Falling Skyward 2 (Episode 6)

Part 2 of a conversation between Steve Andrews and Clark Soriano on climbing and living with cancer. Learning from falling. Being in the moment. Body, mind and heart.  Balance.

Resources: 

• Steve Andrew's podcast: Bad Beta
• A Spotify playlist on remembering, letting go and moving: Embracing Adversity

Produced by Clark Soriano and Julian Noursi.

Post-Production by Cozmic Cat
Original music by Cozmic Cat

Thank you Michelle Fanzo (for mentoring) and Nis, my darling wife and Julian's dear friend.

Celebrating Adversity is a non-profit organization. Please feel free to give us feedback. I f you want to make a financial contribution, write us at stories@celebratingadversity.blog

Transcript

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FALLING SKYWARDS 2: TRANSCRIPT

OPENING SEGMENT

Clark Soriano (00:02):

Climbing. (Climbing Sounds) OK.

Steve Andrews (00:02):

When you're ready.

Clark Soriano (00:02):

Ready to fall. (Falling Sounds). Nice Catch.

Steve Andrews (00:02):

Yeah.

Clark Soriano (00:02):

God, to get more confidence you have to fall.

Steve Andrews (00:20):

You have to, yeah. You know, you gotta venture into the unknown.

Clark Soriano (00:25):

Right. I'm gonna try to fall with a swing. I think what disturbs me is falling with a swing.

Steve Andrews (00:34):

Get a little out there. Get your feet up on the ledge. Try to get your waist above the clip and then we'll take a fall from there.

Clark Soriano (00:43):

Climbing.

Steve Andrews (00:43):

Climb on. (Climbing Sounds).

Clark Soriano (00:43):

OK, Ready.

Steve Andrews (00:43):

Get your hands up a little higher. Here we go. Ready when you're ready?

Clark Soriano (00:54):

Yep. Falling. (Falling Sounds). Great. Love that.

INTRO MUSIC

Julian Noursi (01:16):

Welcome to Episode Six, Falling Skywards 2. The previous episode was a conversation between Steve and Clark on climbing and living with cancer.

Clark Soriano (01:29):

Jules, A lot has happened since we recorded these episodes: inspiring efforts by people of all over the world to fight the second wave of COVID 19; the shift to a narrative of representation, unity, and healing after a turbulent US election; the early successes of keeping the recurrence of my two cancers at bay. My cancer has spread to my abs, spine, chest, left hip pelvic bones, and peritoneum. The good news -- Last week, they were able to take out the biggest and most painful tumor. And the encouragement from friends to move upwards and forwards beyond the painful falls that my body has experienced is just amazing. The future is uncertain, but strangely I find insight and reassurance from the early conversations Steve and I had about climbing and cancer. We talked about falling, embracing vulnerability and learning how to fall upwards -- insights that resonate today, as I prepare for phase two of my treatment, another round of chemo or radiation.

CONVERSATION BETWEEN STEVE ANDREWS and CLARK SORIANO

Steve Andrews (02:54):

The unknown is the biggest thing that we fear. And so, if we can take small steps to go into that unknown, little bits at a time, we can kind of discover, "Okay, I take a small fall --What's going to happen. Okay, I come down here and nothing dangerous has happened. Okay. let's go a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger." I really think that's a great way to approach the fear of falling. I remembered watching you climb before you took those three falls, you were climbing very hesitantly. You were kind of second guessing yourself a lot. You would get into position to make a move and then kinda stay there wasting energy rather than just committing and moving through.All kinds of classic symptoms of climbing scared. Right. And then, and so at that part that you're talking about, you tried those moves quite a bit with no success. It was obviously not the physicality of the move that was holding you back, right? Because as soon as you took the three falls and got the unknown out of the way, you just marched right up that climb right to the right, to the anchor. And like, you tried hard and you made some good try-hard noises. I was thinking, "Oh, he might fall here." Like I was ready to give you a good catch. But yeah, you just went straight through teh climb and started climbing way stronger than you had on the bottom half of the route. It's funny how that happens.

