On Tuesday eve a friend and I made the most of the evening sun by climbing Jubilee Climb on Dinas Mot. The route was bathed in the evening sunlight, and was a varied and enjoyable climb, with delicate slabs (my favourite bit!) and strenuous jamming cracks (yuk!). Knowing it would be a long evening I put my head torch in my chalk bag and tied my shoes to the back of my harness. What I should also have done was eaten something before starting out - I find I need to eat very regularly or I get dizzy and very ratty! The sunset was gorgeous and we topped out about 9:30 pm. Finding the abseil off proved tricky, and knowing there were 2 abseils in a dark gully we decided to walk off the long way. About halfway along the walk off I felt decidedly despondent thinking we would "never" find our way down and would be wandering around in the dark "forever". Luckily I know that for me this negative thinking is borne out of low blood sugar so I didnt take it too seriously, but I always think its interesting what the brain chatters about in moments of stress. Of course it was totally unrealistic to think I would "never" get down - what, never!!! and that I would be stuck up there "forever"!! Catastrophising like this is one of the things our brains do, and because our thoughts can seem quite powerful, as though they are us (rather than a part of us) we can get sucked into believing them. Think about the number of times you say "I'll never be able to do X move/ route" . Is that really true? Or do we really mean, we can't do it right now? Or perhaps we haven't even tried yet. I think this relates back to a previous post about adopting an open and curious attitude, rather than writing yourself off before you start.
The weather is changing but I am resisting catastrophising, trying not to say "oh,, thats it now, we've had our summer"..... :)
Stay curious!
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2 comments:
Just a quick note to you Rebecca to say a big thank you for your blogs here, the constant reminders of the things you taught me last summer in the workshops really have gone in. I was out today on a climb I found really scarey, and I had all the mental tools to deal with it. I felt I had a lot of options both in what to physically do or try, as well as how to handle my mind and keep myself focused. Thank you so much... I have blogged it on Daves site if you want to read what happened in more detail..
http://climbnorthwales.ning.com/profiles/blogs/byways-1
Thats brilliant Emma! really pleased for you :) hope to catch you out on the crags when the weather improves again !
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