Blog

Talking About Fear

• October 2007
• Training Uncategorized

Hi Steph
Before moving to CO this summer, I spent most of my life in the Midwest, so I had way too much time to read about climbing rather than actually doing it.

For the past year or so my lead head has been a complete mess. If I feel comfortable on a climb, I can climb above my pro and make big/hard/tricky moves no problem. I love to climb cracks have succeeded on some 5.11s, but mostly climb 5.10. I’m even comfortable free soloing things like the Flatirons, although not usually harder than 5.7. My problem is when I’m in an uncomfortable situation my head falls to pieces and I can’t convince myself that I can make it through the next section of a climb. I’m convinced I’m going to fall so my vision narrows and I miss obvious holds and rests. I take, and I hang. For the most part, my fears are totally irrational and it really pisses me off, but I can’t seem to shake it. The worst part is that I’m a better climber now than I’ve ever been and if I can just get my head on straight I’ll be able to succeed on climbs I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

Personally, I think a topic like this is best explored through several viewpoints because I don’t think that there’s one answer for everyone. Fear is individualized. What works for one person in overcoming his/her fears may not work for another. In the end I think that the answers I’m looking for are inside me already. I just need some help finding them. Recently, I’ve also decided that sharing my fears with others might take away some of their hold on me, which is part of the reason for my email.

I know that you free solo a lot and climb all sorts of ridiculously hard routes, so I was wondering if you have any suggestions to get me through all the crap in my head.
Chad

Dear Chad,
This is such a fascinating (frustrating too!) topic, and something I have studied for a long time–and I think it’s big for every climber. I’m starting to see that it goes beyond just climbing, into every aspect of my life. This summer I studied it more than ever, and had a lot of revelations. I’d be pretty interested to hear other people’s thoughts too.

We could talk about this for years, I think. This summer I realized that fear is a total hindrance to me, and in fact a danger. In the past, I had this concept of “fake” fear (the kind of fear I felt when I was anxious for some reason, but not in a real danger situation–in an insecure crux on a sport route, for example), versus “real” fear (the kind of fear when I was in a real death consequence place, like in the mountains). And I thought I should figure out how to eliminate the negative effects of fake fear, but listen to the real fear. Which was all great, except for the fact that I only seemed to feel fake fear, and to be totally calm and collected in real fear situations….. So I was having the same problems as you, in climbing. And it carried over into the rest of my life too, and I started to become very limited by fear.

What I realized in the last few months was that, for me, any fear is bad. I now believe that fear is a prison. That fear of falling on hard moves, when it is actually safe, is an expression of anxiety. That anxiety comes from a deeper place, and turns into a shackle. So it depends on how deep you want to go. I think there are simple, physical ways to start chipping away at it, which is the method I used to use to overcome that fear, and I think it is worth doing and pretty effective in general. By training, physically, and addressing your physical and technical weaknesses, you can give yourself the confidence that you are strong and prepared. Then when you find yourself in a nerve-wracking climbing situation, you can tell yourself, “I’ve done all my groundwork. I am totally capable of doing this, and I know it for a fact, because I trained, practiced, meditated, and I am absolutely prepared to pull this off.” That alone can help you through, and it will. So that is a great, very specific place to start with your problem. Beyond that, consciously adopting a mental state of relaxation and good feelings, along with deep breathing, are unbelievably effective habits to cultivate. I literally take deep breaths, smile, and start repeating, “Be relaxed, have good feelings,” silently, when I start a hard route or free solo, and I do that for the entire route.

The root of the physical preparation strategy is confidence. If you want to search further within, you might start asking yourself, “why am I afraid?” “What am I afraid of?”
Are you physically afraid of the feeling of falling, even if you can’t get hurt because it’s a steep sport route? Why? What could you do to accustom yourself to that feeling? Could it be as simple as taking lots of falls on a sport climb, and seeing with your own eyes that nothing will happen to you?
Are you afraid of dying? Why? Do you think that anyone in this world is not going to die? Are you afraid of failing? Why? What is bad about failing? Are you anxious about other things in your life? Why? Does anxiety help you to solve any problems you have? Are you afraid of losing things? Why? Do you think any of us will leave this world with any things? What do you really need to be happy?

