How rock climbing can help overcome fear, defeat depression and change your life

Depression

Carolyn Wynn was scaling the corporate ladder. But she felt like her life was crumbling.

She had a proverbial boss from hell. She had spent years working for the renowned Bell Laboratories and associated companies, sometimes in roles that demanded 80-hour workweeks. All around, she felt unhappy. She was always caring for others but not herself.
Then, one day, she planned an outing to a rock-climbing gym to “cheer up one of my friends.”
But on that day, it was her own life that ended up changing.
Climbing “saved me from myself,” Wynn said. “That first day, I climbed out of my depression.”
Depression
Wynn describes having three epiphanies while climbing that day. The first: “I was a lot stronger than I thought.” The second: She realized she was going to be OK.
And the third, she said, was “something greater than myself had me.” Wynn had studied theoretical physics in college, but she wasn’t talking about something physical.
“I had more conversations with God on a rock,” she said, “than in anybody’s church.”