Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I Don't Know How You Do It” podcast where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to the show. Before we get into today's episode, I want to share how incredible the first week of my book launch has been and thank every one of you who's reached out to share your thoughts after reading it.

If you haven't checked it out yet, it's called Breath Taking: a memoir of family, dreams, and broken genes. And it's available wherever you love to get your books. 

Now on to today's show. My guest is Beth Rodden, a [00:01:00] pioneering rock climber who has pushed boundaries, literally and figuratively, throughout her trailblazing career and is the author of the new book, A Light Through the Cracks, A Climber's Story.

Beth has been climbing for 30 years and is one of the best female rock climbers of all time. In our conversation, Beth takes us back to her terrifying experience of being kidnapped by armed militants while on a climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan. She shares how this traumatic event impacted her life and how she grappled with the aftermath, including her struggles with mental health and her relationship with the sport she loved so much.

Beth's story is one of resilience, growth, and redefining what it means to embrace a softer strength. From shattering climbing records, to openly discussing topics like disordered eating, motherhood, and the challenges faced by female athletes, Beth has consistently challenged perceptions and sparked important conversations like the one we had on this episode.

Without [00:02:00] further ado, let's get started. I bring you Beth Rodden. Welcome to the show, Beth. 

Beth Rodden: Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored. 

Jessica Fein: Well, I'm so glad to meet you, and I just loved reading your book because it's a world that I really know nothing about that you write about so beautifully, and it just opened my eyes to so much.

I am sure I am not the first to say you are a trailblazer, literally and figuratively, in so many ways. Take us back to your early career in rock climbing, and tell us a little bit about how you got into it and fell in love with it, and what it was like to be a woman in this male dominated sport. 

Beth Rodden: You know, I started climbing when I was a teenager, which at the time was very different and new.

This was the 90s. And nowadays it's totally common. That's like kids get started in the gym. That's just how you do it. But I was part of this first generation of kid climbers because climbing [00:03:00] gyms were just starting to open. It was just a kind of a normal thing that my dad took my friend and I to this climbing gym and I got hooked.

I'm a fairly competitive person. So I started entering competitions right away. And one thing led to another, and I just kind of never looked back, honestly. 

Jessica Fein: So, you get into this sport more and more, and you find yourself as part of this group that, um, kind of sticks together, including your boyfriend, who's a climber, and the two of you, I love how you refer to yourselves as your names, as one word, because you are so often associated together. And you go off to this huge adventure, In Kyrgyzstan, and you're kidnapped. 

Beth Rodden: Mm hmm. 

Jessica Fein: What happened? 

Beth Rodden: So we had planned a six week, I think it was supposed to be six weeks, climbing trip, expedition, whatever label you want to put on it.

Myself, Tommy, who was my [00:04:00] boyfriend at the time, and then two of our friends who were extremely well accomplished climbers and photographer. And, you know, as climbers, that's kind of what we do, at least at that point in my life. It's kind of like, the year is parcelled out into where we're going to climb.

You know, it's like the fall is in Yosemite. The spring is in Yosemite. The winter is in Moab or in Joshua tree. And then a lot of times you're wondering where to go in the summer. And Jason, one of the other members of the team and I came up with this idea to pitch to a mutual sponsor. And Kyrgyzstan was known as a fairly new and exciting place to go do the type of climbing that we enjoyed, which was kind of big wall, free climbing.

And we got there and it was kind of everything we'd hoped for and so much more. It was this amazing valley with these huge gray granite walls flanking the sides and big snow capped mountains in the background. And it was kind of like a climber's paradise. It was just beautiful. And we spent our days climbing and our nights around a [00:05:00] cook stove, camp stove, just kind of enjoying this serene Valley and, and everything it had to offer.

And about, uh, two weeks, I want to say into our trip, we decided we were going to try and climb this wall over the course of a few days. And so as climbers. Um, if we're going to spend the night on the wall, we either sleep on natural rock ledges, like if the rock face provides those, we'll sleep on a natural rock ledge.

