What does indoor rock climbing have to do with overcoming health problems? Read on – or watch the video – all will become clear!
When it comes to sports, my family is split 3-1. My husband is a bat-and-ball-sport kind of a guy. Tennis, squash, golf, cricket – anything that involves hitting a ball, he’s into.
Our two children and I, on the other hand, are a little challenged when it comes to hand-eye coordination (I guess you can blame my genes for their affliction). We’re into ice skating, roller skating and indoor rock climbing, which my poor hubby grits his teeth through while wistfully imagining what it would be like to have a family game of tennis!
After returning from a day of indoor rock climbing with the kids during the recent school holidays, having not climbed for several months, I was pretty sore in all the muscles that one uses to haul oneself up a wall while balancing on tiny holds.
(photo from http://www.david-noble.net/climbing/2010/SICG/SICG.html)
“My forearms are so sore, I can’t turn my wrists. And my lats are killing me!” I moaned to my husband, who had been on an interstate trip that day and had, most regretfully (not!) missed out on the experience.
He cast me the kind of look reserved for complete imbeciles saying utterly stupid things.
“Why do you do it?” he asked.
“Because I love it,” I responded, as if that should have been obvious to anyone who wasn’t a complete imbecile.
John’s brow furrowed. “I just can’t see the attraction of rock climbing,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t get why you love it so much.”
“It’s fun!” I shot back.
We left it at that, agreeing to disagree. But his question got me thinking. Why do I enjoy rock climbing?
Because the truth is, despite what I’d said to him, rock climbing is, on the whole, not fun in any sense that people commonly use that word. It’s hard. As in, really hard. It hurts. Your forearms cramp with the strain of supporting your body weight, your feet hurt from the tight climbing shoes, your lats hurt from hauling you up from one hold to the next. It forces you into awkward positions that make you resemble a frog plastered against a wall. It’s frequently frustrating. And despite the fact that you know you’re safe, with a climbing harness on and a trusty belayer below you, holding the ropes, it has its scary moments.
(photo from http://www.david-noble.net/climbing/2010/SICG/SICG.html)
So why do I do it? Because it’s hard. Because it challenges me. Because there’s a moment in a really difficult climb when I think to myself,
“I can’t do this.”
And then comes the temptation to quit. To acknowledge that I took on a challenge too big for my capabilities, and I just need to accept defeat. It’s soooo tempting to end the physical and mental discomfort I’m in by signalling my belayer that I’m coming down, and then choosing an easier climb.
But if I push back against that temptation, as I did each time it came up, on my most recent climbing trip, something magical happens. Commitment to persisting – to finding a way, no matter what – enables me to access inner resources I never knew I had. Suddenly a solution to what seemed like an intractable problem occurs to me – if I just shift from my left foot to my right, I’ll be able to jump for that hold that seems too high up to reach. Once, twice, third time lucky, and I’m up!
There is nothing quite like the exhilaration of reaching the top of the wall, grasping that final hold in a ritual of private victory – there’ll be no round of applause, no public accolades, because all the other climbers are focusing on their climbs and each belayer is focusing on his or her climber – after I’ve wrestled with the part of me that wants to evade any and all discomfort, and won the bout.
You see, there’s an immeasurable benefit in being not just willing to tolerate discomfort, but embracing it. Inviting it into your life. Willingly moving into it. And that benefit translates to other areas of life as well.
You’ve heard the phrase ‘comfort zone’, right? My online dictionary defines it as
“A settled method of working that requires little effort and yields only barely acceptable results.”
Ponder that for a minute. Do you really want to settle for ‘barely acceptable results’? That’s what you’ll get if you stay in your comfort zone.
But everything that you desire, that you currently don’t have – health, career and money success, a close relationship with your kids or your partner, a regular meditation practice, a passport full of overseas visa stamps, whatever it is for you – lies outside of your comfort zone, and you’re going to have to become willing to deliberately put yourself in an uncomfortable place and make yourself stay there, if you really want to have those things.
To focus in on health-related examples:
- Quitting smoking requires that you tolerate the discomfort of nicotine cravings and find other methods for handling your social anxiety.
- Losing weight requires that you tolerate the discomfort of learning new ways of cooking and eating, breaking up with your food addictions, and copping social pressure from people who oppose your dietary choices.
- Overcoming a chronic condition requires that you tolerate the discomfort of accepting responsibility for your own health, standing up to doctors who pooh-pooh your determination to get off medications, and delaying gratification – making sacrifices now for future benefit.
To return to the title of this little tale, the lessons I learn from climbing walls are that the sweetest victories are the most hard-fought, and the opponent we must work hardest to overcome is that comfort-loving part of ourselves that constantly tries to seduce us to take the easy way out instead of facing the challenge and acquiring self-mastery. If you’re not deliberately doing hard things, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to become your happiest, healthiest and most fulfilled self.
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