I thought I would be off at the first crux, but by some miracle of focus and try-hard, I had made it to the last hold, staring at the chains. Within seconds, I was falling through the air. It was a long, sideways fall. I was bleeding from a big flapper.
I wasn’t concerned about the fall, not even the slightest bit. My hands were holding my head, and I couldn’t stop repeating, “Oh no, oh no, I HAD IT!” I was high on trying hard. I felt exhilarated by the high focus I was in. At the same time, a powerful feeling of disappointment lingered for quite a while after I lowered to the ground.
Did I fail? It was literally in my hands, and I dropped it. Was the experience incomplete without sending the route? I was bleeding and exhausted, and I couldn’t have another go. I was still buzzing. Reducing such a complex experience to a single word like "bad" simply because I did not clip the chains would be unfair. The reality was far more intricate than that.
Emotions are a complex mix of our perceptions and feelings about the world around us and what is happening within us. It may feel overwhelming to explore these phenomena rather than approach them as we have always done, but stay with me here. By questioning commonly held ideas about emotions, we can gain a deeper understanding of their complexity and use that knowledge to have more fulfilling experiences.
Coexisting emotions
We rarely feel only one thing, and yet we often only embrace one emotion at a time. Focusing on one emotion, even a dominant one, can prevent us from fully appreciating the nuances that make the experience more meaningful. Instead, by embracing the complexity of our emotions, we can gain a deeper insight into how we feel and what is happening.
Take this example of conflicting emotions from a competition setting:
“I found myself in a position nobody wishes to be in. So close, yet empty-handed. Heartbroken. But to my surprise, I felt the same joy and peace that I feel when I dance on the wall, lose myself in a song, and laugh with loved ones. I found joy in cheering my competitors and peace in letting myself feel disappointment without judgment.” (Brooke Raboutou, WC Bern 2023)
Here, we have an example of disappointment and joy showing up side by side. As Brooke Raboutou mentioned at the end, the key concept that allows the coexistence of two or more seemingly conflicting emotions is the absence of judgment. In a sense, emotions are what situations mean to you in an embodied way (Barret, 2017). By embracing variety and nuance without immediately attaching meaning, you open yourself up to multiple interpretations.
You can enjoy competitions but also feel a sense of relief once they’re over. You might look forward to climbing but also be nervous about it. It is possible to experience fear, but by facing it, feel courageous. You can have confidence in your abilities and skills but occasionally let some doubts slip in. One doesn’t have to exclude the other — in fact, one emotion rarely excludes all others.
The trap of black-and-white thinking
We quickly label events as either good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, happy or sad. Our past experiences influence our current perspective and make us view situations positively or negatively. We often wear the “doom and gloom” or “rise and shine” glasses. Categorizing our emotions into just two groups—good and bad—limits our ability to understand and cope with them effectively.
Emotions themselves are not inherently good or bad; they provide information and guide your actions. Depending on your needs and circumstances, certain emotions may be helpful or unhelpful. To more effectively navigate the ups and downs of a given situation, you can ask yourself what the emotion is trying to tell you and which goal you want to achieve by enacting it (Frijda, 2004).
How often have you described your climbing day as “good” without mentioning the moments of focus, satisfaction with climbing, and joy for being where you were that made the day really valuable? How many times was it just “bad” with nothing else to offer some nuance? Even if it was all that bleak, what was going on exactly? Tiredness, lack of motivation, distraction, frustration, fear, expectations, overstimulation? “Bad” is a judgment, while listening to what your body is trying to convey will give you information about your experience that is helpful.
If you don’t have words to express exactly how you feel, create them. In her book How Emotions are Made, Lisa Feldman Barret shares her invention of the word chiplessness. “Imagine the feeling of reaching into a bag of potato chips and discovering that the previous chip you ate was the last one. You feel disappointed that the bag is empty, relieved that you won’t be ingesting any more calories, slightly guilty that you ate the entire bag, and yet hungry for another chip” (Barret, 2017, p. 140).
The better we are at articulating our emotions and the more precise we are at describing what is happening, the more power we have over our responses and behavior. A broader perspective provides us with both understanding and room to maneuver. It gives us the space to take a deep breath, observe, and decide how to respond.
Understanding that emotions don't just happen to us, that they are made by us, is an empowering tool that can help guide our future actions. A nuanced interpretation of our emotions means an enhanced understanding of our own experience, which can aid us in building stronger relationships, flexibility, and resilience for facing any challenges in life.
