Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

This is something I have been working on for a long time, I get really scared when climbing, or even when I know I am going to climb.
It's not just the fear of heights, but of all the little things that can happen, from falling to my death to cutting my hands in a jam.
So I thought, how can I control my fear? and i meant control, not shove away, or ignore.
I thought about how I would do it, systematically. It went like this:

The next time someone did something that would usually REALLY annoy me, I didn't let it. I didn't ignore it, or hide it, I didn't let myself get annoyed. this was hard at first, and i found myself hiding the annoy rather than eliminating it.
Then, every time this happened, I made myself happy. I didn't just small and be glad, on the inside I was truely happy.
I found this REALLY difficult. But this next part seemed impossible.

The next time I got in an argument, or someone was agressive, or anything that would make me ANGRY, I tried to controll it. But this is harder, as the hormone release in your body is immedate, making you more aggressive, more defensive. What I had to do was controll my brain, not let this happen, not let myself register these things as a queue for anger. That was hard, but I still sturggle with this: when someone is aggresive to me, I make myself see it as doing something nice, and I make myself happy.
Once I could controll these relitivly simple emotions, I started on the fear. I wasn't trying to overcome my fear, to ignore my fear, simply to eliminate it. Obviously not all of it, the fear off death is ever present, and impossible to remove (Ignoring this fear, or overcoming it is actually where one of my main enjoyments of climbing comes from). The fear I was trying to remove was the irrelivent, distracting fear, the fear of highstepping with a bomber hand jam and having you foot shooting off, hurting your wrist. Fear of breaking your fingers when locking. even the little fears like jarring your fingers missing a pocket, or the pain of foot jamming in anasazis. Thats right, this even helped me ignore pain more.
With all of these minions aside, I could do battle with the real fear; death from falling.
Needless to say, I am far more relaxed and enjoy my climbing way more now, and I climb harder than ever.

-Magnus

dingus wrote:
Fitness breeds self-confidence. Self-confidence empowers positive thoughts about the objective. Positive thoughts leave no room for the creeping dread.
Fitness is the root from which all this flows... for me. There simply is no substitute.
So, know what wee do when we're fit? Upt heante of course, and take on climbs at our edge, where the creeping anxiety can work at the edges, haha. We climbers are a sorry bunch, eh?

Anxiety haunts me on most climbs of length.

Anxiety has me constantly worrying over details; rope over edge, gray clouds billowing, not going to get off this thing by dark, we'll be trapped, I don't have enough water.

I'll dash into the dihedral and die.

breaking a limb and have it stabing through your skin, or somthing like that... ugggg

the fear off death is ever present, and impossible to remove

Reflecting on a particular climb I did this weekend I subconciously overcame my fears which allowed me to climb a line that I would have otherwise not done.

A little about the route: The guidebook doesn't help out much here other than a mention that said crack does exist. The route descriptions literally end 15 feet to the right, and from that point onward the author of the book states that the rest of the cliff leftward is choss and that there is nothing interesting beyond said already mentioned last described route.

It is a stunning hand crack that is preceded by thin (really thin) edging. If it has seen an ascent then it has been ages since then, since I had to do a bit of en-route cleaning of lichen, loose blocks, grit, etc.. The first few moves had me a bit aprehencious, and I don't really know what took over me after that. Was it the loathing of leaving gear? Or was it the desire to climb something that may have not seen a free ascent? I don't know, but I am reflecting on it. I am sure that I will figure it out in due time.

On the point of this thread. After a few moves, my head cleared and I was confident about the climb. I did, unfortunately, succumb to the pain in my forearms when the pump really settled in and took a short rest on the rope (that's another issue, since in my opinion it was wiser to climb a move down than fall). I am determined to re-climb the route and do it clean and I will try to become more aware of what is going on in my head. It wasn't my hardest gear lead, but it definately ranks as one of them.

Jeez, Jay, you didn't even mention the part about being attacked by hawks! Posting in the RWW thread, huh? You drinking the Arno Koolaid too?

I was his partner on that route. It was a tough climb but what blew me away was how well he kept his head together. After the first 15 feet it was like he just shifted gears and said, "I'm sending this bitch"!

I don't drink the Kool-Daaaai. After seeing this forum, my interest was peaked. My opinion of the topics in the book will remain as my own, so as to not offend anyone. But know that sometimes things happen that you reflect upon, and the results of said reflection may peak your interest.

if I'm trying to lose bad thoughts, I sometimes visualise them as a sort of balloon, floating away

constantly worrying over details; rope over edge, gray clouds billowing, not going to get off this thing by dark, we'll be trapped, I don't have enough water,

Fear is good. It keeps us alert so we can prevent accidents.

My reccommendation is to fall until the falls are fun.

And I am told, you are safer if you are a little scared when climbing, than if you aren't at all scared; this makes perfect sense to me too.