Clark Soriano (04:42):

It is not only about the physicality of it.

Steve Andrews (04:45):

Yeah.

Clark Soriano (04:46):

It's your "lead-head." Because for me, cancer is not just physical. It's not just the impact of the disease or the radiation on your body. It's also emotional and mental. It's where and how you're feeling about it. It's where your mind is. What has helped me through my own journey through cancer is healing body, mind, and heart. It's, it's trying to figure out -- "Okay. There are certain things that I cannot do. But maybe there are more things that I can do that I wasn't able to do before."

Steve Andrews (05:26):

Or maybe you just have to modify how you do them.

Clark Soriano (05:29):

That's right. Or maybe you just have to look at it in a different way. I remember you and I were climbing on a very, very cold day. And there was a crazy move on a climb that involved traversing around a bulge. I put gear, my mind told me, and I said, "okay, I can now reach out to move towards that move beyond the bulge." Yes, but my left foot didn't want to move. It was just frozen in place. And I said to myself, "I can do this," but then my left foot just refused to move, you know? And then I had to physically lift my left foot to make that "traversy", precarious, "balancey" move, and then I fell.

Steve Andrews (06:20):

You had to command the command, your left foot to move.

Clark Soriano (06:24):

Yeah. I had the command my left foot to move. It was like another climber, you know, and then I just fell. But when I fell, I went back to the same place. Then, it became more automatic. You know, I found another hold. I found a hold lower and my left foot was able to move. I was able to go around the bulge and then send the climb or reach the top. But,hat was such an important lesson. You know, sometimes your mind tells you something different from your body. And it's all about trust -- trusting the belayer, trusting the gear that I put in and trusting the fact that if I fall, I fall. And you know, you just go back up and learn, learn to climb another way, move my body better, find that hidden foothold and climb.

Steve Andrews (07:28):

Sometimes it's our mind creating the reality and possibly holding us back from what we are actually able to do. And I think, it's actually all the time. Certainly, we can either by choice, like through climbing or not by choice, like through cancer, or you know, many other different examples of crisis or points where we're forced to really pay attention to what's going on. In those cases, that's when it becomes evident to us how our mind affects the reality that we live in. I think that's true all the time. And that's kind of, what's so enjoyable about climbing. What you get the most meaning from is realizing that you are capable of more than what you think you are. I would have to fight my mind quite a bit in order to move forward. Yeah. Personally, when I'm climbing, I'm always seeing visions of me hitting the ground. What would that look like? Your mind just goes crazy and tells these stories, "Oh, that's not going to hold. There's no way that that's going to break. You're going to hit that ledge," and all this stuff. The real rewarding bit from it has been in disentangling which of these narratives that my mind is telling me are true, because there are real dangers that you have to pay attention to. And you want to mitigate those dangers as much as you can. However, probably 80% of these narratives that your mind is telling you are actually false. Our ancestors didn't survive by underestimating danger. They survived by overestimating danger. And that's how they made it through. It can end up holding us back. I think in that, especially for people who are more prone to overestimate risk and danger and stuff like that.

Clark Soriano (09:43):

When you say that, I think about all the things that people advise me on what a person living with cancer should or should not do.

Steve Andrews (09:57):

Absolutely.

Clark Soriano (09:57):

Every friend you have, well intentioned lways has something to say - "you should, you should take this. You should not do this. You should do this." They have an opinion on how I can get healed. Now, all of this is with good intentions and the way it impacts on me is I have all these voices in my head about "doing this, doing that",Ad along with those voices that tell me, "Oh, I have a short lifespan or I'm growing weak." All these things. But at a certain point, it's so important to choose a path that you'd like to travel. And, it so important to learn from these voices, but not to allow these voices to limit you. And when you talk about all the voices that go, all the narratives that go in your head while climbing, that reminds me of all the narratives that go into my head on how best to heal from cancer. You choose an alternative, you assess the options and you travel in it, including embracing all the risks that you take by wanting a better balance of survival and quality of life. And I think that's the same thing for climbing. It's all about survival and the quality of the climb..

