Celebrities on Instagram

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@mandymooremm : @melissaarnot and I met early last winter and I happen to think it was love or atleast unbridled admiration at first sight. And this was before I even knew what she really did, mind you. Yes, she of 6 Everest summits (the only American woman to do it without supplemental oxygen) and too many other climbs, treks and accolades to name. She’s also an @eddiebauer alpine guide, a trained paramedic & Co-founder of The Juniper Fund, a non-profit that provides financial support, vocational training and business grants to the families of Sherpa workers killed on Everest and surrounding mountains. Plus she’s a wife, a new mama and a mentor to many folks who look to her for steady guidance tackling climbs and meeting their goals all over the globe. In other words she is the personification of a bad-ass and I immediately confided in her my deep desire to travel and climb mountains together. Cut to our trip to NZ and we finally found ourselves side by side trekking through ice, snow, lush forest canopies and soggy/ seemingly bottomless holes of mud and slippery, moss covered rocks. On this particular day, we descended 3k feet, not on any sort of trail, just down the mountain side... and I kept slipping on the combo of steep terrain and the aforementioned muck. Gradually I felt myself start to tense up and become hesitant with each step, as I was terrified to twist an ankle or plunge down the mountain face first. Full disclosure: I am a perfectionist. I am not good at not being good at something. I started to beat myself up for what I perceived as slowing down the group because it seemed me that no one else was having any difficulty. That became my narrative for a little while and I was pretty bummed at myself. Having her by my side to recognize and remind me that this was ALL new territory, that I had never done anything like this before so why would I automatically assume I’d be great it? The idea that I needed to be way kinder to myself seeeeeeems like a no-brainer piece of a