Lessons Learned from Diving in the Sky — Stephanie Hoi-Nga Wong

How do you know how far you can go until you try?

This is a story about fear, death, judgement, assumption and self-imposed limitations

Warning: Bad language contains in the content. Read at your own risk. 😉

I don’t intentionally say rude words in front of children. But I did this weekend in front of my son Julian -- on purpose.

“Your mom is a BADASS!” I shouted.

“Bad butt,” he responded with the kind of monotone that reminded me of that kid in The Shining who says “Redrum.”

“A-S-S is butt. Bad Butt,” he said mischievously.

My husband Andy and I laughed.

I considered myself a badass because just 15 minutes earlier, I leaped from an airplane at 11,000 feet – with an instructor, of course.

That was my first try at skydiving. I wanted to lead by example for Julian. I wanted him to see his mom is a badass who feels the fear but still tries to conquer it; I wanted him to see when I am vulnerable, I still can pick myself up. There’s only so much you can tell your children what to do and what not to do. Sometimes you need to be an example.

#INSPIREACTION is my education for him.

I had never thought about risking my life by skydiving until one morning an event happened that made me feel really sad. I came across a Facebook post of a stranger called Philip Weech, who tagged Steve Hardison, my coach and Facebook friend. Philip was inviting his friends to go skydiving with him in Arizona on the day before I was due to meet Steve in Arizona for our first coaching session.

Skydiving! That idea was so appealing and exciting at that moment that my sadness magically vanished! I was imagining exhilaration, freedom, flying, heavy breathing, a lot of screaming and laughing among other images and feelings in my mind and body. Then the disappointment hit. I got the date wrong and I couldn’t join Philip.

But wait, I thought, why don’t I create my own trip?

I started asking for recommendations of a skydiving center from my local social media groups. I knew it wouldn't be easy to find someone to go with me so I asked strangers in those groups to join me as well as some of my friends. After all the nos or maybes, I found ONE definite Yes from Sid Sachdeva. I was beyond excited!

I quickly reserved a spot for us for the following month.

I had mixed feelings in the month leading up to the flight – I was scared shitless, nervous, was dreading it and had sweaty palms when I was thinking about it, but I also kind of excited. The thought of “Oh-no-what-the-hell-have-I-done” came up the most.

A week before it happened I had a very short dream of me falling from the sky; it was like a fleeting moment. I was squeezing my eyes, tightening my fist, clenching my jaws and feeling like my heart was about to pop out of my chest. You know the feeling that you experience on a roller coaster, except that my body was not attaching to anything that was safely connecting with the ground.

Upon awakening, I texted Sid and told him about my dream and said: I don’t know how the hell I’m going to last for 45 seconds of free fall. And we were supposed to drop at the speed of 120 mph.

Moments of doubt

“Has anyone had a heart attack in midair before?” I asked the lady on the phone of the skydiving center when I made a reservation. She laughed and replied, “No one has ever died here.”

That was quite reassuring until I told a friend about that conversation. She said to me, “Yeah, no one had died, BUT has anyone been hurt?” Hmm, good question I thought, but I didn’t want to find out. What’s the point of scaring myself even more?

In my mind though, I was imagining I was walking in crutches because of my injured legs or my bones were broken into pieces. I looked up the odds of dying from skydiving.

Two weeks before our jump, I got a text from a friend who sent me a story about a California woman who just died in a tandem skydiving accident. Someone else also told me it was dangerous and that I shouldn’t do it because I now have a family. Another person said she wanted to do it when she was young and now it’s too late to take the risk.

There were moments of doubt creeping in.

Have you noticed, in your life, how often your external world has an the effect on what you want to do?
How often do you listen to the external world? How often do you let your logical mind dominate the conversation and ignore what your soul yearns for?
How often do you believe planning and thinking for the worst is a good strategy to take?
How often do you give in to fear, play it safe and then are envious of others who act? How often do you wish you could do the same only to fall back to “planning for the worst” again and freezing?
How often do you find that this inability to act has kept you in the same place? Possibly for years and even for life?
How often do you ignore the signs that what you desire can do something GOOD for you? That what you desire can help you grow and learn about yourself, only to find yourself letting fear take over again?
If you only think of the worst and give it attention, how are you going to have room for the great experiences?
How often do you make judgements and assumptions on what you haven’t done or experienced, create scenarios containing the worst possible outcomes and then find yourself scared and stuck?

This is not just about skydiving. This has to do with everything you do in your life.

Death Jokes

Sid and my husband, Andy, made some jokes about not being able to survive the jump. I had to stop them. No fear. No bad omen. No bad luck, please.

As it turned out, the staff at the skydiving center didn’t shy away from telling jokes about death and accidents. I guess if you are worried about it, you might as well face it.

After we arrived at the center, we sat in one of their big couches waiting to be served. The owner came over and asked who was going to jump. I pointed at my 8-year-old son Julian but darn, he didn’t buy it.

When I told him the truth, he told me that all the appointments of the day had been cancelled because someone had died as they didn’t put the harness on properly.

Then he burst out laughing.

“Damn, so this person didn’t get a second chance in life then? Too bad,” I said, laughing along.

Sid’s instructor joke was rather crude, “If you didn’t survive this, at least you would become a Death Coach, not a Life Coach!”

My instructor Dylan was gentler. “If you die, I die, ok?” he said quietly, trying to reassure me that he took his life as seriously as mine and he couldn’t afford negligent himself.

That’s the thing. All we thought about was death.

“Fear only exists in your mind,” Sid’s instructor said to us.

Before our plane took off, he showed us on his phone a drawing of a plane that had the words “magic” and “air” all over the place.

Then off we went, up into the sky to experience one of the best times of my life.

The moment it was my time to dive, Dylan didn’t waste any time for any fear, hesitation or struggle to come in that could possibly stall us.

He scooted us to the edge of the plane and within seconds, we were flying in the sky.

Here is something to contemplate:

How do you know you won’t enjoy something until you try?
How do you know you can’t do something until you try?
How do you know you won’t make it until you try?
How do you know you won’t like something until you try?
How do you know how far you can go until you try?

This is not just about skydiving. This has to do with everything you do in your life.

*Read a little bit more about my experience here.