I took on a fear, and won

This is only my second Bright Side blog post, but already I’ve had a couple of days where staying upbeat has been something of a challenge.

With that in mind, the second thing I’ve decided to write about is one the biggest challenges I’ve set myself so far. I took on a fear, and I won.

When a friend from work asked me if I wanted to go climbing I said: “Sure, why not, it’ll help me overcome my fear.”

I ALWAYS do this when it comes to heights. At Beach Break four years ago, I decided that my fear of heights wasn’t that bad, and I really could do GoApe if I was determined enough. Then I hyperventilated  up a tree and they had to make everyone else back up to get me down. It was very embarrassing.

So apparently I had forgotten about that incident when I agreed to go climbing. Or perhaps I thought I could just swing around a couple metres off the ground and everyone would be OK with that. Either way I was panicking slightly when we turned up at the climbing centre, and I was faced with a pretty significant climb, up the inside wall of a church.

We had a great instructor for our taster session, and my friend was very supportive too. On the first few attempts I managed to get up above my own standing height, which I considered to be quite an achievement, particularly as I wasn’t sure if I would physically have the upper body strength to get myself off the ground.

For anyone who hasn’t been, climbing is a weird experience. There is something about going up a vertical wall, with the smallest hand and foot holds you have ever seen, that just doesn’t seem…well…natural. In fact I think I’d go so far as to say that my body was rebelling at what I was trying to do, and communicating to me in the strongest possible ways that this was a bad idea.

The first time I pushed for the top I was sweating and shaking, my limbs freezing, my hands unable to grip. When I got down to the ground again I could feel the fear coursing through me. On my second attempt I just did it really really fast. I kept telling myself that I HAD to do it, that the wellbeing of someone I cared about depended on it, which seems pretty stupid, but it worked. The sheer elation when I finally touched the ceiling was  amazing, and getting down again is pretty fun, mainly because it’s effortless and you don’t have to look down.

I did feel like I was going to be sick when the adrenaline left me, and I have to admit I didn’t succeed in getting all the way up again once I’d already done it, but it was a pretty satisfying feeling knowing I could do it if I really forced myself to.

I think this should be the start of my efforts to conquer one of my fears. I have three, and I feel that is too many. Plus I think a lot of fun things tend to happen high up and I’m missing out. Next stop GoApe? Possibly a bit ambitious. I’ll let you know how it goes.