C is for Confidence

I'm trying to figure out where my confidence started to erode and how it got to the point where it seemed like I didn't have any. In trying to stretch my memory back as far as I can go, I truly don't remember ever feeling confident. At least not the sort of confidence and boldness most kids seem to have. That fearlessness that everything is going to be fine. Even as a kid I was always worried (convinced) something horrible was going to happen.

I knew growing up that I was smart. I got good grades without much effort, but oftentimes kids like that falter as they get older. As I did. When learning and getting good grades comes easy, one never really learns how to try and how to work past blocks or stumbles. Now, as an adult, when something doesn't come easily to me I struggle to work past it. I used to tell myself "Aha! I KNEW it! The easy grades and smartness when I was young was just a fluke." Now I know that I can't possibly know everything nor can I possibly be good at everything the first time I attempt it. It's taken me a while to learn that however. My first inclination when I don't "get" something right away is to play the "See? I knew you would suck at this" tape. But with the help of wonderful people around me, I've begun to learn to beat up on myself less. It still happens, but I can usually catch it right away and re-frame it.

I still wish for a magic wand to magically "fix" things and make me the bold, confident, brave, fearless person I want to be. I think it's me still expecting things to come to me easily, which is not really what this journey through life is about is it?

I found this Ted Talk a few weeks ago and have been implementing the strategies outlined in it. It's a longer video, but well worth the watch. Click. Bookmark. Watch at your leisure. Enjoy.

Fake it until you BECOME it.

B is for Better

Today is a better day. It's cloudy and gloomy right now, but talking things over with my patience-of-a-saint boyfriend has brought some sunshine nonetheless.

There are some aspects about myself I appreciate and like. There are others, however, that I hate. The worst of these is my extreme lack of self-confidence. When I'm in severe self-doubt mode, I act irrationally. It almost feels as though my emotional maturity got stunted somewhere and I don't have tools to know how to talk things out and make my feelings known in an open, honest way.

Others say they see progress from where I was a year ago. I just don't see it myself--especially when I have bad days like Monday. I'm not sure where to go from here. I know I can't rely on anyone else for my confidence. I know the need for constant reassurance can get tedious for even the most patient of people. I don't know where to go from here. I'm looking for tools to help me feel better about myself. I know where I want to go, I just don't have the map yet.

A is for Alone

Alone is how I'm feeling right now. That could be because I've spent most of the day by myself in my house. I ventured outside briefly for a walk to try to clear my head.

I'm in a committed relationship with a man I love so much, it doesn't seem possible. I never knew I could love someone this much who wasn't related to me by blood.

So why this feeling of alone? I'm sure part of it is the distance between us. He in Ireland and I in Colorado. There is a seven-hour time difference between us which makes timing an issue in our communication. Acutely so. We don't get to share those small moments in our lives that some couples take for granted--perhaps even find boring. We can't sit across the dinner table and discuss our days. We have snippets of conversation.

The distance is difficult. Some days are worse than others. Today was a bad day. Coming on the heels of yet another holiday spent apart. I took things personally that were not meant as such. And I lashed out in my hurt.

What I do know is that I love this man more than anything. I want to be the best person I can be because of him. I know I fall short of that mark sometimes. And I pray that I don't scare him away when I have days like today.

A to Z April challenge

I'm excited and intimidated by this year's challenge. I haven't been blogging as regularly as I would like and the A to Z challenge forces me to be a more consistent blogger. On the other hand, I worry about running out of things to say or somehow coming up short on being interesting or read-worthy.

I'm not sure I've yet found my blogger's "voice". My blogs tend to be fairly personal about what is going on within my world and I wonder if that has enough of a universal appeal to keep readers wanting to come back. Do I need a "hook"? A gimmick? I always want to be authentic. I don't want to hide anything--even the unsavory aspects of what I do and why I do them. That's the thing about becoming a more self aware human: one often finds out one's motives for things aren't always altruistic and are sometimes downright selfish and self-serving.

Nevertheless I will leap with both feet into next month's blogging challenge and know that I will enjoy it and stress about it and maybe even pull at my hair sometimes due to coming up blank on topics. I will also learn more about myself and others through reading their blogs and will come out in May better for it.

Happy blogging!

Dreams becoming reality, Part 1

This year has been difficult at times, wonderful and amazing at others, and most definitely a time of growth and change for me.  Three years ago I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I had just turned 40 and I was miserable. I thought my life was going to be a certain way by the time I was 40, and my life was nothing close to what I had expected for myself. I was in some of the worst emotional pain I have ever experienced. My lowest point was when I was sitting on my couch one September afternoon sobbing uncontrollably and I thought to myself, "I'd rather die than be in this much pain."  It was a sobering moment for me. I had had depressive episodes before, but never once had I thought about dying as a way out of it.  The months that followed became a time of real soul-searching and the one thing I realize is that I was living a fear-based life. I made every decision out of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of scrutiny of others, fear of anger of others, fear of judgment, fear of being hurt...quite literally, almost every decision was fear-based. I knew that I couldn't continue to do that and expect anything to change.