Or if the rock face doesn't provide those, then we bring these things called portal ledges, which are basically like hanging cots. And it sounds weird and scary and

Jessica Fein: I'm not kidding you, literally, literally my hands are sweating right now, and I have like, my stomach is getting anxious because I'm envisioning, and I know we're going one place with this, but I gotta ask you because you mentioned it, if you sleep on a natural rock ledge, is that what you called it?

Beth Rodden: Yeah, just like a ledge. Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: So how do you not fall off? 

Beth Rodden: You're always tied in, right? You sleep with your harness on, you sleep clipped into the rock. You know, if for some reason you're a [00:06:00] restless sleeper or you roll off, you just, your, your rope or your sling or whatever you're clipped into catches you.

So you're always, you're never not clipped in. 

Jessica Fein: So if you roll over in your sleep and the harness catches you, I mean, does that ever happen to you? Like you just all of a sudden wake up and you're hanging? 

Beth Rodden: No, no, it's never happened to me. I don't, I can't speak for anybody else, but it's never happened for me.

So, yeah. Okay. 

Jessica Fein: All right. I'm already anxious and we haven't even gotten to the terror yet, so I'll just be quiet. Go ahead, I will try not to interrupt. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, no, um, so we were like, the first night we were on the wall, we were hanging in these portal edges, and You know, we were these four kids. I feel like John was the oldest.

He was probably like 25 at the time. And I was the youngest. I had just turned 20 living out our wildest dreams. And it was awesome. We were alone in this Valley on the side of a rock face. And I don't think any of us probably wanted to be anywhere else, but the next morning, everything changed. We woke up in the morning to [00:07:00] these really loud bangs.

And, as climbers, um, we're always prepared for rockfall, or like, things that we can foresee happening. We all just assumed it was rockfall, because that's something that can happen, especially on rock faces that are rarely climbed. And we like, sat up and put our backs against the wall to try and make ourselves as, you know, low profile as possible, in case it was rockfall and more was coming.

But then it happened again, and we looked down and there were these armed men shooting up at us. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, so armed men are shooting up at you, you're like against the face of the wall, trying to make yourself as inconspicuous as possible. And so then what happens? 

Beth Rodden: So then we're all fairly confused, right?

Because all the locals that we have met that live at the mouth of the valley or, you know, en route to this pretty remote valley have been beyond kind, you know, just extremely kind and welcoming. And John, being the oldest, offered to rappel down [00:08:00] and see what they wanted, you know, maybe they just wanted to rob us, maybe, who knows.

So, he rappelled down, and I just remember when John was rappelling down, I just kind of crumbled, like, I just immediately started crying. All that excitement and kind of just feeling like I had it all figured out, you know, this is where I am. This is where I want to be. Look at me, mom type of thing just vanished.

And I immediately was just felt, you know, filled with regret and doubt. And why did we come here? What were we thinking? We, you know, we should be at home. I should have stayed in college. Like all the doubts came in. And when John got to the bottom, we communicate with each other sometimes on the wall. It's really windy, so we have little handheld radios and he radioed up to us and he said that we all needed to come down as fast as we could.

And once we all got to the ground, I just remember staring at these men and seeing these weapons and things in real life was just a huge shock. You know, just to see, like, [00:09:00] grenades on their belts and, you know, bullets as necklaces around their necks and automatic weapons, so it was just very apparent at that time that we were being taken hostage.

Jessica Fein: Or worse, like the other hostage that you encountered that they already had with them. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, they marched us back to our camp after we got to the ground, um, and our camp was just ransacked. Like, they had not opened our tents by unzipping them, but they had just taken knives and cut into the tent walls.

And all of our stuff was completely strewn about, you know, this grass around our tents. And they had another hostage with them. And we didn't speak his language, and he didn't speak ours, but through gestures and that type of thing, he was able to get across that the blood on his pants were from his friends and comrades that these people had killed earlier.

Jessica Fein: And you don't speak the language, presumably, of the people who have just kidnapped you either, right? No. [00:10:00] So they march you and take you and in fact even split you up, the four of you are now two and two. And one of the things that you wrote about that I found so powerful was that you wanted the kidnapper to like you, the one who was with the two of you, because again, you were split up, even offering some power bar.

What was going through your mind? 

