I posted this picture on my instagram and facebook page at the end of July 2018, a month or so before my brain bleed. I wrote a little blurb about falling off my bike and wanting to run and hide. That rush of shame. "I fell. Going up a hill. In slow motion. And that old feeling came rushing back in. The voice started up again. 'You're too fat, you're too old, you're clumsy. You should be ashamed. ' And I was. My instinct was to hide and cry. To ride home as fast as I could and disappear. But I knew what it was. And I knew how to face it. Breath by breath.'" Facing that limiting belief, the story our ego tells us and it keeps us small.
Well on Sunday this weekend we spent the day out at the lake on our boat. I had to use the washroom so my husband swung back by the boat launch so I could run up and do my business. Well in the current heat wave the boat launch was crazy busy. No place for hime to moor the boat so he said "just hop over to the dock and I'll come back and get you." (I think lots of you may see where this is headed.) I went to "hop across" and instead fell short and into the water in my sundress, sandals and sunglasses. At the crowded boat launch. Awesome.
I handed my sunglasses to someone on the dock and swam until I could reach the ground and walked laughing out of the water, got my sunglasses, convinced the very kind strangers I wasn't hurt and went to do my business. I don't know if it was the shock of the cold water that prevented shame from ever kicking in, but it never did. When I came back to the boat my husband was shocked that I was smiling. He figured that I would be in tears. I mean, so did I. I was equally surprised. Pleasantly. It felt like such an amazing thing to not give a care about what anyone else was thinking about me. The water felt refreshing, I knew I'd dry out soon, and I really felt fine, no convincing myself.
That is when it hit me. This is what I have been working towards. Changing my thought and belief patterns so that the self compassion and grace happen naturally. That just maybe that all this practice noticing my thoughts rather than being controlled by them was finally working. My ego might be losing some of its grip on me. I am sure that at some point in time the old patterns will pop back up again but on Sunday it felt amazing to literally fall off the boat and come up laughing.
So I tell you this with some authority, the little practices we make of noticing the story we tell ourselves, noticing the script and reframing it. These practices work. Eventually one day you belly flop in front of a bunch of strangers and come up laughing and grateful for their help. Keep practicing. Keep being kind to yourself. Keep living from your heart space and not your ego. You can change those patterns.
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