I was desperately, achingly lonely. I had no boundaries with anyone. I had unrealistic expectations of myself and others and situations. So while I knew I had to change things, I had no idea where to start. I went to classes, read books, got into therapy, and started to try to become the adult I was meant to be. Part of having no boundaries and living in fear meant that because I was afraid of not being liked or accepted by friends and family, I wouldn't ever say "no" because I didn't want people angry at me and I didn't want to disappoint anyone. So I did things I didn't want to do and avoided doing things I wanted to do just to keep everyone happy with me.  What I wasn't doing was making my own decisions based on what I thought was best for me.  It was nobody's fault but my own. We teach people how to treat us by what we allow them to say and do to us. I realized this fear of anger, rejection, and disappointing others came from me needing everyone's validation to prove my worth and value as a human instead of knowing inside myself that I AM worthwhile and valuable. And as twisted as this is, as much as I craved that validation of others, I at the same time looked for proof that I wasn't worthy or vaulable. Promotions not happening at work? I'm a bad employee. Not in a relationship? I'm too ugly/fat/boring for anyone to want me. No one is inviting me to go places or do things? I must be horrible company.  I wouldn't even realize I was telling myself these horrible things. They were just the voice I've always remembered being in my head and I accepted it as the truth. I now realize that they weren't the truth and I've for the most part been able to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones.  The voice still speaks to me, but I am hearing it for what it is: That hurt little girl who took mean words said to her as truth and is just trying to keep me from being hurt again.

The thing is: to live is to risk. In the past year I  have risked every single one of those fears I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post. It's not been easy to risk, and I've been worried and scared, but I've come through it all. I'm still here and I still feel really good about myself and life and where I'm heading. Not everything I've risked has turned out positively, but a lot has. And while I have no guarantees about the future, I KNOW that no matter what happens it will all be okay.

All will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well. --Julian of Norwich

Things that inspire: Teacher Movies

Mr. Holland's Opus. Akeelah and the Bee. Lean on Me. Remember The Titans. To Sir, With Love. These are some of my favorite movies because they always leave me feeling good at the end of them. Teachers standing up for their students. Teachers doing the right thing. Teachers going that extra mile because they care that much.

Every time I watch these I feel great on one had and crappy on the other. I had thought when I was younger that I wanted to be a teacher. There was something so admirable about the profession. Imparting knowledge to others? Noble, in my view.  The teachers I knew and admired made such a huge impact on my life.  They each instilled in me something different. A love of school, a love of books, a love of writing, a love of theater, and a love of music. Along with the love, they imparted upon me an appreciation of each of those things as well. How huge is that??? So the crappy part comes from me not following that instinct to become a teacher.

Who's to say that teaching isn't in my future still? Perhaps it can be my second-life career. I just know that watching those movies inspires me in a way nothing else does. To think of myself having that impact on others--the way teachers did for me--makes me want to do more in my life. I want to be a better person after watching those movies.

What scares me? Flying

I have never been what you could call a calm flyer.  I wouldn't ever freak out or have panic attacks, but I was always nervous during takeoffs and landings.  Then about 3 years ago I had a pretty traumatic (for me) experience landing in Denver.

I was coming back from Vegas in mid July. Our flight was scheduled to land at 6:30. Upon our descent, when we were fairly close to the ground, the plane was coming in more nose-down and moving in every single direction. Side to side, up and down (both wing to wing and nose to tail).  The best way for me to describe it would be to liken the plane's movements to a gyroscope.  The engines ramped up and we ascended. After about 5 minutes, the pilot came over the intercom and told us that we had too strong of a tail wind and were coming in too steep and too fast. He said he would make our next approach from the opposite direction, but we would have to wait our turn and would have to circle for about 20 minutes.  As a bit of a nervous flyer to begin with, this was one of the last things I wanted to hear. But I tried to calm myself and tell myself we'd be on the ground soon enough.

Second approach: the plane starts doing the exact same thing. Moving in a way I've never experienced a plane moving before, and once again coming in with the nose of the plane more at a downward angle.  We were getting lower and lower when I hear the engines ramp up once again and we ascend after our second aborted landing attempt.  This time the lights in the cabin get turned off and the pilot says nothing. There are no reassuring words of what happened and what we were doing.  We again circle the airport, and where there were noises of chatting and people talking after the first aborted landing, it was now dead quiet in the cabin.  I looked to the seats next to me and there are two women sitting in the middle and window seats gripping onto each other's hands, eyes closed, mouths moving in what I assumed was prayer.  I looked behind me across the aisle (this is a Southwest plane and the seat rows don't line up across the aisles) and there was a gentlemen there. I asked him how he's managing to stay so calm and he looked at me and said, "I just try not to think about it." He then lifted his hand to pat my shoulder and added, "It'll be okay."  That brought me a tiny bit of relief, but as we kept circling, I kept wondering why the lights were out and why the pilot wasn't letting us know what happened that second time. In my head I was sure that something really horrible was going on and the pilot didn't want to tell us.  I started talking to my deceased father in my head and told him, "Well, dad...I guess I'm coming to see you."  I had never been so terrified, convinced I was going to die alone.  Well, among strangers but without anyone I loved there to be with me.

After what seemed like forever, but was probably about 30 minutes or so, we started making our third descent of the evening. This one was picture perfect. The plane wasn't doing any weird gyrations, the nose was more up than down, and we landed fairly softly on the runway.  The whole plane erupted into applause and I burst into tears.  After taxiing and deplaning, I made my way to the baggage claim and tried to convince myself that I was being a big ol' baby about the whole thing. I was still a big wigged out, but kept telling myself that I was just overreacting.  I got on the shuttle bus to the parking lot where my car was and there was a couple on the shuttle that also happened to be on my flight.  I hear the guy telling his companion that he's flown hundreds of thousands of miles and has never had an experience like that with two aborted landings.

Ever since that day I have been a very scared flyer.  Seeing a plane in the sky, hearing a plane pass overhead, watching a movie with a flight scene all make my stomach clench up in knots.  I have flown on two trips since that very bad flight. Each one has been just about more than I can handle.  Drinking massive quantities of alcohol helped on one of the trips, but I know that's a very poor solution to my problem.  I have another flight coming up in 9 days and I am trying to be calm about it.  I have downloaded some relaxation exercises specifically designed for fearful flyers. I am hoping it helps.