Beth Rodden: You know that Jason, so one of our teammates from the very beginning, he kept saying we need to get these guys on our side. You know? And at the time, I didn't really think much of it, but, you know, why not try and befriend people? So, when we left our camp, we shoved a bunch of energy bars in our pockets, you know, not knowing where we were going.

We also shoved our passports and a little bit of cash or something like that. And so that was all the food we had, and so, we didn't Want them to see us eating food when they didn't have it. And so we shared all of our food with them. In fact, you know, we would split a bar between two of us and we would give them a whole one.

So we were just getting 100 calories a day and they were getting a [00:11:00] couple hundred. But yeah, they divided us up, I think, probably to make us more hideable during the days. They would put us in some of the most unthinkable places that you, you know, you might think you'd put like, your pet cat would crawl into, but they'd shove us in under these boulders beside the river, and the river would swell, or they would cover us with branches to hide us during the day, and then we would always walk at night.

Jessica Fein: And even one of them, you said, was, would kind of like curl up with you for the warmth, like one of the captors was kind of hiding there with you. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, they both hid with each respective pair. And, you know, we were at like 11, 000 feet or something like that. And none of us had on more clothes than we're wearing now, you know, like a light long sleeve shirt and pants.

And so it's freezing at night in the mountains, and so everybody was trying to just get as warm as possible. 

Jessica Fein: So did you know who they were or why they had taken you? What their objective was? Like, when did you figure that stuff out? 

Beth Rodden: Oh, we never figured that out. I mean, [00:12:00] not until we got back and maybe the, you know, United States Embassy had some indication on who they were or whatnot, but we never, we never, You know, we didn't speak their language.

They didn't speak our language. There's a lot you can get through with charades, but it never went that deep. So we had no clue, you know, we could only guess, you know, maybe we're human shields, maybe finding four Americans in the middle of the mountains is a very good opportunity, you know, to provide money.

We, we actually have no idea. And I don't think anybody really does because they, they didn't tell anybody. 

Jessica Fein: So then what happened? 

Beth Rodden: So we were held captive for six days. And during this whole time. We do the same thing where they would hide us during the day, daylight, and then we would walk at night. At the very beginning of that, we went through a pretty intense battle between the captors and the Kyrgyz military.

Um, where there were like mortars being fired and lots of machine gun back and forth the valley. [00:13:00] And then for six days, we hid during the day, walked at night, and then on our sixth night of captivity, we actually did this big loop, and we just ended up at the base of the valley that we were originally climbing at.

And the main captor got through, you know, got across with hand gestures that, He was going to go back to our camp to try and get more food and clothes and batteries for his radio. And we were supposed to meet on top of this ridge with the other captor. And when we started climbing up this ridge, it became very apparent that we, you know, four professional rock climbers, We're very comfortable on that terrain.

You know, for us, it was almost as simple as walking down a sidewalk. We just didn't even think about it because it just became so familiar. But our captor on the other hand was very uncomfortable. You know, it was like a baby deer walking on ice or something. He didn't, he didn't quite know how to do it because why would you, if you didn't?

Spend all your [00:14:00] days doing it. So it was to the point where, you know, the guys were grabbing his hand and pulling him up, or like, holding his foot while he would climb, to really help him up this ridge. And the whole time during those six days, John and Jason and all of us were, had been talking a little bit about trying, maybe we should be trying to escape, we have no idea like, what's happening, and this was a pretty apparent opportunity to try and do that.

And so, at the top, Tommy pushed him off, and we were able to then run to safety. We knew, um, where a small military outpost was, you know, a handful of miles down the canyon. And once we got inside there, we were finally, you know, as best we could tell, safe. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, and then how much longer till you made it home?

Beth Rodden: I think it was probably about a week or so, maybe a little bit longer, until we actually made it home. Because we were very far in the mountains. And so from that military outpost, we took a [00:15:00] helicopter to a slightly bigger military outpost, just right at the mouth of the mountains. And then we took another helicopter to a bigger one somewhere else.

And then we took a plane to the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where we were at the embassy for a few days. And then they finally were able to finagle some flights out for us. 

Jessica Fein: And you write about even at that point, you assumed, and of course, how could you not, that The kidnappers might still be coming after you.

And even when you got back to your home, you felt like that. What was it like when you first got home? 

