Overcoming a fear again and again.
Last year at about this time my husband and I bought this trailer. Within a few weeks I posted that I had overcome a limiting belief of mine - that I couldn't drive this beast around.
Okay so I won't rehash the past blog but the jist is that I had been holding on to the belief I coudn't. Yet I over came that limiting belief and proved it many times last summer. I hauled it onto a ferry, then all the way across the state and back with just me and my kids. I became good at backing it up, hitching it up and powering it up... all the things I was happy for my husband do in the past. I shared this on facebook.
Oh boy did I ever get a response from some of my women! Several reached out to me to say "I saw you post that and it made me think I could do it.... and so I did it." Now that is what I call empowering. I felt good that I not only overcame something but that I was willing to be transparent and post it.... and that it helped others. I thought I was done, I thought I had overcome.....
The other day my husband reminded me that we needed to take our trailer in to Tacoma (1.5 hrs away through Seattle) to get it serviced before the warranty was up. No problem I said. But secretly, I was holding out hope that he would do it because it made me nervous, its been since August I pulled it on my own.
Last night he reminded me, and said that he really needed me, if I could do it, to take it in. UGH.... I heard myself say "honey, I'm scared, I feel like I can't remember how to make the tight turns, and as a matter of fact I'm nervous about taking it to Fish Lake in June, that hill is so curvy and the downhill is so steep." My husband looked at me in bewilderment and said "You drove it there last year all by yourself and all around the state last summer, I don't get it?" What I heard.... "hey dumbass you drove it around already, all over, get over it." He didn't say that but that is what I heard. ;) because that is what I was thinking in my head.
Nothing more was said because one kid or the other popped up in our room and the converstation was forgotten. I later said I would take it. No mention about the fear.
Men have a way of thinking about things as cut and dry... or at least my husband does. That once you overcome something it will be over. Yet that is not how life works. I had overcome this limiting belief that I could handle that beast. I had done it, proved it and bought the t-shirt! But yet, I wasn't done proving it.
What I realized when I woke up this morning is that it is just a reflection of life. It matters A LOT, the first time we overcome something or step out of our comfort zone. It matters a lot. Yet what matters more is the continuos journey to overcome, to solidify the knowing, to anchor the belief, to keep in the action of the thing. If we don't, if I relied on the fact that I had done it then, if I relied on that soley, I would stop doing it soon. And eventully I would soon stop believing that I could. And I would be right back where I started.
As soon as I made my first turn up the hill this morning as I pulled out of my neighborhood I realized I had this, I owned it and it wasn't a big deal.
I DIDN'T HAVE TO RE-LEARN HOW TO DRIVE OUR TRAILER, I JUST HAD TO RE-LEARN THE BELIEF THAT I COULD.
We will stumble, we will fall but the learning is in the doing of the thing. The motion of the thing. The action of the thing.
Where could you take action today to anchor the belief that you can?
