely picked up on my adventurous inside and it’s just because we just do it. So we make time for each of us individually to go and do things that make us come alive and then we figure out how to make it happen for the family. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of planning, but in the end it’s really, really worth it.
[DAWN]
Yes. I love what you said a few minutes ago. You said either I have to go to therapy or I have to run. And I think that’s interesting that you knew running is therapy for me and I need to do that. Often I, there was a quote and I don’t know who said it, but everything can be solved by walking or hiking basically. And I’m like, sometimes I think that’s true. If people would just run more or hike a trail every day, like a lot of, I don’t know why, it’s something about being out there in the bilateral stimulation, you process things. And I know that from working with trauma, our brain gets stuck with certain memories, but when we bilaterally stimulate it, which is running and hiking and other ways it processes differently and moves memories back. So you process things when you run naturally. So I do think it’s there. I do think it’s therapy for sure.
[MELISSA]
Absolutely. No. There’s been, 2018, 2019 were some pretty hard. It was about a hard nine months for us. Some hard things that our family went through and I ran a ton. It was just God’s Providence that in February of 2018, I told my husband, I said, “I think I’m going to —” I ran marathons for several years. I took a break and in 2018, five and seven years since I ran a marathon and I told him, I said, “I think I just want to try for the lottery for New York City. You know, we’re this close and if we ever move away and I haven’t tried for it, at least, I think I’ll really regret it.” And he goes, “Sure, go for the lottery.” You know, I mean, there’s people who apply for it every single year and never get it, through the lottery system, but they do take a third of their people from New York City, a third from like a three hour radius from New York city. So I knew my odds were a little bit better than that last third of the lottery they take. They take global and worldwide outside that radius of New York City. So I got it though. So the end of February, I get this email that I got the lottery. So I signed up, I was already signed up, you sign up and then if you get the lottery, they charge your credit card.

But yes, so I just, in the fall summer, summer of 2018, we started going through some really hard things and I was training for the marathon and it was just beautiful. It really, without the running, I would have needed actual sitting in an office with a counselor, but it just provided that space. And it provided that I didn’t even know about this bilateral stimulation and all this stuff. I was listening to that episode. I don’t remember which one it was, you were talking about this and I told my husband about it. I want to find the studies on this because my brain works, like I love the research. I love —
[DAWN]
Yes, look up, oh, go ahead. Sorry. I interrupted.
[MELISSA]
No, it’s okay. I just love finding out like the research behind it all because I think it’s just fascinating.
[DAWN]
Yes. So if you do research and look up EMDR, so it stands for eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. For my listeners out there look up EMDR. The woman who actually started EMDR, which is a very high researched, amazing treatment for trauma, actually, I used it for, I use it for a lot of different things for anxiety, depression, but definitely trauma. But it works because she actually, when she, I think she was doing some kind of study, she lived in New York City and she was walking actually. And she noticed when she was thinking of something negative, but then she kept walking and she noticed her eyes were moving back and forth and then it reprocessed and she started thinking more positively. And that’s how she discovered it was by walking. Now, when we do it in session, we don’t do it walking.

They use tappers or lights to stimulate the brain. But at our center in Castle Rock, we do trail therapy. So we take clients out on a trail and walk and talk and I found it helps them move things quicker. Like if they’re stuck and, I think those sessions are way more profound, honestly, when we’re hiking because of the, well, nature and bilateral stimulation. But yes, look up EMDR. You’ll find all the research.
[MELISSA]
Okay, I’m going to look up EMDR. And we’re saying, so there’s the, they’re walking outside, being outside, there is the bilateral, but then I also believe, and if that side to side, so I know when I have to discipline my child or I have to have a hard conversation or even as we’re having some more adult conversation, my oldest is on the brink of 13. When I go walk with her or I sit beside her, it just, the whole mood changes versus me sitting across from her or I don’t know, some of our best conversations have been driving in the car because she’s sitting beside me while we’re going someplace.
[DAWN]
And it’s not as intimidating. Yes, we’ve noticed that too. It’s just easier. And my husband and I do ton of hiking dates. It’s our best dates. Okay, so I am curious, do you have any tips for people who want to integrate more of the outdoors and the adventure? As a parent, like what can we do to get that passion integrated with our kids?
[MELISSA]
Yes. One of the simplest things I believe is just daily, going outside with your kids. I know that my second oldest, she has amazing balance and I firmly believe from a very young age she was just outside all the time, climbing on rocks. Let them explore. Put them in a setting where it’s not familiar. So if your backyard doesn’t have some features, go to the park, let them climb on rocks, let them climb on branches. My biggest thing, my biggest tip is if they can get up, they can get down. So I encourage friends, as I make friends with moms and we’re having these discussions, don’t help your kid climb the tree because what I’ve learned is if you help them climb the tree, they’re not building the muscle that they need in order to be strong enough to actually hoist themselves up into the tree.

