BALANCING BURNOUT: When Climbing Stops Being Fun

I’m going to hold your hand when I say this…yes, it’s possible to fall out of love with climbing. Whether you’re new to climbing or have been climbing for decades, you won’t know when the fall will happen but it's likely to happen. And hopefully, if you’re lucky, it won’t. But right now, it feels like the burn out is spreading like wildfire. Maybe is the wildfires of the world stoking that fire. Maybe it's something else. But in the words of Mr. Phil Collins, something is definitely in the air.

So how do you “balance” or avoid burnout? I can’t say I have all of the answers but I would say first start with balance in general. Your entire world cannot revolve around one adventure sport. This could likely be true of snowboarding, base jumping and other extreme sports. When the risk of injury is high, the lows are exorbitantly low when access to the sport is limited or altogether removed.

Climbing as your therapist

We’ve all said it before. Climbing, especially bouldering, is so meditative. It helps shut off the overactive brain. If you are an adventure lover, athlete or simply an outdoor enthusiast, you’ve felt how these sports can calm your mind. But if you're Black, an immigrant, queer or any other marginalized community, you have the weight of all that is wrong in the world weighing heavy on your mind, making that distraction more essential than ever. The reality is, there is no amount of sends, slopes or sceneries that can remove that weight. 

So using climbing as a way to self medicate was my first mistake. Because once the climbing stopped, the depression creeped in slowly but surely. And once it was in, it had me in a chokehold. At that point I had nothing else to grab on to. I didn’t have an actual mental health specialist in my life. I couldn’t walk let alone stand so there were no “alternative” recreational outlets to explore. It was just me and those obtrusive thoughts I tried to run from at the crag and in the gym. And I was finally forced to face those demons. 

I now know the meaning of an emotional support animal.

As someone who sits here 5 years post injury, still with no mental health therapist, mostly due to the lack of health insurance, I want you to know there are options. If you can’t find a trusted therapist or struggling to connect with employer sponsored options, check out the Soul Care Collective or Inclusive Therapists. Both of those platforms make mental health resources financially accessible with a side of racial sensitivity. 

Separation of love and climbing 

I can’t speak to this personally but merging your love life with your love of climbing can be dangerous. I don’t speak in finites so I know this is not the case for everyone but when climbing is the foundation of a relationship, you could be treading on thin ice. What happens when you get hurt and you have to watch your partner enjoy climbing (without you 👀)? What happens when you experience a traumatic climbing event WITH your partner? What kind of toll does that take on the relationship? On both of your relationships with climbing? Finding a balance in this case means having climbing friends outside of your partner. Spending time with your partner doing non-climbing activities.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFMic4hD8yE

Ultimately, how do you avoid burnout?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s inevitable. Hopefully it's not. Climbing is still fairly new on a commercial gym level which is who I think is the primary victim of burnout. I've never heard my mentor who has been climbing for 40 years speak of burnout and he's never touched plastic. I’m not here to encourage you to become a multi-hyphenate adventurer. It’s actually the opposite. Finding things you are just as, if not more passionate about than climbing is the ultimate goal to balancing burnout. This could be writing, gardening, pole dancing..pick your non-climbing poison. At the end of the day, you only burn out because it was the only candle lighting the way.

xoxo tiffbfirst