Here we go again; nothing to do about it
Reacting impulsively is often deemed a characteristic of having an emotion, but it doesn't have to be that way. Emotions are your brain's prediction of how a situation will evolve (Barret, 2017). Your actions create feedback. The prediction doesn’t have to come true.
Suppose you respond to specific events and outcomes in a particular way consistently. It may feel inevitable, like you have no control over it. That is the case only because this combination of feelings, emotions, and actions is deeply ingrained in your behavior due to diligent repetition. There are various ways to respond to the same feeling, but it can be hard to pick and choose if you have never recognised the alternatives.
Imagine this scenario of falling on your send attempt:
You associate falling with failure. There is a feeling of heaviness in your chest. Failure and discomfort may correspond to frustration and anger, so you act accordingly. When you are angry, you shout, maybe even hit the rock. If you know that this behavior is not aligned with the norms and values of your community, your brain could predict shame. Shame is an unpleasant feeling, so you do everything to suppress it. You absolve yourself of responsibility for your actions by blaming others, circumstances, or weather.
This all feels very impulsive, but it is a learned cycle. Step by step, you can start making new connections and pathways for interpreting events, how they relate to what you are feeling, and how to act upon them. To break the cycle, you must first recognise where it begins.
Here is an alternative version of the same event:
You fell on your send attempt. The first thought that rushes through your mind is that you failed, but you are aware that there is a much bigger gray area between success and failure. You feel disappointed. It shows up as a heavy feeling in your chest. That makes sense. You can allow the heavy feeling to stay without reacting to it. Breathe through it. You remember you also climbed very well in the moments before you fell. After a moment of pause, you can reflect on what happened and choose to see if you can find an alternative beta for the sequence where you fell.
“Get your butterflies flying in formation”
“Part of managing emotions is figuring out when unpleasant feelings are diagnostic about something in the world and when they are just simply an indication that things are uncertain or that we are doing something really difficult” (Barret, The Well, 2023).
Think about climbing your hardest. It is physically demanding, and the outcome is undoubtedly uncertain. All the worrying (i.e. your brain’s attempts to predict everything that will happen that day) takes a toll on your body. You will get all kinds of signals. Nervousness, impatience, insecurity, doubt, excitement, courage… But you label it as stress. The last time you were stressed, you messed it up. You don’t feel well, so it doesn’t go well. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rather than immediately categorizing these feelings as stress, take the time to examine them more closely.
“So, my daughter, for example, was testing for her black belt in karate. Her sensei was a 10th degree black belt, so this guy is like a big, powerful, scary guy. She’s having really high arousal, but he doesn’t say to her, ‘Calm down’; he says, ‘Get your butterflies flying in formation.’” That changed her experience. Her brain could have made the anxiety, but it didn’t, it made determination.” (Barret, 2020)
Your interpretation of feelings (affect) is crucial in constructing emotions and determining your actions. You can use an affect graph to describe your bodily sensations on a spectrum from pleasant to unpleasant and arousal ranging from low to high.
Feeling activated and unpleasant can mean that you are stressed, but it can also mean that you are excited and have a headache, are hungry, or have had too much coffee. Keep in mind that you can decide to put on “the mood glasses” and understand the faster heart rate as bad, but you can also investigate. Does it make sense that your heart rate is up? Is there a need to do something about it, or just let it be?
To clarify, this is not to dismiss your emotions or convince yourself that you are not experiencing certain feelings. It is important to acknowledge how you feel while being aware of multiple possible interpretations and explanations for your state.
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Conclusion – How to be an architect of your own experience
Feeling strong emotions is attention-consuming. If you have to deal with them at times when all your attention needs to be directed toward climbing, it can feel overpowering. You become distracted by the meaning and consequences those emotions have. You may judge yourself for feeling a certain way. This further directs attention towards worrying and ruminating. Not much is left for the task at hand.
Changing the ingredients your brain uses to create an emotional experience (Barret, 2017) lays the groundwork for different responses in demanding situations.
There were times when falling just below the chains (with a bleeding flapper) would have left me feeling defeated. This time, I noticed there was something more going on within me. I allowed myself to be very enthusiastic about my performance and simultaneously feel disappointed. Being aware of the inner conflict helped me catch a moment of choice. I could have taken a road of self-criticism. Instead, I heard what that voice had to say, and at the same time, I acknowledged how amazing the climb and my effort were.