Beth Rodden: You know, when we first got home, it was really disorienting because this was in 2000. And so it was before 9 11. It was kind of before the internet. And so it was just like this media onslaught, which felt very surreal and almost like like a tad violating because it felt like they had this attitude like they were entitled to us and our story and you know, we were just kids and Like they wouldn't leave us alone.

They would like [00:16:00] call all the time knock on doorsteps. Just everything It was really hard honestly in this time that you're very vulnerable and you probably really just need to heal It was like everybody just wanted something from us And so it left a pretty sour taste in my mouth about that type of thing.

But yeah, it was wild, and so there was a bunch of media. And then, eventually, when that all died down, it was like, how do you get back to normal? What is even normal? 

Jessica Fein: Yeah, so how do you? First of all, how do you even think about climbing and doing what was so intrinsic to who you were, and everything that you identified with at that point?

How do you get yourself back to what your normal is, which is this adventurous, out there, risky life when you're dealing with the aftermath of this kind of thing? 

Beth Rodden: I didn't know there was no roadmap for this. And then at the time, especially in the climbing community, there was kind of this bravado and celebration around ethics, you know, because a lot of what was celebrated in climbing was [00:17:00] cheating death to get to the summit.

And so everybody, instead of asking us, you know, are you okay? How are you doing? You know, is there, it was kind of like, Oh, right on, like, look at what you did. And they were kind of like congratulating us, which felt really awful and foreign. And so therapy was kind of shunned at that time, you know, like frowned upon.

It was seen as weak in the climbing community. So we didn't go to therapy right away. I didn't know honestly how to get back into climbing because I didn't enjoy it. I just associated it with all these bad things, but I was with Tommy and he, he definitely had a different approach that worked for him, which was kind of diving back into climbing.

And so eventually I was like, well, nothing's working for me. Maybe I'll just try what's working for him. 

Jessica Fein: And did it?

Beth Rodden: Yeah, it did, honestly. It, I just decided I was gonna bottle up Kyrgyzstan and shove it down as far as I could and hopefully never have to revisit it. And I just poured all my energy into trying to [00:18:00] control every aspect of my life.

You know, my eating. Where I visited, who I was friends with, who I saw, and then like hyper, just focused on climbing, and poured all my energy into that, and, you know, honestly, for nearly a decade, Tommy and I were able to really push the sport forward. 

Jessica Fein: It's interesting that you mentioned really controlling even what you eat.

That was a big theme throughout your book, and as you tell your story, the way that your body Which was so core to the profession, obviously, um, how you were trying to control it throughout, and how eating became something you could control. And then when you come back from the situation where you obviously were not in control, it became even more of an emphasis.

Beth Rodden: I feel like once I started climbing when I was a teenager, back then eating issues were pretty prevalent, but nobody talked about it. And so when I was a teenager, I definitely struggled with disordered [00:19:00] eating. However, at the time, I never thought it was a problem. I just thought it was this amazing tool that I was really good at.

And so when I got back from Kyrgyzstan, it just kind of went into overdrive a little bit as well. 

Jessica Fein: You said that was about a decade that you were kind of bottling things down and going into overdrive with the control. What ultimately helped you to move through that? 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, after a decade of just like charging forward in climbing and, you know, respectively each pushing the sport forward.

Jessica Fein: And not only breaking world records as a female climber, but breaking records as a climber during that time. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, no, I was able to, you know, do things that men weren't able to do and, you know, took nearly a decade to repeat. But at the end of that decade, honestly, things started to crack. My marriage fell apart to Tommy, and I was left in this [00:20:00] position of trying to figure out what was important to me, what, what my life was about, and I was just in this, you know, honestly, that was the darkest time of my life, was My divorce, worse than Kyrgyzstan, because not only did I not have Tommy by my side, which even though maybe it wasn't the best for my healing in the first place, you know, having somebody there with you is a huge benefit, you know, to go through and not feel alone.

Um, but then also at the same time, my body started to fall apart. And so this body that was the way that I was able to kind of process things or not process things, you know, kind of cover things up and something that I always felt like I could control and rely on all of a sudden I was getting injury after injury, after injury, doing the most mundane things.

