Life & Therapy

My husband’s parents once told me the story of how he learned to ride a bike. Apparently, he hadn’t quite figured out how to brake, and the concept scared him.  His solution was to ride full-speed into a group of trash cans.  For some reason, this was a less scary way to stop than braking- probably because he could see the trash cans, whereas braking was a bit mysterious and new.  Some of this was motivated by a fear of falling: crashing into the trash cans isn’t much better than falling, but at least he was controlling the situation.

We might “crash into trash cans” ourselves, out of our own fear of falling.  It could be that we have a bad habit that we want to break such as compulsive spending, or attracting to people who are bad for us.  Maybe we have some initial success in breaking this pattern, but then we get scared.  How can we possibly keep this good behavior up? Surely, we are going to disappoint ourselves!  The tension can feel like too much sometimes, so we might nip it in the bud and just go on a spending spree, handing that credit card over while trying to ignore the receipt totals. Maybe we call that person that we’ve been trying to stay away from, telling ourselves that we just don’t care what happens.  In the moment, we feel relief from the pressure of trying not to fall, but in the long run there are bruises and feelings of helplessness to contend with.

It can be hard to believe that we can learn to brake without falling.  It takes a good amount of practice, trial and error, and even some falling.  It helps to have someone who can help and support us when we are trying to break an old pattern, whether it is a friend, a partner, or a therapist.  Some people get a lot of help from joining a group that focuses on breaking from the habit they might be trying to break free from.

No matter what approach we choose, a good thing to do is to listen to ourselves when the doubt creeps in.  What is familiar about this voice that says that there is no way we can keep it up?  We don’t have to believe that voice- it is only one part of the whole picture.  We can also tune into our capable self, and hear what it has to say.  Instead of saying, “I know that I am going to fail at this, so I might as well go out in style,”  we can say, “I am afraid that I am going to fail at this, and that hurts.”  Now there is something to attend to in the moment, a real feeling.  If we attend to that feeling and let it be what it is, it will eventually pass, and when it does, we can refocus our energy to the task at hand.  Eventually, those trash cans will not be a desirable stopping place.