Practice in interpreting my emotions helps me better understand my experiences. This allows me to be less reactive and respond in ways that are more aligned with what is really happening. It gives me the freedom to learn from and enjoy an experience, rather than feeling stuck. What better incentive for emotional reconstruction?
A toolbox to experiment with:
- See what happened in a different light
It is never really the stimulus itself that stirs up the storm within you but how you interpret it (Jekauc D, Fritsch J, and Latinjak AT, 2021) and what your brain predicts will happen next. Practice checking in for different meanings an event or a feeling can have.
- Zoom out - relativize the importance of the situation
In the midst of intense moments, winning, sending, or executing a sequence of moves can feel like a matter of all-or-nothing. Take a moment to step back and view the impact and significance of it all beyond that moment, that trip, that competition, that friend group, or the city/country scene... Does it still hold the same meaning? Does it still carry the same weight?
- Influence the tendency to act
Breathing is our pause button. Pausing creates space to transform certainty into curiosity. Curiosity is problem-solving. If you always react a certain way and it’s not serving you well, ask yourself, “Can I do something different this time?” Journaling is a great way to reflect regularly. Reevaluation and reflection are investments you can make for the future – next time you find yourself in a similar situation, it will be easier to take a breath, recognise what’s happening and postpone action. Here are some questions to help you check in after a heavy day: What happened? What did I feel? How did I act? What was the emotion trying to tell me? What was the need behind my action? Can I think of a cue that will remind me of my intention to try something different?
- Understand feeling (affect) and influence physiological reactions.
When you feel a particular emotion coming up, ask yourself, “How does this feel in my body?” Where on the graph between pleasant/unpleasant and high arousal/low arousal are you? If you feel the need to influence your current state, you can use different techniques to raise or lower your activation levels. For relaxation: Progressive relaxation and breathing techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing, box breathing, or physiological sigh. For activation: choose music that gets you psyched; breathe with emphasis on an inhale, and imagine having more energy with every breath.
- Invent new emotions
Follow the example of Lisa Feldman Barret and the “chiplessness.” Here is a little inspiration from existing terms in climbing.“Send train” The term doesn’t only describe the event but also the emotions that come with it. It is a concept probably only known to climbers, and if you ever experienced it, you know exactly how it feels. It is not just happiness because of achievement but also happiness for others. It is feeling hopeful for yourself due to seeing others do well. You are slightly nervous and expectant, although focused on your own climbing. You have a sense of accomplishment but only in togetherness with the accomplishments of other friends who also sent.“Pump brain” This is the term I learned while watching the World Cup Lead semi-finals in Wujiang. Helen Gillet joined Matt Groom in the commentary box and introduced this very relatable concept. Can you feel it? You start getting pumped out of your mind, and you rush. There is pain in the forearms, a slight sense of panic; there is a moment of tunnel vision. It is not that you suddenly forgot how to climb, you are stupid or can’t deal with pressure. It’s the “pump brain”.Have fun being creative with your own names for complex emotions.
- Experiment with not using “good” or “bad” to describe your climb or a session
It is as simple as that, but trust me, it is harder than it sounds.
References
Bakker, F. C., & Oudejans, R. R. D. (2019). Sportpsychologie. (5de, herziene ed.) Arko Sports Media. 4.2.1. Emotieregulering
Barrett, L. F. (2017). *How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain*. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Frijda, N. H. (2004). Emotions and Action. In A. S. R. Manstead, N. Frijda, & A. Fischer (Eds.), Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium (pp. 158–173). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guthrie Yarwood, M. (2022). Psychology of human emotion: An open access textbook. Pressbooks. https://psu.pb.unizin.org/psych425/Chapter 5: Dimensional Models, Russell’s (1980) Circumplex Models
Jekauc D, Fritsch J., and Latinjak, A.T. (2021). Toward a Theory of Emotions in Competitive Sports. Front. Psychol. 12:790423. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.790423
Shariatmadari, D. (2020). The Guardian: 'I'm extremely controversial': The psychologist rethinking human emotion
The Well, (2023). The biggest myths about emotions, debunked | Lisa Feldman Barrett (youtube.com)
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Tijana is a mental training climbing coach and trainer with The Warrior’s Way. She is based in the Netherlands but prefers to be where the rocks are as often as possible. You can find her through www.coachingbetweenthelines.com and @betweenthelines_coaching