It wasn't like I was doing some amazing climb or, you know, some amazing feet. It was. Our door lock was stuck and so I turned the key harder and I would pop a tendon in my finger or something like [00:21:00] that. So I just got to this place where I just kind of had to reset a baseline. You know, just kind of figure out what I was doing in life, bumbling through, and it was just a slow rebuilding.

And I feel like I'm just still in that figuring stuff out phase. 

Jessica Fein: Well, did you at that point ever think about just quitting altogether? 

Beth Rodden: Absolutely. I thought about it all the time. I always was like, is this worth it? Like, what am I? I looked at jobs on the internet that didn't require a college degree, because, you know, I dropped out of college to pursue climbing, and I thought, well, what can I do if I don't climb?

But, you know, honestly, just slowly, I realized that climbing didn't have to be this one path that I had just totally forged ahead in. You know, it didn't have to be this narrow path of like, you know, Achievement and perfection and control. That's not why I started climbing in the first place. You know, I started climbing because it was just so fun, you know?

And it opened my eyes to all these different people that I could meet and places I could go. And I just loved how my body felt when I was doing it. [00:22:00] So, it kind of just reminded me why I liked climbing. And it didn't have to be this One singular way that I had made it for, you know, over a decade, it could be all these different ways.

And why did I feel compelled to keep it in such a strict way? 

Jessica Fein: Yeah, and then there was another major change that happened, right? And so, as it came time to consider starting a family, that was often a career ending move. For female climbers. So first of all, tell us about what the perceptions and challenges were for women in your profession who wanted to start a family.

Beth Rodden: I got remarried and my husband is not a professional climber. He's a very amazing climber, but you know, he has a normal job and normal friends that aren't climbers. And so having kids to him was just, you know, something exciting to try and do. But to me, All the examples of female climbers, I shouldn't say all, but most of the examples were people normally [00:23:00] bowed out gracefully before they wanted to have kids.

Or there were a few women that got dropped by their sponsors when they were pregnant and decided to have kids. So it was a very perilous thing. You know, it was like, wait, this is going to be the end of my career at the end of this thing that I worked hard at and that I still enjoy doing. And so for me, it just felt very scary to dive into that.

Jessica Fein: But I love where you talk about how your sponsors reacted when you did decide to go ahead and when you had to call and tell them what was going on and you were shocked because you thought that was it. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, I literally, you know, scheduled all these phone calls with my sponsors. And I was fully prepared for them to say thank you, no thank you, to continue in the relationship.

But one after one, they just congratulated me, and we brainstormed on how we could still be mutually beneficial to each other, how could we still continue to grow the partnerships. And you know, it was just, it was so shocking and such [00:24:00] a relief. 

Jessica Fein: It's such a gorgeous part of the story because it was so surprising.

Do you think that was because you had these relationships with them and they wanted to support you or do you think that it signaled a changing in the times? 

Beth Rodden: You know, I can't speak for them. Um, for me, it felt like probably a little bit of both. You know, it was just as time goes on, hopefully there's evolution in society and especially in sport.

And then also, a lot of these sponsors, you know, I've been with for decades. And so, perhaps they also were growing with me and we didn't need to be on this narrow road. of only one way of having a sponsored climber. 

Jessica Fein: But it's so interesting because there's so much discourse, obviously, about women who have to pull out of their careers when they decide to start a family or who are penalized in some way.

And it's so fascinating because, of course, again, you're part of a profession that is very tied to your physicality, but also you were [00:25:00] really a trendsetter for women who are in sports and not in sports because you decided to become pretty public about what you were going through and to spark these conversations within the climbing community and outside.

So how do you think these conversations influenced perceptions, not only of female athletes, but of female professionals? 

Beth Rodden: I think talking about things that have traditionally been Hidden in the shadows and left in the closet is the only way to normalize them. And so I feel like I was at a point in my career where, you know, I'm in my mid 40s now.

It's not like I'm pushing the sport forward in the physical realm anymore. So why not try and do that in other realms, you know, in subjects and areas that have traditionally been taboo in our community and try and push barriers that way. 

Jessica Fein: So what are some of the ways that you have continued to try to push those barriers?

