Elevation 19,341 feet. Hike Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s highest freestanding mountain, and you will feel every step.

The journey takes an average of five to six days. Because the mountain is on the equator, the climate starts off warm and could drop to minus 20 at the top. The altitude change is so severe that hikers must acclimate as they go, pausing, traversing, being mindful of breathing and too much exertion.

“It is not the physical challenges that set you back,” Dr. Rick Nielsen says. “It is the mental. You have to summon the will to keep going, step after step, day after day.”

The mountain is unyielding, most formidable when hikers are most fatigued. Yet more than 30,000 people make the pilgrimage each year to test their physical endurance and mental stamina and awaken their spiritual awareness.

“It is a classroom without walls,” Jodi Nielsen says. “The mountain is always talking to you, always teaching you.”

The journey begins with preparation — a lot of it. Every detail is attended to. Each piece of gear is checked. Packing is meticulous: cold weather clothes on the bottom, warm on top, water bottles stored upside down so that when they freeze you can turn them over and still get water. And there’s hiking, lots of it, to get in shape. Finally, there is the emotional preparation.

“Each person we take is encouraged to write a list of their weapons of rebellion,” Rick Nielsen teaches. Self-defeating actions are labeled as weapons because bad habits and behaviors are what bring us down, creating a chasm between the ordinary and the extraordinary person. These may include selfishness, unkind words, mistrust, greed, power and control, among others. The weapons get very personal. Each hiker stows their symbolically heavy burdens on a 3-incy-by-5-inch card in a pack pocket.

And the mountain calls. The first few days seem easy, although legs are wobbly by day three. The elevation is relentless. Vision tunnels to the immediate present, the next step, and the next.

“Every hiker chooses their summit,” Jodi Nielsen says. “The height is personal. To summit is to realize you are more than your goals.”

The top of the mountain is named Uhuru, the Swahili word for freedom. It is here that hikers bury their weapons and stand defenseless on the mountain, vulnerable to the forces of extreme weather. They accept a new self, a new way of living on a higher plane.

“My husband came home a changed man,” one wife tearfully told the Nielsens. And that’s the idea. To be free from the weapons we rely on to protect ourselves from the wounds of personal growth.

“Weapon-free packs feel much lighter coming down,” Rick Nielsen says. “The mental burden is real. It’s physical. The release is just as real.”

We all have some weapon or armor to bury for good — for our greater good.

The Foundation for a Better Life promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others. Go to PassItOn.com.