In January 2018 I was experiencing deep frustration at the fear that was paralysing me when I went to climb. Climbing was one of my passions and had been for about a year, yet when I went near the wall I felt crippling fear. I wondered whether my fear was related to the effects of trauma that pop up in my life, so I decided to research trauma and recovery, and set myself experiments to overcome fear. I recorded my journey in a series of blog posts, in case anyone else was going through the same thing as me. I thought I’d share links to those posts here because the sports psychology I used in my experiments might be useful to you. Here they are:
- Part 1 – noticing habits and delaying acting on negative self-talk
- Part 2 – how trauma affects the brain and how embodied mindfulness can aid recovery (if you can feel your feet!)
- Part 3 – going slowly and gently is kinder than rushing full steam ahead
- Part 4 – teaching beginners to boulder, dissociation (and how it’s not helpful in climbing), and how training plans can relieve anxiety
- Part 5 – breathing to overcome fear, personal learning styles, and practising falling
- Part 6 – Putting a learning style into practice and is a comfort zone actually comforting?
- Part 7 – Questioning beliefs and does regular climbing normalise the activity and remove the fear?
Four months after completing that series I began a new journey as a Climbing Instructor at an indoor wall.