An irrational fear of heights was a way of life for me until 3 years ago. My strategy was not to deal with the issue in the way of avoiding exposure to heights. I was reducing my ability to experience a fuller range of what life has to offer.
In 2018 I moved to Southern Germany and was instantly drawn to the beautiful nature. Visiting the mountains, however, once again exposed my fear of heights and this meant limiting where we could go hike. As soon as an area was exposed, I was overwhelmed with fear and on several occasions had to turn around.
Around 3 years ago the wish to face my fear got so strong that I decided to get coaching to overcome the issue. I found a climbing coach and went to the local climbing gym close to where I live. The gym happens to be one of the largest in the world, which made the initial experience even more impactful. Since then, I have fallen in love with climbing and being exposed to heights. Here is what I learned.
I don’t have to solve everything on my own. Working with a coach for the initial training and later for fall training gave me the confidence that everything would be okay. It was still scary, but I managed to keep my fear in check. If you wonder what fall training looks like have a look here.
Fear is my friend. My initial goal was to get rite of the fear. With time I learned to see fear as my friend. A life without feat would be dangerous. Fear helps me make sure that all precautions are taken to be safe. In essence it about training the adequate response, when the fear is coming up. Sometimes it is enough to breathe through the fear. Sometimes it is really needed to act.
Trust in my own abilities. Climbing is a very safe sport when you take care and follow the right steps. Over time I have developed a much stronger sense that I know what I’m doing. In climbing as well as in life in general.
Trust in others. In climbing the focus is often on the person climbing. However, without the belayer on the ground you would not be able to climb safely. To climb joyfully means developing complete trust that the person on the ground will take good care of bringing you safely back and catching a possible fall. Developing the trust in my climbing partners has been a transformative experience for me.
Many things in life can be trained. On my first climb I managed 3 meters and had to come back down again. Today even the longest and most overhanging routes in the climbing gym gets a try. With patient practice we are all able to transform.
What would you like to transform in your life?
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