My life’s motto ‘How hard could it be?’ means that I tend to be driven in the things that I do—whether it’s a writing project, a work project or my own healing. This tendency helps me persevere which has its benefits. But the downside is that I can get a kind-of ‘missile lock’ on productivity and getting things done where I get more and more rigid about time and expectations. There’s probably some perfect tipping point where the right amount of effort yields continuous effectiveness, but I often blow right past that imagined point to a place where the rigidity and expectations either exhausts me or paralyzes me.

The good news is that I recognize this place much faster than I used to. I woke up this morning, and even before getting out of bed, I was already fighting the despair of what I was not going to complete today. When I find that I have fallen behind before my feet have even hit the floor, I know something is wrong. I took it as a sign that I what I actually needed was a break – so after lunch I headed to a nearby mountain range.

It was a rainy day, and I figured it would be a good day to go for a walk and have the woods to myself. I walked through a sea of greens, and mist and moss. It was a steep climb for about an hour and eventually I got to a summit lookout. There was a bench, an opening in the trees, and no visibility whatsoever. Fog, whiteness, nothing.

A mountain summit in the fog is a funny mix of knowing that you’ve made progress because of the tiring effort you felt on the way up—breathing hard, tired legs, heart pounding. You know because your watch tracks the miles and the hour it took to get there. But there is no confirming visual, no ‘proof’ of being at the top.

The metaphor feels all too real for me this week. I am at a point in my writing project that feels a lot like this hike. Where I have a sense of the work that has gotten me to the place I am standing. I have a big pile of research articles I’ve read—all with yellow legal pad notes stapled to the front. A strategy I’ve been using since grad school to digest what I’ve read and have clarity about what I can use from that research. And I have folders with all of the writing I’ve done for the past four years organized into rough chapters. But like the hike, I am able to see what’s close up: the trees, the rocks, the lichen. The pile of research, the books, the manilla folders. But the larger whole. The view. That remains hidden right now.

And in my own healing, it was a foggy week. I can feel the long trail I have walked, and I can feel my footfalls, and I can appreciate the strength I’ve gained, but I’m not sure of my bearings.

The thing about fog and mist and the lack of certainty that gets created is that other things can become clearer. A walk in the fog is more of an interior experience—a sensory experience—feeling the rain, seeing the bright lichen, smelling the wet leaves. Fog and mist—a bit of healthy disorientation—helps you be open to something new. Helps you see something old in a new way. This is the heart of learning.

In my writing, all of the new research and re-reading of old books helps me let go for a moment to what I think I know so that I can understand what I know in a new way. So that I can integrate what I have learned this year from my work, and let those new experiences collide with the reading I am doing so that I can see my old frameworks differently. So that maybe I can see some new solutions to old problems.

And when you are healing, fog takes away the sharp edges of things you thought you knew about yourself or how you thought you needed to figure things out. There may be something protective about fog—about not yet having to see or know something you aren’t ready to take in. Something that keeps you from being certain before you’ve learned all that you need to know yet. Protected from taking in too much at once—forced to take in what’s close in—what you can see or understand that is within arm’s reach.

And both walking in the fog, and healing in the fog require the same action: paying attention to the moment—where your feet are. Putting one foot in front of the other. One sentence after the other. To noticing what you are thinking in the moment. To beings able to say one true thing—even if it contradicts the one true thing you just said. To embracing the feeling of lost so that the new thing might be found.