Through some pretty passionate and frustrated conversations with my husband this month, I've come to discover that the source of most of the conflict in my life arises during times when I attempt to change reality by denying it. It's the swirling winds of a twister -- the meeting of hot and cold fronts that creates a tornado on the plains of my most important earthly relationship (with my husband). The collision of of what is really happening in my mind and body physiologically and what I want my thoughts and feelings to be. When my brain knows the rationale response but my pulse is already quickening and my face flushing with irritation, my own disgust with myself that I am not physiologically calm compounds my frustration to the point that I cannot disguise that I am unhappy with the situation. Inevitably, the person in the dialogue with me, not being privilege to my inner conflict and ensuing self-shaming monologue, feels as though the emotion written all over my face an...
I keep getting up to do other things and avoid writing this post, which is so ironic it's laughable. This post is about learning to do things badly and while scared to the point of paralysis. I had no fear whatsoever when we skydived. I was never worried we'd die because I had full confidence in the professionals with whom we were tandem jumping, full confidence in the pilot, the airplane, and the safety of the parachutes. People jump out of planes all the time and don't get hurt. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go research the statistics of people who get into cars every day and get injured or killed, versus the number of people who get seriously injured or die jumping out of airplanes. I imagine people are at much higher risk driving around in cars than they are jumping out of planes. I digress. I wasn't scared when I was in labor with my children because I had an amazing doula who prepared me to view it as an athletic experience, breathing through the pain of t...