When the climbing wall instructor tells you that you are too negative about your climbing, he is on to something about how you live your day to day life, about how you are in the world. It is clearer and clearer to me the way my default position impacts the entirety of my life.
In a lot of ways, how you do one small thing is how you live your life. It's the same thing I learned over and over again at the spa both times I have been there. The challenges at the spa are all about fear of the unknown. And how you handle fear of the unknown in a challenge is often how you handle fear of the unknown in life. Do you give up? Do you charge ahead? Are you confident?
I've learned two things about myself from these spa trips which don't necessarily match my personality in life, A) I give up too easily even when I know I can do it, I give up without even really trying and the moment I give up is the split second before I would have succeeded (at least this was true at the spa - though I would say not true in life) and B) the whole time I am trying I talk about how I can't do it. B) is definitely true. I do this at the rock wall - or maybe the rock wall instructor on Tuesday's at 4:30 is just exceedingly optimistic, not sure. And I am sure I do this in life. All the damn time.
The giving up thing though - I can't figure it out. At the spa the first time, I was determined when it came to challenges - determined to succeed at them and complete them, this time, not so much. The instructors for all the challenges picked up on my negativity and politely encouraged me to examine the rest of my life. And so I have, and yes, I am negative. That's my default position. It always has been and I've always known it. You tell me something, and I will find the negative in it almost immediately. But that isn't how I am in life when faced with a challenge. In life, I rise to the challenge, I beat the hell out of it if I have to (though all the while telling myself I can't - I do in fact succeed). I mean when I had breast cancer, I survived that almost as if nothing happened. I'm not sure what changed between spa trip 1 and spa trip 2 that made me okay with giving up so easily. And I'm not sure if that changed in my life. Am I giving up on life too easily, right exactly at the wrong moment?
1 comment:
we are all different things at different times. it matters not so much what you are, but whether you choose to make a PROBLEM out of what you are at any given moment.
either you make a problem out of it, or you accept it. thats it. very simple.
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