If you are afraid of high places, climb to some high place, but do not make a habit of it. – R. Rose
Early in the spiritual search, I learned to seek out and face irrational fears. Fears can dictate our actions and block our efforts to seek the truth. Of course, the assumption was that I face my fear and overcome or transcend it. But what of facing fear and failing? What if fear overcomes us in our attempt to transcend it?
In November of 1998, I went rock climbing with a workplace friend. I was an infrequent climber, though part of my job involved taking children on such adventures. Being afraid of heights, I found it invigorating to occasionally face the mental and physical challenge of climbing a rock face. Jeff and I looked forward to this trip to Stone Mountain, NC for several weeks, and evenings found me training for it via numerous pull-ups and calf raises. At 600 feet, Stone Mountain was far and away the highest climb I’d attempted and would demand all the endurance I could muster.
Stone Mountain is a stark granite dome rising from the surrounding forest. The classic route to the top, The Great Arch, is a relatively easy climb utilizing traditional climbing gear (protection). Protection consists of small aluminum wedges that are secured in cracks, then attached to the climber’s rope to support his weight (hopefully) in the event he falls. Jeff, being the lead climber, would place the protection, as I held his rope on belay from below. At intervals, he would stop and belay me from above as I removed the protection below us. Thus, we would inchworm our way to the top.
And we did. In short order, we summited and were incongruously relaxing on a smooth bed of granite surrounded by a glorious view of the countryside. Ever energetic, Jeff was too soon ready to descend. Just as we climbed in segments, we would rappel in segments – Jeff going first. Thus, I found myself alone, six hundred feet in the air, facing two stainless steel rings bolted into the granite. Secured to the rings with a short nylon leash, I knew exactly what to do – connect myself to the climbing rope with my rappelling device (an ATC), then disconnect the leash and be on my way. Alone, hanging from those two little rings, with no sound around except the wind, the first thought of fear hit me: what if I dropped my ATC? With that one thought, the routine became extreme.
If I dropped my ATC, I might as well be on the moon. Jeff couldn’t climb up to me and no one else was around. No logical thought of being rescued entered my mind. Only the thought of being stranded. Painstakingly, I gripped my ATC in a suddenly clumsy, sweaty hand and focused on what I had to do. By focusing, the fear receded. Turning from the fearful thought rather than facing it, I rappelled down to Jeff without further drama. Two more rappels brought us to the bottom.
After a restful lunch, we decided to tackle some short friction climbs. I was completely unfamiliar with this type of climbing. Friction climbing involves ascending rock bare of the usual cracks, protrusions, and depressions that make hand and foot holds. Instead, one uses the amazing sticking power of climbing shoes and the palm of their hands to keep from sliding. Friction alone holds you to the rock. With no cracks in which to place protection, these climbs are bolted. The bolts provide places to clip in your rope and arrest a fall.
Lest one get too comfortable, however, the pioneer developers of these routes placed the first bolt far from the ground. A climber ascends with no protection until they reach the first bolt, and ours was a good 25 feet away. As Jeff was the lead, I stood by while, through a miracle of friction and balance, he worked a nerve-wracking way towards the first bolt. I was scared. This is crazy, I thought. Why is he taking this risk to climb a rock? I was relieved, yet still uneasy when I saw him clip a leash and his rope to the first bolt. He gracefully executed the rest of the climb, and I thankfully lowered him to the ground. Now it was my turn, if I wanted, to climb up and recover the leashes he clipped to the bolts, then rappel down as in our previous climb.
After Jeff’s precarious start, my heart was no longer up for the challenge. Yet I was living a life of accepting challenges and striving to do my best. In fact, Jeff and I talked on the drive down about the importance of giving 100% to one’s endeavors. Caught between my rhetoric and reality, I chose to climb.
From the beginning, I knew I was in trouble. Friction climbing was like climbing a vertical slide. I felt that at any moment my feet would slip from under me, shredding my skin and nose on the granite rock face. In fact, as I went higher and higher, the feeling of shredding flesh grew stronger and stronger. This panic-provoking thought assailed my mind again and again, like a fire resisting all efforts to smother it. My body wanted nothing but to stop, yet I kept climbing until once again, I faced two stainless steel rings embedded in the granite.
Then I sensed something remarkable. At the edge of my awareness was a blackness – something palpable. It was fear. I saw it waiting there for me to look at it – waiting for me to face it. I knew that if I allowed it in, I was doomed. It was a blackness that led with the thought “what if?” What if I drop my ATC? What if my leash doesn’t hold? What if I drop the rope? I knew that if I turned and embraced any of these thoughts, if I looked into that blackness, I would panic and fail, so I hid. With all my focus I hid from what loomed at the edge of my awareness. Somehow I made the transfer from rope to leash, and from leash to rappel. In a minute or so, I was back on the ground – utterly shaken. I couldn’t speak when Jeff asked if I were all right. I couldn’t look at him. All I could do was shake my head at the ground. I was unmanned. I had faced fear and run. We didn’t climb any more, and in fact I thought I would never climb again.
For weeks I studied over what to make of this. I encountered fear, yet climbed. I climbed successfully, yet felt an utter failure. In my journal I wrote:
I feel defeated, unmanned, unsure of my willpower. I came too close to breaking under the stress, saw too much of my fragility, my weakness. Again, my sense of self, of wholeness, of competence, is weakened. I feel closer to insanity than greatness.
I felt it important, yet couldn’t decide how such a failure could be a good thing – because when we face our fears, we must triumph. Yet in being unmanned, I was not humiliated, but humbled. I was humbled, not by a decision to seek humility, but by the truth. In coming to the edge of my capacity, I saw the cracks in my self. I was utterly scared, yet some part of me saw a body in turmoil, saw my will striving to save itself, and saw a seemingly foreign force called fear invade my mind. I saw the limitations of my body and mind – my self – and the end of a fantasy of invincibility. In a few moments I became older and wiser.
Of course, I’m not going to suggest you do what I did. If you purposely set your self up for failure, the lesson will be lost on the ego. Seek your fears. Face them with honest observation. In seeking, you will be humbled. Press on.