8 Responses to “True Freedom?”

1. SarahArrow says:

   20 March , 2008 at 14:06

   Good blog, very thoughtful stuff – as usual cool

   Sarah

2. richardderwentcooke says:

   20 March , 2008 at 14:07

   Thanks Sarah…

3. rhiannon_h says:

   20 March , 2008 at 14:10

   Another stupenous blog Richard.

   I often have clients who present with free floating anxiety.

   They talk a bit about stuff in their lives and I ask them: Drop into your body and see if there is a place where you feel something when you talk about this. What’s the physical feel like? What’s the emotion which comes up around that sensation? It’s usually ‘fear.’ Then I ask: On a scale of one to ten right now, if 0 is unafraid and 10 is abject terror, where are you?

   Most people report about an 8, which is way beyond anxiety.

   The trick is to quell disabling fear by reality checking. Most panic attacks and anxiety are about Death Anxiety which has never been processed.

   People have either been traumatised and not been able to process the trauma or recieved adequate support to recover, or sometimes people have been over protected and don’t have a realistic grasp of life’s risks or their own mortality.

   They’ve never been allowed to come to terms with the inevitability of their annhilation, partly due to the loss of religious and spiritual beliefs, or an acceptance of the dangers of being alive.

   Our task when processing issues around fear and survival as you quite rightly identify Richard is to keep our necessary survival instincts intact while at the same time not allowing those fears to limit us unnecessarily.

   Rock climbing woman and other risk takers have a very crucial role to play: She ‘holds’ the energy of death defying risk taking for those of us who cannot do what she does, in the planetary consciousness matrix.

4. richardderwentcooke says:

   20 March , 2008 at 14:12

   Rhiannon,

   Thank you for a great contribution to this debate.

   I guess one of our chief menchanisms for dealing with fear is denial. If I ignore it then it can’t be real….!
   The trouble is that is gnaws away at our guts (sometimes literally) and sends it insideous little tendrils into every area of our lives. Then we program our children to fear too!

5. neil_f says:

   20 March , 2008 at 17:13

   My own climbing is much more modest – however there really is a total sense of freedom when climbing.

   You have to absolutely focus on the route or problem, because if you don’t you’ll lob off.

   Currently working a route at the local climbing wall – almost bagged it last night. Next week.. it’ll go next week….

   Or tonight.

   Cheers

   N

6. richardderwentcooke says:

   20 March , 2008 at 17:14

   Thanks Neil,
   Focusing on something real, positive and that you can do something about is realy the key

7. jamie_m says:

   20 March , 2008 at 17:21

   Just an aside, the woman you are referring to is Catherine Destivelle .
   I met her one stormy winter,climbing on the Ben…jolly nice nice she was too.

8. richardderwentcooke says:

   20 March , 2008 at 17:23

   Thanks Jamie I was hoping someone here would know. She is a truly inspiring figure