Lead climbing -- a beginner again

So I feel like a beginner again, climbing route with big, juggy holds. I panic when I can't figure out where to place my feet and one hand comfortably. The rope from below pulls me in funny/scary ways (partly because bf is belaying quite tightly).

When I first got to 6b, the biggest challenge was to be able to do the power moves to reach the next hold, which can be quite far away. Now that I am doing all easy routes (5b's and 5c's), I never imagined the simple act of clipping the rope into a metal draw could cause so much soreness in the shoulder of the hand holding a handhold on the wall for stabilizing the body. I also don't seem to trust my new shoes: La Sportiva Finale on artificial rock footholds. I thought my footwork have gotten a lot better, but turns out they could use a lot more work. It's going back to the foundations:

- Better foot placement needed, better body positioning, arms should hang rather than kept bent, better breathing, keep movements slow and smooth, don't panic (breath!!), and remind myself that I am strong enough to get through these "easy" routes.

Through climbing, I'm noticing I have a ton of self doubt and self-distrust. Even though I end up topping all the routes I have tried so far, I had a lot of negative self talks while doing it, such as "I'm not going to make it", " I'm going to fall", "This route I chose is way too hard for me", etc. I panic super easy the moment I come to a spot where I'm not totally sure what to do next. The thing is, I usually end up resolving the problem. It's my brain's default mode for everything that I do. I'm not a good cheerleader for myself. I need to start believing in myself more.

I really think climbing is a good way to examine how my thinking habits work and try to change it to a more positive tune, or at a minimum, recognize all the self doubts and negative talks I do normally. Hopefully I learn to nip the negative self talk in the butt and feel more confidence about my capabilities.

Soreness in the body from climbing

Climbing is an intense sport. The muscle soreness is so extreme I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night needing to stretch it out. It feels like the fascia is trembling and releasing energy sometime... it's a strange feeling.

The soreness occurs in different body parts every time: most often in the lower back (my core is still weak), the neck, the shoulders (different parts), the trapezius, the obliques, the biceps occasionally, the forearms, the wrists, the calves, the derrières, and the ankles sometimes.

The skin in the hands are usually pretty tortures. Calluses build up at the base of the fingers as well as in the lower 2 finger pads of each finger.

It is never the whole body at once, and usually one side is a lot more sore than the other side, which means this is a very uneven activity.

Today, while I was attempting to pull myself up while clenching hard on bad handholds while the body was in a funny position, I could feel weird pinching sensations in the shoulders, either in the nerves or in the tendon/ligament. Before I actually hurt myself I decided to take it easy. I went upstairs to the gym to lift some dumb bell weights instead to try to even out the force exerted on my shoulders (because the climbing movement was very asymmetrical, applying uneven forces on each  shoulder while the body was twisted). That felt like a good call at the time. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

It seems like I really need to train my muscles antagonistic to my climbing (pulling) muscles. This feels like a lot of work for me :P . I can only do like 5 full push ups right now (with a lot of struggles to do the last one). I always feel like I need to stretch, but I'm not sure exactly which poses provide the most needed stretches. I'm usually sore for days after a climbing session.

I keep waiting for my body to get stronger so I will hopefully become less sore, but maybe that's wishful thinking. I think my core has improved somewhat, so the lower back soreness has been less severe than before. I have been climbing at the same level for awhile now, and will probably stay at this level for a least several more months. Hopefully the soreness will become less intense after awhile.