ONWARD & UPWARD

ONWARD & UPWARD
When Listening to Yourself Becomes the Summit
Exclusive Interview with Jen Willis
Featured in 'Innerviews'
Hosted by Allié McGuire

​We often celebrate pushing forward, but rarely honor the bravery of turning back. Jen Willis knows both paths intimately. In this conversation, she reflects on MS, Everest, and the kind of strength that emerges when self-trust becomes the ultimate measure of success.

ALLIÉ: Jen, you and I have a lot in common. We are both moms. We both have multiple sclerosis. But here is what is different. While I run with MS, you climb with it. Everest, at that. So bring me back to the beginning. How long have you been a mountaineer? When did this career in climbing start for you?

JEN: So my first actual mountaineering was in 2022, actual mountaineering. I was already 51, and I headed over. I already had MS. I was 51, and I headed over to Nepal to climb a couple of peaks that were around six and a half thousand meters.

ALLIÉ: My goodness. And you said, why not just go a little higher?

JEN: Yeah. So I went back the next year, in 2023, to Everest. Look, honestly, the reason I went to Everest was not that I had a long-held dream to be a mountaineer one day. That was sort of a little seed that had been planted when I was a little girl.

​In 2008, I was told I may have MS, and I thought, if I ever get diagnosed, I am going to fundraise for MS research. I am going to head out and I am going to climb. I am going to learn to be a mountaineer.

So I went to find these peaks in 2022, and one of them is a really technical, hard mountain. But people said, “Oh, have a good walk,” and “How was your walk?” And I just did not feel like people understood what I was doing, how I was pushing my own sense of limitation.

I thought, how will people understand, and what will encourage them to donate to MS research in support of my climbing? I thought, I will just have to go to Everest. Then they will understand I am climbing Everest.

But a lot of people then said, “Oh, how was your walk?” So…

ALLIÉ: So let’s go back to when MS entered your life, because it is different for all of us, right? We all have different experiences with it. It presents itself so differently in each of us. What was the first thing that it took from you?

JEN: So I was told in 2008 that I may have MS. I had just had my third child. But I had had different challenges with my health that had been showing up since I was about 25.

The first thing MS took from me was the sense that I had always been a hypochondriac. When they finally said, “It looks like you have MS,” it took that away.

I thought I knew that there was something not right with my health, because I would feel it so strongly at times. I did not want to have this self-fulfilling prophecy of one day being diagnosed with something, but I had known for a long time that something in me, at times, struggled in that way.

ALLIÉ: It is interesting what you say about what it took away. A lot of times we think about MS as robbing us of something. But the fact that you say it took away that uncertainty.

So when climbing Everest, I would imagine that choosing to turn back can be the hardest decision of all. For you, Jen, how did that moment reshape your understanding of strength, of success, and of trusting yourself? What was that moment like?
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​JEN: I reached 8,000 meters in 2023. I was at the South Col, about 848 meters from the summit, resting. Typically, from the South Col, you then go and climb to the summit in that same stretch.

I did not make the decision to turn back. I was told that we were missing some of the bottled oxygen we needed to continue to the summit. So that decision was made for me.

Honestly, I was devastated. I look back and feel like the expectations I had of myself, how I should show up as a climber, and how much it devastated me to have my climb cut short when I was mentally and physically ready to continue on to the summit then and there.

I felt like I fell from grace because I was so upset. I came home and found it really hard to process the depth of disappointment that I had.

So yeah, it was a tough time.

​ALLIÉ: So when you climb, Jen, you carry more than your gear. You carry the hopes of others who are living with MS, along with your own hopes.

What does that responsibility place on your heart? And what does it give back at the same time?

JEN: I think it will be different this time.

Last time, when I was climbing, I probably had a goal of a personal dream to climb and a responsibility to want to raise money for MS research. The support I got for my own journey and the inspiration that offered to others was alongside that.

I really wanted to raise that money and be part of that research toward a cure. I felt disappointed that I did not raise as much money as I hoped. I felt disappointed that I did not get to the summit and tell a story from the summit.
It is different now.

This time, a big part of it for me is continuing to show people that we can have these limiting beliefs. I do not know whether I would have made the summit that day or not. I was not the fastest climber.

So this time, I feel like the responsibility is, whatever happens, to show people that you can get up after you fall. You can keep going.

If things do not go to plan, and I am faced with a decision out of my control again, I want to show how you can handle that depth of disappointment with grace this time.

ALLIÉ: Yeah. And give it another go, exactly like you are doing… I am in awe of you. For me, there are days where I do not have the energy to do anything. Even taking a shower is exhausting.

So how do you do this? I am having a hard time processing how you carry yourself and MS with you up this mountain. How do you do this?

JEN: Honestly, in some ways, life gets easier for me when I am there.

​My MS impacts my bladder. I have irritable bowel syndrome quite badly, so I am always managing my bodily functions. But physically, the only other impact I get is a burning tongue and post-exertion fatigue. Most of my impacts are cognitive.

Once I am there, so much responsibility and thinking drops away. It becomes waking up, walking where my guide and I have decided, deciding what to eat, adjusting my clothing. Sometimes there is not even a decision. It is just, “Here is what we are doing.”

I shift into a different version of myself that has so little responsibility other than moving through each moment. In that way, it is easy.

Physically, it is hard at altitude, but mentally it is much easier for me there than it is at home trying to navigate the million ideas in my head. Work has been a struggle because of the cognitive impact.

At home, everything feels like a lot. There, I feel present and alive in a way that is hard in everyday life.

​ALLIÉ: You just said the word. Present. You can just be there and do that without worrying about everything else.
For people who are just hearing about your journey, where are you at now? When is this happening? Fill us in.

JEN: So today is the 3rd of February. I will fly out around the 31st of March.

I will be in Nepal through April and May. When climbing Everest, you do a lot of acclimatization rotations, going up and down smaller peaks and Everest itself while your body adjusts.

Then you wait for a weather window when the jet stream winds drop, typically mid to late May.

You are living day-to-day at base camp, climbing up and down. When your body is acclimatized and the summit window opens, you go for it.

That final summit push, you are on the mountain for maybe six days. Then you come back down and hope you have summited it this time.
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ALLIÉ: I have one more question for you. Some journeys pause, but they do not end, and yours is a beautiful example of that. For those who have left a challenge unfinished and feel afraid to try again, what advice do you have?

JEN: I came back from my last trip and wrote a memoir. By that point, I had processed a lot of the disappointment, which led me to process a lot more inner things I had been carrying since I was a little girl.
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​I thought I had closed that chapter. But Everest crept back in like a little flame that had not been extinguished.

I went back to Nepal in 2024 and took a group of people living with MS to base camp. I thought that might fulfill that desire, but it did not.

My advice would be, do not attach to anything because you do not know how you will feel. You do not know if that dream is still alive somewhere or not.

If you feel it starting to come back, be open to it.

I thought I had a sponsor last year, and they went silent. I have been lucky to get some support this year, but I am still making huge financial sacrifices to go again.

When you feel that stirring, start to notice what might make it possible and open up to wherever that leads.

For me, I thought my memoir was finished, but now there is a new chapter writing itself. I am still the protagonist in my own story. I do not know how it will unfold, but stay open to whatever chapters are writing themselves. ∎
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Learn more about Jen’s journey:
www.jenwilliseverest.com.au
Find & follow her on Instagram:
@everestbeyondlimits