Beth Rodden: Well, I think it started with motherhood and showing that women [00:26:00] could continue climbing and being in their career in climbing. I think it's talking a lot about mental health because in a community that does sadly suffer so much trauma and death with our sport, it's something that wasn't widely talked about nor widely accepted.

And it's something that's near and dear to my heart because nearly 15 years after Kyrgyzstan I finally did go to therapy to start talking about it and working through some of these things that I thought I'd buried but were bubbling up in many, many ways. It's been transformative. It's obviously an ongoing, lifelong project I think that I'm going to have to have.

Jessica Fein: Were you still doing those huge adventurous climbs once you became a mom? Were you still doing the going to other parts of the world and doing, you know, longer duration climbs? Or did you scale back? 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, I feel like since, um, becoming a mom, obviously I still travel. But after Kyrgyzstan, I kind of stopped going to the mountains.

Very, [00:27:00] very far off places. I'd still go to more known places like Norway and Canada and things like that, but haven't really ever felt the desire to, to go to places like Kyrgyzstan anymore. 

Jessica Fein: What does adventure look like for you now? 

Beth Rodden: Oh man, I don't know. Figuring out dinner. 

Jessica Fein: Do you ever get bored? Are you ever like, things seem so mundane compared to that?

Or does it just feel safe and comfortable? 

Beth Rodden: Yeah. I mean, honestly, when I was in that time, it sounds weird, but I feel like if you do something day in and day out for so long, that just becomes mundane. So climbing on El Cap and these rock faces, that just kind of became normal to me. So I don't feel like it's different now versus then. It's just what is the medium. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I really loved about the story is that once you walked away from the elite climbing, you talk about the fulfillment and happiness. You found in what would be quote unquote, a more ordinary life. [00:28:00] 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, there's so much joy and wonder in the world and so much grief and sorrow just in normal life too, you know.

I feel like in climbing there's always been, especially when I was growing up in climbing, you know, this dialogue that what we do is so much better, because we go to these great places and we hang off the sides of cliffs and we do this and we do that and, I feel like not doing that, there's just as much of all the stuff, you know, of the great and the bad, so don't necessarily need to do that.

Jessica Fein: But I wonder if we need to do that in order to appreciate the ordinary. Do you think that sometimes it's the having done the extraordinary that makes you feel like, okay, the ordinary is pretty great too? 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, perhaps. I feel like when I was, um, late teens and early 20s, I definitely felt like what I was doing was better.

Jessica Fein: Yeah, you're right about that, too. Like, you're not going, you're not in a cubicle. 

Beth Rodden: Yeah, exactly. I just was like, ah, take this, everybody. Like, I am leaning, and you are not. And then I think, I don't know, I can only speak to me, but just as I got older, [00:29:00] and I'm sure I'm going to say something different in 10, 20 years from now.

Yeah, I feel like I've just learned to not need so much in my life. 

Jessica Fein: What advice would you give to somebody who said, like, I want to go on the big adventure and you're sitting here going, you've got a pretty great thing, just, you know, in the more ordinary, how do you share that with somebody and help them realize the extraordinary in the ordinary?

Beth Rodden: I think if my mom would have told me that when I was 20, um, I wouldn't have listened to her. 

Jessica Fein: No, you would have rolled your eyes, right? 

Beth Rodden: Exactly. I feel like everybody's got to figure it out for themselves. 

Jessica Fein: So you have a new piece in the New York Times and it has such a good title. “Tired of sucking it up as a climber, I've embraced a softer strength."

And I love that title because I love both sides. Tired of sucking it up and embracing a softer strength. So let's talk about being tired of sucking it up first. What do you mean by that? 

Beth Rodden: For me growing up in climbing, there was always. This running dialogue in my head that I would say, which would be suck it up, [00:30:00] Rodden.

And it would be if I was on a long climb and I was thirsty or tired or hungry or scared, instead of like leaning into that and wondering why I'm feeling that way or like what got me into that position or whatnot, I would just say suck it up, Rodden. And I would say that a lot. And it was just kind of this culture, this, this thing in the climbing culture, which it was by doing that, we were better than the rest.