Steve Andrews (11:33):

Right. But as you say, it's a balance because if you wanted ultimate safety, you'd never leave the ground.

Clark Soriano (11:41):

That's true.

Steve Andrews (11:42):

So, yeah, you're balancing risk and fun. You're trying to get the most out of it, while still keeping as safe as you possibly can. That balance is everywhere. I think we don't see it in day-to-day life, but it's there. It's at certain points where it's kind of stripped bare that it becomes more obvious. What I learned from climbing with you when we first started -- I was really hesitant to put you on anything that I thought was too challenging. And I think I was really trying to do the climbs for you and just bring you up. Because, I knew about the cancer. And so I didn't really have the, I guess, confidence in you to be able to take care of yourself on the rock. Like you talk about caregivers. I think part of the messaging that we get is that, yeah, people with cancer, they need to be coddled a little bit. They need to be taken care of like a dependent or something like that, you know? And then as we climbed more together, it was really surprising and it's great to see, and it's made it so much more enjoyable that when we go out, I'mreally just facilitating your adventure and you're taking the lead and taking us up stuff most of the time. Just like that climb that you you chose the last time we were out. I saw that climb. I thought it looked cool, but I hesitated to suggest it. And then, yea and then you just picked it out of the blue, and then I ended up going up. I had you lead up it and hang the quick draws. And then I ended up going up after and it was super enjoyable. It wasn't something that I would have immediately thought of putting you on. Climbing with somebody with cancer, certainly challenges what you think of how somebody with cancer should act and what they can handle.

Clark Soriano (14:10):

Yeah. What I'm picking up from this is the importance of trust . My ability to make climbing more challenging and more enjoyable has a lot to do with trusting myself, trusting the gear and trusting you as a partner. And as that trust develops, I get more and more confident. I get more and more self-aware. And which is not only true to climbing. You raise a very important point, Steve. It's also about the relationship between people living with cancer and the people who care about them. It's so important for that trust to develop in such a way that the voice of neither the people living with cancer and the caregiver is lost. Giving the space for both voices to come out is such an important part of healing. It's part of such an important part of not only the caregiver/people living with cancer relationship, but the whole journey that they're both walking through. 

Steve Andrews (15:25):

Yeah. And I'm sure it's so tempting and easy for the caregiver to develop a top-down - "Oh, you're not going to do this. You know, you have cancer, don't be silly, " rather than a mutual trust relationship. You have to be open to that trust and give up the worry that you might do something wrong or you might say something wrong or have an uncomfortable moment or whatever

Clark Soriano (16:09):

What trust does is it gets both of you to think through the route together. I'm able to have a conversation with you about the route, what's going through me, how I'm trying to figure it out. Which is so important a value that is different from the values that I learned in the past. In the past, it was like o beta! Don't give any beta or climb on your own, climb in silence, or there's only one way to do a climb." Whereas, hat has made climbing more enjoyable for me is the constant conversation that we have about the routes. How do you feel about that?

Steve Andrews (16:51):

Yeah, it's funny. Like, I think about this a little bit. It's part of what we have a lot of fun doing is being creative with those rules and doing a little rule-bending every once in a while, but with the ultimate purpose of making the experience more enjoyable and safer for us,

Clark Soriano (17:15):

