Leaping Into the Unknown: How Trying New Things Teaches Us to Trust Ourselves
The Promise We Carry
Some promises live quietly inside us.
Not loud.
Not urgent.
Just waiting.
Since 2003, when I was twenty-three years old, I have carried one of those promises on an invisible to-do list:
Take a trapeze class.
Not because I thought I’d be good at it.
Not because I was brave.
But because something in me whispered:
There’s something up there for you.
Back then, I was obsessed with Sex and the City.
Carrie Bradshaw climbed a ladder at the New York Circus Arts Academy — high above the West Side Highway — and tried trapeze. I drove past that exact rooftop for YEARS, staring at those nets suspended in the summer haze.
Every time, the same thought:
Someday.
Someday stretched across two decades.
Until now.
Choosing the Date
Like most things in adulthood, it happened casually.
In a Lyft ride home from the city — sweaty, tired, feet aching — my friend Amanda mentioned trapeze again. Before I could talk myself out of it, we pulled out our calendars.
“Sunday, August 17th. Let’s stop saying someday.”
I bought the class that week.
We treated it like an event: morning gym session, Stairmaster, and a three-mile walk along the Hudson before heading to Pier 40.
(Working out BEFORE trapeze? 10/10 do not recommend.)
The rooftop was wide open.
River sparkling.
A breeze cutting the humidity.
We dropped our bags.
We got clipped into harnesses.
We listened to what felt like 10 minutes of instruction for 10 years worth of fear.
Climb the ladder.
Grab the bar.
On “Ready!” bend.
On “Hup!” jump.
I stood there thinking:
Absolutely not. No way. Not me.
Because this is where the old identity showed up:
- I’m not athletic.
- I’m a slow learner.
- Other people always get things faster than me.
But then…
I jumped.
Flying
The bar swung.
My stomach dropped.
I heard cues yelled from below:
“Legs over the bar!”
“Let go and lean back!”
“Look at the net!”
And somehow — without negotiating with fear —
my body just did it.
When I landed in the net, breathless and stunned, I realized:
My body knew something my mind didn’t.
The story I had believed for decades — I’m not that person — cracked open.
Cracking the Old Story
On my next turn, the instructors introduced a new challenge:
a backflip dismount.
I decided absolutely not.
Then I did it.
And here’s the part that surprised me the most:
I was the first beginner that day to nail it.
Not the coordinated kid.
Not the quick learner.
Not the person who “gets things fast.”
Me.
The girl who spent childhood tripping in dance class.
The girl who always felt a step behind.
The moment I landed, upside down and laughing, I heard a voice in my head:
This isn’t who you are.
And another voice — quieter but true:
Maybe it always was.
The Hand-Off: Trust in Motion
At the end of class, the instructors invited a few beginners to attempt a hand-off — another trapeze artist would swing beside us and catch us mid-air.
I was chosen.
Chalk coated my hands to the forearm.
Heart pounding.
Harness clipped.
“I got this,” I whispered.
I leapt.
Hooked my knees.
Hung upside down.
And then—
“Gotcha!”
Hands caught mine mid-air.
I flew into someone else’s grip because I trusted myself first.
When I dropped to the net, I cried.
Not because I was scared.
Because I had finally honored a 22-year promise to myself.
“Trying something new doesn’t teach you to trust the world.
It teaches you to trust yourself.”
The Larger Metaphor
Trapeze wasn’t about flying.
It was about identity.
How often do we live under stories that no longer fit?
- I’m not strong enough.
- I don’t pick things up quickly.
- I’m not that kind of person.
Believing something about yourself does not make it true.
Doing something different does.
We don’t think ourselves into expansion.
We act ourselves into it.
Why We Need New Experiences
New experiences do what journaling and mindset work can’t:
They override the nervous system’s belief that new = danger.
They prove:
- Fear can exist and you can still leap.
- You don’t need perfect conditions to begin.
- You are more capable than your oldest story.
5 Truths Trying Something New Teaches You
- Fear is loudest right before growth.
- Action reshapes identity.
Not thought. Not planning. Action. - New experiences wake you up.
Routines numb us. Novelty revives us. - Confidence is born from participation, not perfection.
- Openness is a muscle.
The more you practice it, the more it grows.
Closing Reflection
As we walked back down the Hudson, sweat drying in the breeze, I couldn’t stop smiling.
I didn’t care that my form wasn’t perfect.
I didn’t care that it took 22 years.
I cared that I showed up.
That I leapt.
And that I surprised myself.
So here’s the question:
What’s your trapeze?
What’s the thing you’ve been curious about — maybe for years — but haven’t allowed yourself to try?
Book the class.
Send the email.
Walk into the room.
Don’t wait another decade to meet the version of you who exists just beyond the edge of fear.
Leap.
