A couple of years ago, I was mountain biking with friends in Crested Butte, CO. On the drive to the trailhead, one friend pointed to a nearby mountain peak and casually mentioned that she had skinned up it the prior winter, followed by a fun ski down. The group launched into a conversation about gear and skiing. Not being much into the backcountry scene, my mind began to wander.
I was distracted by the realization that the tools that serve you going up the mountain will slow you down coming down.
I’ve lived in Colorado long enough to know a bit about backcountry skiing. To climb that peak in the snow, my friends had used skins—strips of material that stick to the bottom of skis. Skins are a material with fibers that will grip the snow when you push backward to go uphill, and lie flat when gliding forward, making it possible to climb a snowy mountain. But if you leave the skins on, the ride down is more shuffle than ski. So at the top, they took them off—and let gravity and skis do the rest.
So, what does this have to do with anything?
We all carry tools—mindsets, habits, coping mechanisms—that serve us well in hard or growth seasons. But if we don’t know when to let go, they’ll hold us back.
There are tools that help us survive pain, loss, or fear. There are tools that help us build something new and reach new levels of growth or understanding. But what worked in one season won’t necessarily help in the next. If we don’t pause to reevaluate, we risk getting stuck—stuck in success, stuck in failure, stuck in the past.
Even good tools become a ceiling if they’re no longer right for where we’re going.
Imagine if I still woke up five times a night to feed my now 14-year-old daughter, just because that’s what I did when she was a baby. Ridiculous, right? Inefficient, ineffective—and let’s be honest, super annoying to the teenager who just wants to sleep.
The fear, hyper-vigilance, and self-protection that once helped you survive a difficult season might now be keeping you from healing, growing, or thriving.
Self-help books and podcasts can be powerful tools—they help us name our emotions and feel seen. But they can also become a distraction if we’re constantly consuming without applying what we’ve learned.
Boundaries shift with the season we’re in. Sometimes we need space to rest, process, or heal. Other times we’re in a season of building—whether that’s a marriage, a business, or a new rhythm of life. As seasons change, our boundaries should too. If we’re not careful, the space that once protected us can become isolation.
Even good spiritual practices can turn into hiding places. Christian disciplines that anchor us in truth and God’s presence can become a way to avoid deeper emotional healing, leaving us with spiritual habits but shallow roots.
It’s time to pause. Ask God what season you’re in.
And ask what tools you need to leave behind—and which new ones He’s placing in your hands for the journey ahead.
