There was a time in my life when I stopped recognizing myself.
Not all at once.
Not in some dramatic, cinematic collapse.
It happened slowly.
Quietly.
Through exhaustion. Through heartbreak. Through survival mode. Through years spent carrying responsibilities so heavy that somewhere along the way, I forgot I was allowed to exist outside of them.
I had become incredibly good at functioning while disconnected from myself.
I could work long nights in emergency medicine.
I could respond to chaos calmly.
I could care for everyone around me.
I could keep moving no matter how overwhelmed, heartbroken, or burned out I felt.
But confidence is not the same thing as competence.
And for a long time, I confused the two.
From the outside, I probably looked strong. Capable. Independent. Resilient.
Inside, I felt small.
I questioned myself constantly.
I doubted my instincts.
I apologized for taking up space.
I watered myself down to make other people comfortable.
I abandoned pieces of myself in relationships, in survival, in motherhood, and in the endless pressure to be everything for everyone else.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting my own voice.
And I didn’t realize how disconnected I had become until I started spending time outside.
The Outdoors Didn’t “Fix” Me
I want to be careful when I talk about healing through adventure because I think social media often romanticizes the outdoors as some magical cure for pain.
It isn’t.
Nature doesn’t erase trauma.
A mountain won’t solve your problems.
A hiking trail won’t suddenly undo years of self-doubt.
But what the outdoors can do is create space.
Space to hear yourself again.
Space away from noise, pressure, expectations, and constant stimulation.
Space where your nervous system can finally exhale long enough for you to notice what has been buried underneath survival mode.
For me, that realization started small.
A short hike.
A quiet trail.
A sunrise.
A moment where I realized I felt more like myself outside than I had anywhere else in years.
Not because the outdoors changed who I was.
But because it stripped away everything I wasn’t.
Confidence Is Built Through Evidence
One of the biggest misconceptions about confidence is that people think it arrives first.
It doesn’t.
Confidence is rarely something you magically feel before doing hard things.
Confidence is built after.
After you try.
After you fail.
After you adapt.
After you survive things you once believed would break you.
Adventure taught me that.
Every trail I finished gave me evidence.
Every mountain I climbed challenged the narrative that I was weak.
Every solo trip reminded me that I was capable.
Every uncomfortable experience became proof that fear and ability can coexist.
That’s something the outdoors teaches exceptionally well:
you do not have to feel fearless to move forward.
You just have to keep taking the next step.
The First Time I Realized I Was Changing
I remember one particular moment standing on a mountain summit in Colorado.
Wind hitting my face.
Legs exhausted.
Heart pounding.
And for the first time in a very long time, I felt proud of myself.
Not because anyone else validated me.
Not because of social media.
Not because of achievement.
Not because someone finally chose me or approved of me.
But because I knew what it took to get there.
I knew how badly I had struggled mentally in the months before that hike.
I knew how many times I almost talked myself out of trying.
I knew the version of me that once believed she wasn’t strong enough for things like this.
And suddenly I realized something:
The mountain hadn’t changed me.
It revealed me.
Adventure Reconnected Me With My Body
Trauma, chronic stress, burnout, heartbreak — they all disconnect us from ourselves physically.
You stop listening to your body.
You stop trusting your instincts.
You become detached from your own needs.
For years, my body only existed as a tool for productivity and survival.
In emergency medicine, your body learns to override exhaustion.
In unhealthy relationships, your intuition learns to stay quiet.
In survival mode, you stop asking yourself what you actually feel because functioning becomes the priority.
But outside, especially during long hikes or backpacking trips, I started reconnecting with myself again.
I learned what exhaustion actually felt like.
I learned the difference between fear and intuition.
I learned how to regulate discomfort instead of panic through it.
I learned how capable my body truly was.
And maybe most importantly:
I learned to trust myself again.
Solitude Changed Me
Some of the most transformative moments of my life happened alone.
Not lonely.
Alone.
There’s a difference.
I think many people spend their entire lives avoiding solitude because when everything gets quiet, they finally have to confront themselves.
But solitude in nature feels different.
It feels honest.
You can’t really perform for a mountain.
The outdoors doesn’t care about your job title, relationship status, follower count, appearance, or productivity.
It simply asks you to show up authentically.
And in that silence, I started noticing how much of my identity had been built around external validation.
