Christian high-wire artist and acrobat Nik Wallenda is preparing to walk a tight rope 25 stories above Times Square on Sunday night in an event that will be broadcast live on ABC. In the lead up to the event, Wallenda is opening up about how fear nearly caused him to stop his high-flying career for good two years ago.
The Christian Post reported that back in 2017, eight high-wire artists that included his sister Lijana were rehearsing a pyramid ahead of a performance in Sarasota, Florida. Something went wrong causing five of them to fall. While all five had injuries, Lijana was injured the worst.
“I broke a rib, punctured my right ear canal, broke clear through my left humerus, I broke my left calcareous. But the big one was every bone in my face,” she recently recalled.
Wallenda himself just described how fear after this incident nearly ended his career permanently.
“It sort of happened twice. The first time it happened was in the hospital as we were not sure [of] the five that had fallen, who was gonna survive and who wasn’t. The doctors say statistics say that two in five people that fall from over 40 feet, they are fatal accidents,” he said. “Therefore, if the statistics were against us two of the five would have passed away that day. So it’s a miracle that they all lived. So sitting in the hospital not knowing all of this, was the first time I thought of it.”
Months later, Wallenda found himself terrified once again, leading him to want to quit.
“About six months later, I’d taken a couple months off and came back to the wire and was training to recreate the seven person pyramid in a very similar setting where the accident happened. My peripheral vision from my location in the pyramid is identical to the eight-person pyramid and I started experiencing extreme fear to be honest … to the point where I was trembling and shaking.”
“I went to my wife and said, ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore.’ And I continued to practice for about three or four more days and one of the guys that perform with me, came up to me and said ‘something is wrong with you. You’re not who we know. You’re not the Nik we’ve always looked up to. You’re not the Nik that’s always preached ‘never give up.’ What’s wrong? You need to snap out of it.”
Realizing his teammate was right, Wallenda resolved to never let fear and negativity into his life again.
“I just consider it like a weed growing in your garden,” he explained. “If you don’t pull the weed out, it will take over your garden. And that’s the thing with negativity. So I just started countering that negativity, those thoughts of fear with, ‘I’ve got this. I’ll be safe. I know what I’m doing, I’ve trained. I was made for this.’ And sort of worked through it that way.”
Wallenda’s Strong Christian Faith
Wallenda added that his strong Christian faith played a major role in helping him change his life.
“It’s always been a huge role in my life. … My faith is who I am. So whether it’s on the wire or off the wire it’s where I find my peace and again, it is who I am. It’s not what I believe in. It’s not anything other than my being,” he said. “People often ask why I walk the wire and again, that’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done my entire life, I don’t know anything else. To me that is normal. And that’s the thing with my faith. It is that real to me. It is that personal relationship. It is where I find my peace when I’m on that wire. In fact, in my inner ear I have music playing in the background which is worship music just because it keeps me calm. I love worshiping. . it keeps me peaceful when I’m on that wire.”
With just two days to go before his Times Square walk, Wallenda feels more ready than ever, and his sister is playing to join him for it.
“This walk will be challenging both mentally and physically just because of the fact that my sister is a part of it,” he said. “I’ll be very concerned for her and also just the distractions of Times Square are somewhat overwhelming just to imagine standing above these giant LED walls and tens of thousands of people and traffic moving in the background and police sirens and lights. All those distractions are again, it is very intimidating just conceptualizing that walk.”
Please keep Wallenda and his sister in your thoughts and prayers as they prepare for this stunt on Sunday night!
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