I see rules like the structure of a poem. So, sonnets have a certain structure. Haikus have a certain structure - the 5-7-5 syllables. What structure does is that it presents the listener with different levels of difficulty. That enables you to experience a particular feeling conveyed by words in a different way. And it gets more and more interesting. So for me,there are different levels of difficulty in climbing. No judgment. There are some people who want to do trad in a certain way or do sport purely. Or refuse to do aid-climbing and they look so beautiful on the rock. And that's wonderful. That's a relationship between them and the rock. And then there's some people who, who get pleasure out of doing things, as you put it, a little bit more creatively. Again, there's no judgment. What is important, I think, is the two things that you said. How to get that right balance between enjoying quality and keeping safe -- keeping yourself safe and keeping your belayer, safe. And that's what makes rock climbing so beautiful. It's that combination of freedom and structure. The best climbers I have known are those who I admire, are those are really very systematic about the way they organize their gear and prepare for the climb. It's so efficient. Efficiency gives you the space to do so much more. I think those rules are all about efficiency. And it's also about taking care of the whole climbing community, so that the routes we climb continue to be open; that conflict or legal conflict or accidents don't get in the way of encouraging people to climb together and to climb more. And that's what I like so much about the climbing community. There's freedom, but there's also structure.

Steve Andrews (19:45):

It's kind of like jazz, right? All the jazz musicians were masters at the structured traditional style of playing their instrument. And then that allowed them the freedom to then create almost with unlimited potential.

Clark Soriano (20:03):

Correct. You know, it also reminds me of a debate within the cancer community: the debate between the traditional treatment, which is radiation, surgery and chemo, versus alternative treatments that focus on prevention, that focus on lifestyle, diet, et cetera. Now, for me what makes the journey really interesting is the combination, is the hybrid. Because I have stage four cancer, I need to go through the fundamentals, you know, the chemo, the surgery and the radiation, but what has made the journey more enjoyable for me, despite the limitations, is a change in lifestyle, a change in diet, reducing stress. Doing all the other alternative things that compliment and don't necessarily contradict the fundamentals. Although of course, I wish the cancer industry spent more time and more money researching on things like lifestyle and prevention rather than on the very expensive big three.

Steve Andrews (21:17):

Well, it's very hard to monetize those things.

Clark Soriano (21:21):

How do you feel about our conversation?

Steve Andrews (21:23):

I feel good. I feel like we really touched on some deep topics on climbing, that I think about and know a lot, but don't normally put into words,

Clark Soriano (21:41):

All the things that we have talked about in this hour is like a summary of what I've learned or since I was diagnosed with cancer in 2015,

Steve Andrews (21:52):

Let me ask you this, maybe, in parting -- how do you see yourself and the journey that you've taken, since your diagnosis? Were you climbing when you were diagnosed or were you climbing before that. Not very long, right.

Clark Soriano (22:14):

Well, I've been climbing since 2008.

Steve Andrews (22:21):

Oh, OK.

Clark Soriano (22:21):

Not as frequently. I think it's not a question of length of time, but frequency. So it got more frequent in the two to three years before I was diagnosed. What the cancer did was that it made all the lessons that I learned important. When we talk about the importance of falling; the importance of being in the moment; the importance of body, health and mind; the importance of he balance between the structures and creativity. These are things that I've learned in the past. Our experience has given these lessons wings. The sense that it's made them important, not only to climbing in Ontario, but to healing from cancer. It's so important to have a discussion like this. It makes a lifetime of climbing very, very meaningful today.

Steve Andrews (23:46):

Yes. How do you feel about how you've progressed from when we started climbing together to now. You were going through chemo, radiation first, right.

Clark Soriano (23:59):

Surgery first.

Steve Andrews (23:59):

And then radiation, then chemo and all the while climbing pretty consistently right through it. We were scheduling climbing days before your chemo sessions, so you'd have maximum endorphins. And now on the other side of that dip now and climbing noticeably stronger. How do you feel about that?