Who was I when nobody was watching?
Who was I without praise?
Without relationships?
Without performance?
Without proving myself?
The outdoors forced me to answer those questions.
And slowly, I began rebuilding a relationship with myself that wasn’t dependent on other people’s approval.
Becoming the First
I was the first person in my family to hike.
The first to summit a mountain.
The first to backpack.
That matters to me because growing up, the outdoors never felt like a place where people like me belonged.
I didn’t grow up seeing women like me in outdoor marketing campaigns.
I didn’t grow up around backpacking culture.
I didn’t grow up believing adventure was accessible to me.
For a long time, I subconsciously believed the outdoors belonged to other people.
Then I started going anyway.
And every trail slowly rewrote that narrative.
Now, when I take my daughter outside, I think about that constantly.
Because confidence isn’t just personal.
It’s generational.
When children grow up seeing themselves represented in outdoor spaces, they internalize something powerful:
I belong here too.
Motherhood Changed the Stakes
Becoming a mother complicated my relationship with confidence in ways I never expected.
Motherhood is beautiful, but it can also consume you.
There were periods of time where I completely disappeared into caregiving, responsibility, and survival.
Adventure helped me reclaim parts of myself I thought motherhood had erased.
Not because motherhood diminished me.
But because somewhere along the way, I stopped allowing myself to exist as a person outside of being needed.
The outdoors reminded me:
I am still a woman.
Still curious.
Still adventurous.
Still powerful.
Still becoming.
And I think that matters for our children to witness.
I want my daughter to see a mother who lives fully.
A mother who challenges herself.
A mother who takes risks.
A mother who trusts herself.
A mother who understands that identity does not end when motherhood begins.
Adventure Taught Me Emotional Regulation
People often think resilience means pushing through pain without slowing down.
I used to think that too.
Working in emergency medicine reinforced that mindset.
You compartmentalize.
You function.
You suppress.
You move on.
But real resilience is not emotional numbness.
Adventure taught me something different.
When you hike long distances, backpack in difficult weather, navigate fear on exposed terrain, or spend time alone in the wilderness, you cannot bully your nervous system into calm forever.
Eventually, you have to learn regulation.
Breathing through discomfort.
Grounding yourself.
Managing fear without spiraling.
Staying present instead of catastrophizing.
The outdoors became one of the first places where I learned that strength and softness are not opposites.
I Still Have Insecure Days
Adventure did not magically turn me into someone who never doubts herself.
I still have days where I feel insecure.
Days where I compare myself.
Days where I question whether I’m enough.
But the difference now is that I no longer mistake fear for truth.
I no longer abandon myself the moment discomfort appears.
Because confidence isn’t believing you’ll never struggle again.
Confidence is knowing you can handle yourself when you do.
And every mountain, every trail, every solo trip, every difficult season has reinforced that belief a little more.
The Most Important Thing Adventure Gave Me
Adventure gave me evidence that I could trust myself.
That may not sound profound to everyone.
But when you’ve spent years disconnected from your instincts, doubting your worth, minimizing yourself, or surviving environments that taught you not to trust your own perceptions, rebuilding self-trust changes everything.
The outdoors taught me:
- I can navigate uncertainty.
- I can survive discomfort.
- I can adapt.
- I can recover.
- I can begin again.
- I can carry myself through hard things.
That confidence eventually spills into every other area of life.
Relationships.
Motherhood.
Career.
Creativity.
Boundaries.
Healing.
Because once you learn you are capable of carrying yourself through a mountain storm, a failed relationship, heartbreak, fear, rejection, burnout, or uncertainty stops feeling quite as impossible.
Maybe That’s Why I Keep Returning
People often ask why I’m so drawn to the outdoors.
Why I keep chasing mountains, trails, deserts, forests, and remote places.
And honestly?
Part of the answer is because the outdoors helped me find myself again.
Not the polished version.
Not the curated version.
Not the version shaped by other people’s expectations.
The real version.
The woman underneath survival mode.
The woman who still had dreams.
Still had strength.
Still had wonder.
Still had a voice.
Adventure didn’t create her.
It simply reminded her she was there all along.
Explore More with Isa Outdoors
If you’re planning your own adventure, you might also love:
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- Field Notes — intimate essays on resilience, reinvention, and finding strength through the wild places that change us.
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