Relationship Grit
How Dirt Biking with My Partner Sparks Some of The Best "Aha" Moments
Ever notice how some of the best advice rarely arrives when you’re intentionally seeking it out? As evidenced by the content on this Substack, many of my best relationship, parenting, and leadership insights don’t show up in professional trainings, my virtual office, or even my own counseling, they magically pop up when I’m shredding hero dirt with my partner on the trail.
This week, I found myself gripping my dirt bike handlebars, heart rate spiking as my wheel spun out in some loose soil on single-track with decent rocky, sidehill exposure. My partner was just ahead, and he wisely did several love loops in that section of trail. That was fortunate because I was able to share about the spinout just minutes after it happened.
He validated my experience about how that could be scary and offered encouragement and wisdom: dirt bike tires are designed to spin out a little that’s how they can fully dig into the soil and maximize traction. His feedback helped me reframe my fear in the moment, turning what could have been a “fear scar” at least for the rest of the ride into a learning opportunity that actually boosted my confidence instead of diminishing it.
As I continued on the ride, I flashed back to a Cloudbase Mayhem podcast we had started listening to on our drive home from camping a couple nights prior. The interview featured a Top Gun pilot, Serge Durrant, talking about how even after 30 years of flying F-18 fighter jets and hang-gliders, he still struggled with irrational fears when he started paragliding a couple years ago. What helped him push through? Not hubris or going it alone, but through deep, vulnerable and connecting mentorship.
Mentorship, Serge explained, is a cornerstone in aviation. No one becomes a great pilot alone. Every flight, every mistake, every success is shared, debriefed, and learned from together. That sense of community and support is what helps pilots and, I’d argue, all of us turn fear into growth instead of letting Type III fun moments calcify into a “fear scar” that would keep us from trying again. This is why I believe I have found personal counseling and being a counselor so invaluable. Through mentorship, supervision, consultation with peers, and the many amazing professionals I’ve worked with personally, I have been able to gain skills and confidence to increase my relationship grit and confidence to grow relationally.
Grit isn’t just about pushing through or gripping tighter. These kinds of rigid reactions almost guarantee you're more likely to crash, your body tenses up, or at the very least, you’ll end up with brutal arm pump. It’s about letting people in, learning from their experience, and building your own fortitude and finesse along the way. In dirt biking, just like in relationships, it’s those “almost crashed” moments when you’re scared, shaken, and tempted to give up or scale your riding way back that provide rich opportunities for connection and relationship grit: connection to all parts yourself, especially the fearful ones, connection with you’re riding partners, the environment, and the trail.
As I mentioned in my last post, my career began in the deep end of clinical work: counseling people with sexual offense felonies. I’d been exposed to some statistics related to humans with felonies in our society during grad school, but nothing prepared me for the lived reality of the challenges they faced because of their choices. Seeing a few of them courageously be accountable and make changes in spite of tremendous odds stacked against them impacted the way I understood resilience. For all of those who were able to move into genuine accountability and healing, they had at least one person on their team who they trusted and who provided comradery and mentorship for how to move through and exit the living hell that their choices, childhood traumas, and current circumstances had created.
In my next counseling role, I was continually inspired by how quickly kids and teens embraced the tools we discussed once they felt they could trust me. I’ll never forget the teen who, after a suicide attempt, realized they pretty much had zero boundaries with their friends. In just a week after we explored this, they completely changed how they related to others, and their self-esteem shot up. When I asked how they made such a big shift so quickly, they said, “Well, you told me boundaries would help, and I trust you.”
Adults and couples, on the other hand, usually need more time and self-trust to build up their relationship grit and break old patterns. The grit I witnessed in the kids and teens I worked with was humbling and inspiring it still gives me courage today. My own relationship grit grew from supporting, guiding, and witnessing their bravery..
It’s the heart of relationship grit: sticking with it when it would be so much easier to cut and run, to check out, stew in how unfair it all feels, or bury the pain so deep it poisons you from the inside out.
There’s a temptation, when we’re hurt, to let our hearts harden. It feels safer to build walls, to avoid vulnerability, to keep from getting hurt again. But true healing takes courage. It means allowing your heart to soften, to feel, and to trust again even when every instinct screams at you to protect yourself.
The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, it grows through strain and repair. Sometimes, you have to take a break, step back, rest, and let yourself heal so you don’t end up with permanent relationship fear scars that keep you from loving fully in the future. But eventually, you have to get back out there, to risk again, to let your heart stretch and strengthen. That’s the only way to build relationship grit, and honestly, I think it’s why we’re all here.
Terry Real, in a Modern Love podcast for Father’s Day, shared his dad’s words to Terry and his brother from his deathbed:
“I could have done a much better job with you two. I made a lot of mistakes. Don’t do what I did. When you get to where I am now, LOVE is the only thing that matters. Everything else is bullshit.”
Our romantic partners give us endless opportunities to practice relationship grit. Every disagreement, every disappointment, every moment of grief when we realize that they’re not the idol partners we projected them to be but flawed humans like ourselves, every moment of vulnerability is a chance to choose courage over comfort, connection over withdrawal.
It’s not about never getting hurt, it’s about learning to heal, to repair, and to keep showing up for each other.
Mentorship, connection, and community whether on the trail, in the air, or at the dining room table are what help us grow. They remind us that we don’t have to do this alone. And as Serge’s story shows, grit isn’t just about pushing through on your own; it’s about letting others in, letting them support you, and learning from their experience.
So if you’re in a season where your heart feels bruised, where you’re tempted to harden or withdraw, remember: healing takes courage. Rest when you need to. Seek out mentors, mental health professionals, support groups, friends, family members, and partners who can support you. And when you’re ready, get back out there. Practice relationship grit together.
Your heart, like any muscle, will grow stronger for it.