#82Encountering Fear
By Kiell | posted on 18 August 2009 | 3 comments
My preoccupation these days is climbing, a passion that I seem to have drifted towards, stepping away slightly from Parkour. There's a ton of similarities: training hard, pushing your body, challenging yourself, engaging in something incredibly physical, teaching others. And encountering fear, regularly.
A good friend of mine described us climbing instructors as a group who, though disparate in many ways, tend to see encountering risk as a beneficial and healthy experience. And who could argue.
With climbing, I'm just starting my journey. I will never be the strongest, the most talented, nor the bravest, and that's not why I do it. And I'm far from alone in testing myself, and regularly scaring myself. And nor do I do it as often as I should.
Most of you reading this will know what it's like to force yourself to do something despite the knowledge that if anything goes wrong, at best, you're going to seriously hurt yourself. Something that I notice is that after each time I do it, there's a tremendous sense of achievement but also the knowledge that what I've done was physically straight-forward and, in many respects, actually quite easy; it was simply the fear that made it challenging. Hopefully each experience is a step towards pushing myself harder next time, knowing how to suppress the fear when it's there and feeling confident in my physical strength and ability.
It's a strange conversation that takes place when fear kicks in, bringing our motives and values into focus. Something we should probably all do more often.
Labels: Psychology
About the Author : Kiell3 Comments:
As a fellow climber, I have a deep respect for the rock and all it can teach me. To have both climbing and le parkour infused in my life had made all the difference and allows me to (to a certain level) control and redirect my fear into useful energy.
Great post Andy. And we must climb together soon :)
Nice one Andy, paragraph 3 resonates with me :) Climb safe and take care.
By 
Shi, at
1:34 am, August 22, 2009
Spoken like a true Rock Warrior Andy!
Re: Last sentence
I also believe that encountering fear gives us an opportunity to observe our own habitual patterns unclouded by the ego and our best chances of extending those boundaries. I often neglect to challenge these patterns (e.g down climbing to escape the risk of a safe fall) and would otherwise deny their existence to myself.
However; in the cold light of a situation in which we're feeling real fear, those egotistical tendencies recede to reveal these patterns ,our biggest weaknesses and our greatest opportunity for improvement.
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