5 reasons people struggle with a fear of falling

A fear of falling is evolutionarily natural. It may not be something everyone admits to, but I can assume you the vast majority of climbers struggle with this. Let’s normalise this. There is a lot of talk out there that a fear of falling, especially when there are few objective consequences, is irrational.  But how can something that is evolutionarily normal be irrational?  If you are feeling fear about falling, then you have a working nervous system, which is trying to protect you from danger.  Yes we can ease our feelings, but in no way is the actual fear irrational.  If we pursue that line of thought, we are only entering yet another battle with ourselves on top of dealing with the actual fear.

Let’s accept that this is a rational fear, entirely normal and meet the fear where it is instead of battling whether it’s justified or not.

Back at the end of 2021 I did a survey on instagram. 97% of people said they had a fear of falling and that’s out of 131 responses! Aha, we all admitted it! It’s normal. Of course it is! The following reasons for what it was about falling that made people feel scared, anxious or stressed came out of that instagram survey. It’s always easy to assume what someone else is experiencing is similar to yourself, when actually it’s something quite different! Or quite the opposite - that no one is feeling how you do.

>> Quick question though - what emotion are you are actually feeling? It may not even be fear. Fear is different to stress and it’s different to anxiety and we need to meet each slightly differently. Knowing what we’re feeling as well as when it comes up is vital in this process.

Which of the reasons resonate for you? I’m going to be honest that for me number 1 has recently crept in (with age – I have and still am exploring my motivations and what this means for me especially trad), 5 has always been my big challenge along with number 2 (I used to be quite disconnected from myself - I have made big progress here).

Of course the following 5 are not the only reasons. Coming in close behind the main 5 were (in order) lack of practice, fear of failure, hormones, stress outside of climbing and sideways falls. There are more and you only have to combine a few things to get a very individual twist.

1 - Fear of injury

Far and away the biggest concern for people, even more so when combined with previously difficult falling experiences (this includes watching or belaying). Of course! How familiar are you with what will happen if you fall: where you’ll land, your body position though the air and on landing? We’re going to fear something that is unknown - this is certainly not a hope for the best type of situation. If you have experienced any kind of difficult (insert any other kind of adjective such as traumatic) falling experience did you fully process and allow full recovery? We would allow recovery for a physical injury - we need to do the same for our nervous system. Are you able to discern between yes and no falls? The answer to this may not be as simple as you think.

2 - Lack of trust in self (and others)

How connected are you to yourself, your body and mind? This is about self awareness. Can you trust your intuition? That’s both in a life general decision making type of way and also with climbing decisions in the moment. Do you have confidence in your technique, movement and route reading - how good is this at ground level? Are you able to assert your needs and speak to your climbing partners?

3 - Fear of equipment failing

Have you tested your gear and systems with a trusted partner? You don’t necessarily need to fall to figure a lot of this out - sitting on gear also gives us clues. We need to understand how you, the rope, gear, belaying system and partners interact (they are not separate).

4 - Lack of control and fear of the unknown

A biggie - and maybe the heart of this work and a huge step forward to acknowledge this in yourself. What is your relationship with discomfort? How do you feel climbing with pumped arms? How familar are you with how your nervous system works - in terms of how we respond to our environment? What I mean here is that we’re all different in this respect.

5 - Scattered thoughts, a wandering mind and a big imagination

Having awareness that this is a factor for you is another significant step. Our mind creates a lot of stories that may or may not be true! A lot of this crosses over with our ability to concentrate as well as our thoughts going down a rabbit hole, that we can’t easily get out of. Can you come into the present (removing any expectations), into your body and out of your mind?