A year ago I moved to a new city… again. Several months in, I got to feeling very sensitive about having to find a new fellowship and new friendships. The discomfort of meeting new people and having to approach them for the first time was agonizing. I was in fear of judgment and became terribly self-critical. As I carried on this way, I found it more and more difficult to connect with anyone, even old friends. I would replay conversations hours or even days later as if to retroactively quality control my social life. Ugh! Eventually, I found myself in a very real depression. After a series of efforts to ‘fix’ myslef, I realized it wasn’t going to come easy. I had really gotten myself twisted up into a bad space, and I was going to have to do a lot of footwork to move out of it. Gratefully, I was able to grab on to some tried and true life-lines: therapy, self-reflection, prayer, acting better than I felt, doctor visits, showing interest in others before myself and meetings to name a few. When I was able to assert these tools in my life on a daily basis, things gradually improved for me. It sounds exhausting, but really the actions were very simple on a day to day basis.
The reflection was a bit more intense. When I got to looking at it all, I saw how I was pretty much handing over all my confidence, worth and power to strangers. Just giving it to them! Like, “Here, you can crush me in a pinch or you can lift me to the heavens. But, please, tell me if you think I’m worthy of your friendship or not”. How easily I ran myself into a whole mess of loneliness, anger, exhaustion and FEAR!
This reminds me of a very painful time in my life but one worth examining. I vividly remember my first meeting with my college teammates. I was not a scholarship diver when I arrived at school. I decided that this had to be because I was not as good of a diver as the others on the team… BEFORE I SAW ANY OF THEM DIVE!! I felt that they knew I was less talented than them… BEFORE ANY OF THEM SAW ME DIVE!! I was convinced that in turn they couldn’t possibly like me or include me. To boot my cousin had told me that the swim team was weird, and I shouldn’t become weird. Shaking the swimmers and divers’ hands made me cringe with self-doubt and judgment. My memory is very hazy in general, but I remember a buzz in my head that day. It was as if all the internal yelling collected into a noisy din. I felt distant from the entire experience, remembering none of their names or faces, but simultaneously leaving intensely injured by them all. All I wanted was to be as important and as valuable as my teammates, and I was certain that I was not.
Connecting with this makes me feel so sad for my teenaged self. Especially knowing that the self-doubt, self-loathing, the noise and the pain would only get worse. It’s baffling that the noise never quieted around my teammates, and neither confidence nor comfort ever came. I sometimes wonder whether more guidance would have afforded me a better experience. No one gave me a clear understanding of what collegiate athletics would be like. I had no exposure to the talent I would meet at my institution. What if someone had shown me film or just told me I was worthy and deserving of my place? What if someone had simply taught me how to seek an athletic scholarship? Would I have felt differently knowing my talent matched my teammates? Why didn’t it shift when we started working out side by side, dive for dive? Why couldn’t I shake their paralyzing FANSIED judgments? And then here’s the big one: If my beginning had been more inspired or more realistic, would my college athletic career have been filled with high achievements and happiness? Even though these questions float through my head from time to time, it’s obvious that the answer to the last and most important question is “No way.”
I am sure that had I been armed differently going into that first day of college diving, I would have found my addictions and my toxic mind crippling nonetheless. The true belief that I was okay within myself was a long, long, long way off. Therefore, a bad day at practice, a poor test grade, an embarrassing party antic or any slight misstep could have/would have gotten the ball rolling downhill fast. For me the ball just happened to be rolling before college ever began.
I never want to feel so consumed again. The emotions that come in writing this are uncomfortable enough to motivate me into continued action. I have been shown a very new way to live today. When I’m in perfect practice of applying simple skills, and I resolutely place my worth inward and upward, I’m able to meet new people with almost zero anxiety. Seems a bit hard to believe having read the story above, but it’s true! Little gems, from folks wiser than I, have guided me away from my self-centered fears of YOUR opinions and towards a ‘Whew! I can breathe and I’m okay and you’re cool’ place. Here are two of my favorites:
“ASSUME EVERYONE LIKES YOU, until they actually tell you otherwise.”
AND
“More than 99% of the time, people are not thinking about you. Realize that and then ask them, “HOW ARE YOU?”
There is such freedom in living by these two ideas. It puts me back within myself and motivates me to take charge of my life with independent confidence. Almost without effort, I can meet new people with a lighter and more gracious heart.
I will add that underneath these wisdoms is the hard learned, yet unfailing belief that I am okay no matter what. Without this I would surely be seeking fixes and comforts and assurances wherever I could get them. And the application of these wisdoms would be impossible. But I digress. I will keep it simple today and follow these two brilliant ideas. Can’t wait to go meet my new best friends!