Somehow, you know, and I can't point to a specific shift or a specific time in my life where I, you know, Did a hundred and eighty degree turn and said this isn't for me anymore I think it was just a lot of little things that led up to it that I was thinking wait Why is it noble for all of us climbers to climb through cracks on El Cap that are covered in our urine?

And then leaking while you run postpartum is something to be ashamed of. It just was these perspective shifts, like why is one thing celebrated when the other isn't? Or one thing, you need to [00:31:00] sweep it under the rug, and the other you get raises for. And so it was just this thing of starting to question this kind of bravado mentality in the climbing community that I had subscribed to for so long.

Jessica Fein: And so tell us about the softer strength that you're now embracing. 

Beth Rodden: Just being myself, honestly, and whoever that is, you know, I feel like that's just always a work in progress, but not trying to hide anything if I'm ashamed of it. You know, I've always had injuries and some of them kind of felt noble and something to be proud of.

Like, Oh, I took this huge fall and I survived, but I came away with a broken foot or something like that. And recently. With perimenopause, my prolapse symptoms came back, and so, you know, I've been, like, walking around with this foam mat, and when people ask, instead of being ashamed about it, I just tell them what's going on, and You know, just this kind of refreshing way to just let people know, this is me.

Jessica Fein: I love that. And I love that you have always been sharing yourself so openly because in doing so, you're giving [00:32:00] permission in a way to so many women to say, this is me. 

Beth Rodden: Pretty powerful. A couple words there. This thing of starting to question this kind of bravado mentality in the climbing community that I had subscribed to for so long. 

Jessica Fein: So why now did you decide to write the book at this point? 

Beth Rodden: Well, I've been working on the book for nearly a decade.

You know, it would have been a much different book had I come remotely close to meeting my deadlines. But You know, I feel like I've gained so much, I've struggled doing the book honestly, but I've gained so much strength and perspective from reading other people's stories who were brave enough to share them.

And so I know at different times in my life I would have really appreciated a book like this and I do appreciate reading people's personal stories and I think it just makes everybody feel a little bit less alone honestly. 

Jessica Fein: What do you hope readers take away from it? 

Beth Rodden: I feel like probably everybody's going to take something different away, you know?

When I read a book, I, and I talk to my girlfriends about it, they'll mention one thing, and I'll mention another, and [00:34:00] somebody else will mention another, and I feel like that's kind of the gift of reading somebody's story, is you see a lot of your own journey in theirs, and so what's going to touch you is going to be different than what might touch somebody else.

Jessica Fein: I agree. And I think it's so amazing that we can find our own stories in somebody else's or see ourselves in somebody else's story, particularly when we're reading about somebody's story that's so wildly different from our own life. And even yet, there were struggles and challenges in your story that I was nodding along to.

And I think that's one of the most remarkable things about memoir is that we can tell such a personal story and other people see themselves. 

Beth Rodden: Absolutely. I've had some of my favorite times curled up in a chair reading somebody's memoir. It's a privilege to be able to read somebody, you know, who's shared themselves so deeply.

Jessica Fein: Everybody needs to find your book and to follow along this remarkable story, a story of such courage and bravery in ways that we might expect for somebody who's breaking [00:35:00] world records and in so many ways that we would not expect. So thank you for sharing your story with us. 

Beth Rodden: Oh, thank you. I appreciate it very much.

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Beth. Number one, if nothing's working for you to make the changes you want, look to the people closest to you and see what's working for them. Borrow their strategies and see what happens. Number two, there can be more ways to engage with the thing you love than by doing it exclusively or competitively.

Beth found a sense of freedom when she changed the way she viewed rock climbing. When she realized that it didn't have to be this one path of achievement and perfection and control, she remembered what she loved about it in the first place. Number three, listen to your body. It often tells us when we're pushing beyond our limits, way before our mind does.

Number four, don't not ask about something because you assume people are going to have a negative reaction. Sometimes we're surprised, like Beth was, when she told her sponsor she was starting a family. You don't know, if you don't ask. And number five, An ordinary life can hold just as much [00:36:00] fulfillment, happiness, and beauty as an extraordinary one.

Thank you so much for listening to the show. I do not take it for granted I know how many choices you have and I'd be so grateful if you would rate and review the show. Have a great day. Talk to you next time.