Clark Soriano (24:29):

You raise an important point about humility? It's a very humble and peaceful experience that I feel. Before I came to Ontario, climbing was, was also enjoyable and I had really good friends, good buddies and good climbing guides to work with. But then it was sort ofclimbing as an assertion of health. And I was quite aggressive about it, because part of me was refusing to accept the fact that I was with cancer. And I was trying to defy actively people's stereotypes about people living wth cancer. I was taking my SPI in the middle of hormone treatment. My SPI is the Single Pitch Instructor exam. So no wonder I didn't have the extra energy to do it

Steve Andrews (25:28):

Well, it's amazing that you even went all the way through it.

Clark Soriano (25:33):

But my instructor, who's a good friend of mine. His name is Doug Ferguson and the guys that prepared me like Mark Folsom told me "Clark, you know how to climb well, you know how to take care of people. And what is your goal here? Do you want to be a climbing instructor?" And I said, "No, I don't want to be a climbing instructor because a climbing instructor takes away that joy sometimes. So I passed the assessment but I failed the exam. But I was getting into the exam for all the wrong reasons. And maybe that's partly why I failed. My, my mind got in the way of doing the things\that they already had seen me do many times before. So climbing, before, had a sort of desperate feeling to it. It's like, ay, I have cancer. I have very short time to live and I'm going to climb as many climbs as possible." But now climbing with you -- you made climbing part of living. You know, I always look forward to that outdoors climb every week. Wow. And it sort of lands quite gently on my mind, heart and soul. So I climb with a lot of curiosity, a lot of enjoyment and with a lot of openness to what this day has to offer. You know, even in the middle of the rain... It rained yesterday or last Wednesday. So it rained. We'd go under an, overhang and wait it out. You know, we we're not frenetic about it or panic. We just wait it out and then see whether it's possible to climb. If I can't climb today, then it's next week

Steve Andrews (27:25):

Or just change ather than, rather than climbing the thing we had decided to climb. Maybe we'll try something else.

Clark Soriano (27:35):

Yeah. Or just chill or just chill out and have a good conversation? And that's, that's important to me because right now I'm in a stage of my life where I've accepted many things. I've accepted that I'm going to be living with cancer the long time. I've accepted the fact that I have a shorter life expectancy than others. But when you're in that space of accepting a lot of things, create more space for creativity, for enjoyment, for having fun or for, for more freedom. And it's very peaceful. And I love that. I love where I am right now with climbing. And thank you. Thank you, Steve, for giving me that opportunity and that chance to experience this.

Steve Andrews (28:32):

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be there along that journey. You're putting into words and I'm realizing absolutely, when we first started, you did definitely climb with defiance. And That's a great. Ike that arc that we've been climbing together that I've seen you go through: the challenge of these treatments and now being where you are now. And absolutely, I see that the climbing was much more a curiosity and openness and yeah, it's been, it's been a fantastic.

CLOSING  REFLECTIONS.

Julian Noursi (29:12):

Your mind is not always right. It often creates a reality that prevents us from achieving what we can do. Climbing and living with cancer is about balance -- survival versus quality of life. Trust is not only essential to enjoy climbing, it is also at the core of the relationship between people living with terminal diseases and the people who care about them.

Clark Soriano (29:42):

That is true, Julian. I'm hoping to resume climbing, soon. And living with cancer has helped me realize that three things matter: time, energy, love; and being in a place where you can focus on healing by harnessing these three with precision, grace and humility.

CREDITS

Julian Noursi (30:11):

I hope you've enjoyed Episode 6. 

• Celebrating Adversity is written by Clark Soriano and co-produced with Juliana Noursi.
• If you want to know more about Steve Andrew tune in to the Bad Beta climbing podcast. 
• Many thanks to Cozmic Cat for the original music and post-production work; to Michelle Fonzo and Nis Clark's wife and my dear friend
• Please check out our playlist on Spotify, Embracing Adversity. 
• Celebrating Adversity is a nonprofit organization. Send us your feedback. And if you want to support us financially, write us at stories@celebratingadversity.blog 

Thank you for listening. Reach out to people living with cancer and those who care about them. Stay safe. And tune in for episode seven,