So they’re more at risk of actually hurting themselves because they were aided, their body was aided in doing the activity. So the biggest area I find that in is actually climbing trees. And it also is brilliant because I didn’t come up with this. I read this in a book, but a lot of times parents help their kids up a tree before they’re actually able, and then they fall and they have an injury and then it traumatizes the kid and it traumatizes the parents because, oh my goodness, like I let my kid fall from a tree. But I’ve done this with every single one of my kids and not one of them has ever fallen out of a tree and you get a picture of my boy, 30 plus feet up in a tree. And he went five.
[DAWN]
Oh my, gosh.
[MELISSA]
Yes. And he still finds trees that tall. And he has one of my, I mean, we were just on a mountain on Tuesday and he literally climbed a crack. It was about a nine foot rock face. And the trail actually went around to the right, like 50 feet. But he just saw this crack in a nine foot phase and thought, “Hmm, I can do that.” So he went up at like a breeze and I firmly believe, he’s seven now, but since the giant he’s been, as crawling around, walking, toddling, he’s been outside almost every single day in any weather. And that’s the big thing. There’s no such thing as bad weather. Buy the right clothes, keep them warm and dry, let them get wet, you know, if it’s not going to make them hypothermic, but let them get messy, play in the dirt, go out on the rainy days, play with the worms.

I mean, this is all really basic beginning things, but it sets a stage for when they get older, being willing to go out on a three mile bike ride with you or hike up a mountain. So those are some like really very beginning basic ones. And then I’ll go with hiking. A couple of tips there is start small. So go find a nature preserve, or a park that you really enjoy. It can have a paved path. That’s fine. Go walk it. You know, they may only make it a half an hour or a half a mile before throwing a temper tantrum and you have to police them back to the car. That’s fine. You know, snacks are really, really important. So we always take a ton of snacks when we hike. We actually are known to like put fruit snacks in our pockets and only put them out one at a time, just that little sugar buzz to get them the next hundred yards.
[DAWN]
That’s a great tip.
[MELISSA]
Yes. So that’s really important. And then we always bring food. Like if we’re hiking a mountain, we bring the food for the top. Even if it’s not going to be a meal time, appropriate time, who cares? They find such motivation and like eating a meal up on top. So we’ll have treats up at the top and the views are usually amazing. They get so excited about it. So those are just really practical. Start small, do it often, and then even if it’s hard and they’re whining, keep going. There’s been not once that we’ve turned around. And I’ll say that, and that’s us, that’s our personality. That’s our kids’ personality. By all means this isn’t like something that you must achieve. If you get down the trail a mile and your kid is losing it, or you’re losing it, you should probably turn around. Or if the trails inclement or whatever, there’s reasons to turn around for sure. But we’ve had to carry kids for sure.

And that’s totally acceptable. I carried a girl out. She sprained her ankle so she couldn’t walk all the away. I don’t think she truly sprained it. She was about four, but it was enough that it really, really hurt. And that goes back to just knowing your own capabilities and you got to be strong. So train yourself too, to be able to carry your kid, carry extra weight, carry extra water. But I think, I have one other thing I wanted to end on was just knowing that the kids will give you a kickback. And this has happened two times in the last two weeks. We’ve hiked a lot in the last several weeks and my oldest gave me so much kickback and so much attitude.
[DAWN]
She’s almost 13.
[MELISSA]
Yes, you’re correct. And she goes, “Oh, this is a silly hike. I don’t want to go hiking.” And my kids are fighting and they’re just at each other’s throat and here I am trying to get six kids out the door and extra food and a baby. And it just like, I was literally ready to lose my mind. And I have some essential oils and said some prayers and I got us out the door and it wasn’t five minutes down the trail. And my oldest child who was giving me all the attitude, ran up to me and said, “This is the best. Thanks so much, mom.” And it was just amazing. She gave me so much and even up the trail, they’ll do this at times. You know, they’ll just give you so much attitude, “I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. This is hard.” But they get to the top or they get to the destination and they’re just, they feel so much intrinsic worth that is just built into them and so it helps. It doesn’t matter if it’s a half a mile or four miles. If they’ve completed something that builds such self-worth and strength into their body and into their soul and into their mind, that it’s totally worth it. And I will say that my kids rarely, if ever, bicker on the trail. So it’s always worth it for me to get my kids outside, out on a trail, outside of our backyard, because it just changes the dynamic between them and they become a team and it’s just amazing to see.
[DAWN]
Yes, I’ve noticed that too, with my boys. They’ll be complaining, but then the minute we’re actually in the flow of doing it, they’re like super excited and happy. And I think what you said, like there’s something intrinsic in them that they feel more strength. Like you said, when you crossed the ice castle or the ice castle, the ice bridge, going into freezing here, but the ice bridge, like I have what it takes to do something hard and I am strong and I do think hiking and adventure makes kids feel that way. And that’s something we can do for them. And I also, like what you said, you don’t give in and listen to the initial complaints. I noticed myself doing that with my oldest son. He would complain a lot and so I’d be like, “Okay, we’re not going.” And I didn’t realize, no, this is an emotional moment. Like emotions are fleeting. They come and go, but what values do you want to instill and what like sense of worth and strength do you want to instill in your kids? Go for the value, not the emotional moment that’s taking place. So you have to push through some things internally and for your kids.
[MELISSA]
Yes. In our one twin that I was referencing, that was on the failure to thrive a spectrum and he, we actually didn’t know, I wondered if he would walk. I mean, I knew deep down, I was like, he’s going to walk, but he was very delayed. He just didn’t have the muscle tone that the other twin had and you’re comparing the two because they’re going same age, but he’s, so he’s always been our weakest hiker. They’re going to turn six this year and he is now right there with everybody. I can no longer say he’s our weakest hiker. He just, his stamina, his self-worth, he knows it now. Last year, he complained, he whined every single time we had to carry him several times. We had to take his backpack several times. Every hike we took last year, we either carried him at some point, or we took his backpack from him. And this year, maybe this last Tuesday, he did not have adequate sleep. So that does affect, your kids know that if we’re doing a hike and they didn’t sleep well or they were up late previous nights in a row. it’s going to impact them just the same way that it impacts us. It impacts our attitude, it impacts their energy level, same thing for kids..