To get even more serious, I have spent a lot of time thinking about death, and that allows me to enter activities with death consequences, like free soloing or BASE jumping. Because I feel very accepting of the fact that we are all going to die. I don’t want to die right now, but I am comfortable with the knowledge that I could, and that would be all right too. I have found that it’s necessary for me to truly acknowledge the worst case scenario before starting a risky activity. For example, before starting a free solo, I need to accept the fact that I could die on the solo. I have to decide if that’s an acceptable outcome. If I decide it’s not an acceptable outcome, I have no business doing that free solo. Because at the moment the climb becomes difficult, that possibility is going to flash into my brain. If I have not already decided that it’s acceptable, I’m going to become overwhelmed by the thought of it, and most likely I will become ruled by fear, which in itself will probably cause me to fall. All of that needs to be worked out in advance, so it does not interfere with my calm mindstate.

Another valuable thing to do with fear is to examine it, and continually prepare yourself to feel it. As I said, I spent the last several months trying to erase fear from my reality. I thought I’d succeeded, but two days ago I did my first cliff jump, off of the Tombstone in Moab. It’s a pretty low cliff for someone of my experience level (380 feet tall)–I’ve been skydiving all summer, but started BASE jumping from a bridge two weeks ago, and have only about fourteen bridge jumps. So stepping it up to jump a fairly low cliff, what BASE jumpers call a “Moab style jump”, is a little accelerated. And I know all this, and I know why low cliffs are exponentially more dangerous than bridges, and I know that BASE is a pretty lethal sport. But I have done all my groundwork, religiously, for the last four months, and I pretty quickly got to the point where I didn’t feel afraid at all jumping off the bridge. Because I understand the gear, I understand the procedures, and I understand the margin for error at the bridge, and I feel confident that things will work the way I want them to. For all of these reasons, as well as all the practice and study I’ve done, when I jump off the bridge, I don’t feel afraid.

So I walked to the top of the Tombstone expecting to feel no fear whatsoever on my first cliff jump, despite the fact that every BASE jumper I know tells me they are always scared when they jump. I felt solid in my mind, and saw no reason why I should feel different on this jump than any other. Though there is more risk, I expected the preparation I had done to make me feel confident and calm on this first cliff jump. But when I stepped to the edge of the Tombstone and looked down to the talus and the road below, I felt a slam of fear in my chest that was totally unexpected and irrational. I wasn’t afraid of hitting the ground or dying. I was simply profoundly, instinctively terrified of stepping off the edge of the cliff into free fall, which was kind of irrational. It was impossible to calm my mind, so I just stepped off the edge in a bad, terror-filled mindstate, and I didn’t snap back to a collected state until my parachute opened, about two seconds later. It was super upsetting to me to feel such strong fear, when I didn’t expect it at all, and very much did not want it. I talked to my good friend Chris about it that evening, and he told me that if he expects to feel fear before a jump, he simply resolves to accept the feeling of fear, and to work beside it rather than being ruled by it.

Those words really spoke to me, and the next morning when I walked up to the Tombstone to jump again, I thought a lot about the fear feeling. This time, I expected to feel some fear, and concentrated on the idea of letting it be there, beside me, rather than letting it come over me to control me. I felt nervousness at the edge this time, but was not swept by fear, and had fun on the jump, feeling in control and confident. So what I learned from this is that I need to keep thinking about fear, even when I think I won’t feel it or don’t expect it. I need to plan ahead for what I will do if I do feel fear, and how I will react to it. The idea of working beside fear is very understandable, for me, and mentally is an excellent way to perceive it, because it still allows me to operate competently if I am in a fearful situation. But expecting to never feel fear again just leaves me vulnerable and unprepared if it does arrive unexpectedly……

I’d be interested to know about your thoughts, and to see what others think too.
And I hope these ideas will be of some help to you!
Take care Chad,
xx Steph