Fear of failure. Fear of loss or abandonment. Or fear of rejection or not being enough. Even fear of success or being too much. These fears play out imagined scenarios in our minds that feel so visceral and real that it can seem as though we’re fighting for our lives. In some cases, traumatic experiences lay deeper tracks and require a much more measured approach, as detailed in the book The Body Keeps the Score. Left unchecked, fear can control our lives, often stopping us before we even take the first step.
The Protective Side of Fear
Of course, fear is not all bad. It serves an important purpose. It helps protect us and the people we love from real danger. Anyone who has watched a father’s quick reflexes save a clumsy toddler from a nasty fall or seen a mother instinctively stop her child from stepping into the street moments before a bus turns the corner can attest to that.
The systems that drive these reactions, however, need regular testing and calibration. Like any well-built piece of machinery, they require maintenance. Without it, they can begin producing false positives, transforming a present and attentive parent into a helicopter parent, for example.
When Protection Becomes Overprotection
When we make this calibration a conscious practice, we create the possibility for freedom. However when we don’t, we risk allowing our minds to deceive us through deeply conditioned patterns stored in the emotional brain. Like poorly written code, these patterns can freeze, loop endlessly, or erupt unexpectedly in the presence of the people we care about most, leaving us to sort through the damage afterward and wonder what really happened.
This is my story. It’s the story of my parents. It’s also the story of Ace, my reactive blue heeler and best friend. But I refuse to let it define our future.
What Climbing has Taught Me About Fear
Alex Honnold is a climber whose achievement in Free Solo likely left more than a few viewers with sweaty palms. He often speaks about climbing as a way to distinguish between the illusion of fear and genuine danger. When you learn to recognize how real risk manifests emotionally and physically, you become better equipped to identify when fear is serving you—and when it isn’t.
For outdoor athletes, this distinction is constantly reinforced. Climbers learn to separate exposure from actual danger. Trail runners learn the difference between discomfort and injury. Mountain athletes regularly encounter situations where elevated heart rates, uncertainty, and intense sensations are not signs of imminent catastrophe but simply part of the experience. The more accurately we can distinguish real danger from perceived danger in the outdoors, the better we become at making decisions. The same principle applies to the rest of life.
The Fear Process Begins with Awareness.
Awareness, often referred to as mindfulness, is a skill that can be developed through meditation. The benefits of meditation are well documented, but knowing its value and practicing it consistently are two very different things.
For me, yoga became the gateway. Often described as a moving meditation, yoga offered a more accessible path than sitting motionless on a cushion attempting to quiet my endlessly active mind. When I was diagnosed with ADHD in my thirties, it helped explain why movement-based practices had always resonated more deeply.
Discovering Climbing as Movement Meditation
Around the same time, I discovered climbing. I’ve come to view both yoga and climbing as forms of moving meditation. They entered my life when I needed them most, as a struggling twenty-five-year-old professional searching for stability and direction. Both practices cultivate mindfulness through the integration of movement, breath, focus, and body awareness. When these elements come together, the effect can be profound.
Many people live with nervous systems that are stuck in what practitioners often call a state of “functional freeze.” From the outside, life may appear normal. Work gets done. Responsibilities are met. Yet internally, there is a persistent sense of tension, exhaustion, disconnection, or anxiety. The body remains subtly braced against threats that are no longer present. This was my experience.
For years, I operated as if every challenge required a survival response. My nervous system had become so accustomed to stress that I no longer recognized it as stress. It simply felt normal. Yoga and climbing helped change that.
How Movement Helped me Regulate Fear
By combining movement, breath, attention, and body awareness, these practices created opportunities to safely experience stress and then release it. Over time, the effects rippled outward: greater emotional regulation, increased resilience, stronger relationships, and deeper engagement with other restorative practices such as meditation, breathwork, strength and conditioning, and, more recently, somatic work.
What Lies on the Other Side of Fear?
Freedom begins when we can recognize the difference. On the other side of fear is not fearlessness. It is not recklessness, confidence, or bravado. It is the ability to meet reality as it is. To see danger when danger is present, to recognize safety when safety is available, to respond instead of react. And in doing so, to reclaim the energy, presence, and vitality that fear has quietly been consuming all along.
Perhaps that is the greatest gift fear has to offer. Not as an obstacle, but as an invitation. Every fear points toward an opportunity: an opportunity to become more aware, more resilient, and more aligned with reality.
For years, I viewed fear as something to overcome. Today, I see it differently. I see fear as:
- feedback
- a teacher
- an opportunity to practice what I have come to think of as F.E.A.R: Freedom to Experience Authentic Reality.
Not the stories, the assumptions, or the worst-case scenarios created by an overprotective mind. Just reality. Because when we learn to face reality as it is, rather than as we fear it might be, we discover what lies on the other side of fear:
The freedom to experience authentic reality.
Fear shows up for all of us, whether on a climbing wall or in everyday life. Summits Gym to Crag event is an opportunity to explore that fear in a supportive environment, learn the difference between perceived danger and real risk, and build confidence through experience. Join Summit and Apex Adventure Alliance in this two day event to experience challenge, growth and experience what lies on the other side of fear.