So I knew that going into this hike. So we only took his backpack, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. He did whine on this hike but this was the first hike he complained on this entire year. But I didn’t give into it and you just keep going and distraction works, great songs work great. We’ve made up some of the goofiest songs just to try to get him to laugh or other kids to laugh. And it’s just classic. How you parent in the house, we all know. We forget, I forget, I should say that distraction is money for a kid. If they are throwing a temper tantrum, they don’t want to do something, you distract them or you make it fun. You make it a game, tell them a joke. Like it just, if those emotions, you just got to push through the emotions, the feelings of it all. And so, yes, those are my moments. They will get stronger and they, I firmly believe now this boy knows, like he knows he can do it. Last year he was questioning. And he questioned via complaining and whining a lot. And this year he knows he can do it.
[DAWN]
I love that. That’s a great story. And I appreciate you being so real because at first people are probably thinking, “Oh my gosh her kids are amazing,” but then you said, no, they whine, they complain, they bicker. But push through that, like, you’re a real parent too. You have real kids. And I love that. Even the kind of like the community, your family, helping him get through it and how you took his backpack for him. And again, all the analogies are like flooding. I feel like I can always make analogies with that, but I’ll just stop there. But I do want to thank you so much for sharing all your stories. And I was wondering if you had, for people who live in upstate New York near you, what’s one of your favorite trails to do besides the Appalachian Trail? Is there a fun trail or a fun place that they could go and hike with their kids even?
[MELISSA]
Yes. So I love Lake George and just as north of us and has so many great trails. I would say the Shelving Rock mountain is really gentle. It is just like a mile and a half. It’s right near, the trail head is right near the lake. So once you get down, you can just take a 10 minute walk down to the lake. We really, really love the Lake George area. I would say Shelving Rock is a great, great one, but know that parking has been really fun lately and they will ticket you on the road. So find a parking lot or expect a ticket. And the other thing I would say is just anywhere in the Adirondacks, like, just look it up, figure out what length of hike you’re able to do, your kids are able to do. There’s everything. There’s 18 mile hikes up a Forty-Sixer, they are brutal and beautiful, but then there’s a quarter mile or a three-quarter mile hike up a cliff.
[DAWN]
That’s awesome.
[MELISSA]
Yes, we just did Cascade and Porter Mountain. And the Forty-Sixer, there are two of them and those are wonderful ones to start with, easy off the road, easy to find. So those would be my two big recommendations.
[DAWN]
Okay. Thanks so much. And I appreciate you taking the time to share with us.
[MELISSA]
Yes, you’re welcome. It’s been wonderful.
[DAWN]
Thanks.

Thank you for listening today at Faith Fringes Podcast. If you want to explore more of your own faith journey, I offer my free eight-week email course called Spiritual Reflections, where you take a deeper dive into your own story included as a journaling workbook that has guided exercises. So if you want to explore more of what you were brought up to believe, or even look at where you may have been disillusioned or hurt, but yet still deep down you desire to authentically connect with God, then this course is for you. Just go to faithfringes.com to sign up. .

Also, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email and tell me what’s on your mind. You can reach me at dawn@faithfringes.com.

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