Type II Fun
Not every trip is a vacation. If you want to relax, add a little stress to your life.
Conclusion First: Try treating your anxiety with some type II fun. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s been widely used among outdoor enthusiasts for years. It’s the kind of “fun” that is difficult in the moment but extremely rewarding when it’s done. Test your limits and learn how to trust yourself more than you did before.
Last week was “spring” break for my kids. (I don’t know why we, as a society, insist on using the word “spring” for what is most definitely a break that happens in winter. I’m trotting it out here first: the new term is March Break—sounds better than Winter Break Part Two.) We used the break to take some time away at a favorite place, doing some of our favorite activities.
For the Briggs family, favorite activities fall into two buckets: gluttony and personal challenges, otherwise known as type II fun. This newsletter is about the personal challenges, but if you make it to the end, I’ll reward you with the gluttony (just like I rewarded myself).
We traveled to the Red River Gorge area of Eastern Kentucky for several days of the best rock climbing the U.S. has to offer. We’ve done this trip before and have some experience with climbing, both in the gym and outside. My son, who is 14, takes climbing instruction at a local gym. And my husband has gone on several outdoor climbing trips with friends. I have indoor experience (from 15 years ago) and training on belay (the person who stays on the ground). We are competent, if infrequent, climbers as a group.
Climbing has a lower barrier to entry than many think, considering the perceived risks. If you have little to no exposure to the sport, you might imagine that it takes years of training or special licenses or large fees to get up on 75-foot walls. But I’m here to tell you that just this Saturday, I watched a guy who had never climbed take a one-hour lesson before becoming solely responsible for his climbing partner’s life and limbs on the crag. The only entry fee is the gear and the travel to good climbing areas.
I am an anxious person, especially when it comes to safety. I have a filing cabinet in my brain for every accident that I ever read about, heard about, or seen dramatized on TV or in a movie. The opening scene from The Descent replays in my brain every time I’m driving behind a vehicle carrying something long and pointy. When it snows, I remember every sledding accident covered on the evening news. I listen to the safety presentation on every flight and count rows to the exits forward and back. And you better believe I have followed child car seat and passenger seat laws to the letter. My 11-year-old has never had so much as one butt cheek on the front seat.
Despite all of that anxiety and attention to safety, I don’t lose sleep over our climbing trips. We have friends who we’ve invited to join us on the occasions that we make it to The Red, but one of the parents from that family can’t quite get over the hump of her fears about climbing safety. I find it ironic because they take more daily risks with their family than I am comfortable with taking.
I was thinking about this juxtaposition of risk behavior while belaying my husband on a lead climb (the most dangerous part of our climbs). As my blood pressure edged up in acknowledgement that this was the time to be most alert, the pair of women climbing next to me was joking about their own nerves for their climb.
The young woman on belay next to me said something to the effect that her climber was taking a big risk. And her climber replied, “Yeah, the most highly managed risk ever, with all my attention on nothing but safety.” I laughed and said, “Oh that’s what climbing is all about right…learning how to perceive risk correctly and manage it well. For an anxious person like me, this is exposure therapy!”
What is Exposure Therapy?
One of the easiest ways to understand anxiety is that it’s a misperception of risk. Your brain is running out ahead of your body—scanning and planning for problems that are not actually happening right now.
A certain proportion of being a competent and reliable human involves planning ahead and being prepared for problems that might arise. But many (many) of us take this to extremes, fabricating endless scenarios and what-ifs. If you’re feeling called out as you read this, know that I’m just describing myself and how I’ve functioned since I was a child. This constant scanning and planning robs us of joy in the moment and can even imperil our health (lost sleep, spiking cortisol, ramped up blood pressure, etc).
Exposure therapy is something you’re supposed to do with a cognitive behavioral therapist. But we all know how expensive those guys are. And if your fears, phobias, and anxieties are sub-clinical, you can confront them on your own or with the help of friends and family. If you think about it, we do this as parents for our kids all the time. They’re anxious about school—we make them go anyway. They don’t think they can ride a bike, but we give them that big push and see what they’re capable of. And on and on and on.
As such, rock climbing is a form of exposure therapy for me. It puts me right in the middle of a real, right now situation of risk and lets me see what I’m really made of in the face of it.
Life is Full of Risk. We Have to Learn How to Manage It.
When I’m exposed to real risk as part of a climbing duo, I’m forced to deal with only real things in the moment. It’s a stepwise process that starts in the morning with gear and prep. Are we packing in what we need for this day—no more (it’s heavy) and no less (don’t want to skimp on safety or snacks)? Are we equipped with the local knowledge we need (in our case a critical guidebook)? Do we understand the lay of the land and the emergency plans (review the maps, read the waivers)?
Then we move into the valley, out of cell service range, and into the moment. The only choices we have are deciding which climbs are within our risk tolerance and ability zones. Check the book, choose the climb, equip the lead climber with the correct number of draws, slings, and daisy chains. Prepare the rope. Ascend.
During the ascent, the belayer needs to be fully in tune with the lead climber’s needs. Are they putting weight on the rope? Take up slack. Are they climbing above their last clip? They need slack but not so much that a fall would be a long one. Are they falling? Brace yourself for a hard pull and maybe a lift off the ground.
The other thing that can happen at the crag that makes me anxious is asking for help from strangers. Maybe you’re short two draws for a climb and you have to ask a nice Canadian if you can borrow some of his. Maybe you’re lost, or need a Band-Aid, or realize that the pit toilets are out of TP. Climbing generally attracts people with a chill mindset (either naturally or earned through self-discipline), so sharing is rampant. Advice is given freely (hat tip to Roman, the French climber who gave me a few pointers). Trail mix bags are passed to the hungry. And everyone cheers for one another when a climb is done—whether you made it to the top or not. You took a risk and managed it well. That’s worth congratulations.
Trust in Future You
The most important lesson I’ve learned as an adult with anxiety is that I can (and should) trust myself. Future Ashley is super trustworthy and deeply capable. She’s proven it again and again and again.
I’ve had 43 years to learn this lesson and still need to be reminded of it from time to time. But I have at least one anxious kid who hasn’t had time to build a track record that she can refer back to yet. That’s where climbing and other “exposure therapy” type experiences come in.
We try to take family trips that challenge us a little bit so the kids can build a catalog of experiences to refer back to when the going gets tough. They can challenge themselves on a hard climb or a long hike. Or they can watch mom and dad do the same and model how not to freak out about it. Type II fun will always be a part of our family’s travels.
The Payoff
I promised that if you made it to the end of this newsletter, you’d get to hear about the gluttony portion of our trip. Well, here we are. Red River Gorge is home to the world famous (among climbers) Miguel’s Pizza, where we ate four times in three and a half days.
Miguel’s little slice of land is home to a climber campsite and, of course, a pizza restaurant that also serves breakfast. He employs lots of young climbers who are dirtbagging. Think deeply hippie vibes, guys.
After a day of climbing, we each ate half a pizza, topped with as many of Miguel’s 48 topping choices as our hearts desired while guzzling Ale-8-One sodas.
Nothing ends a day of type II fun quite like carbs and more carbs.
“Risks and dangers bring us little or no nearer our end; and if we think how many million accidents remain hanging over our heads we shall conclude that lusty or feverish, on sea or in our houses, in battle or in rest, death is equally near us.” — Montaigne
“I’ve taken many risks for pizza, and they have all been worth it.”— Margaret the Pug