Life: Trust
A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not in the branch, but in its own wings. - Anon.
The last several months have been an adventure. Not the fun and enjoyable adventure, but an overthinking every decision in the world adventure. Things shifted after summer was over. A few things came to an end and new things started. The last part of summer and fall are the busiest times in my family’s life. School and after school activities are starting. Our free and easy summer schedule is no more. It becomes a rigid, not much room for error kind of life. With all of this going on before I realized it, I had started to fall back into old ways of thinking.
The last couple of months have been second guessing every decision I am making or will make. By the ‘will make’ part, I mean decisions that are years away. My dear old friend self doubt was back. Life became overwhelming. I had started dating a while back. That in itself at 43 is an adventure. I’ve met some really great people and some odd ones. Dating can’t be taken personally, I’ve learned. Sometimes a guy likes you and sometimes they don’t. Every first conversation whether through text, phone or in person was basically a job interview. It’s not the easy going dating that I remember when I was younger. So many more things that are involved now. Lots of the dating details will be kept private. It’s only fair to those involved and myself. It, too, became overwhelming. So I stopped. With my head in such disarray, it didn’t seem fair.
It just seemed that everything was a critical decision. Should I go out with this person? Should I go see a movie alone? Should I stay home and drink? Really?! None of these are critical. In my head, it just seemed like whatever the question was would impact the next 20 years. Finally I’ve reached a point where enough is enough. Putting a stop to the overthinking desperately needed to happen. This is something that is incredibly hard for me. I’ve done it for as long as I can remember.
Through my attempt at trying to stop putting so much pressure on myself, I figured out that it is a trust issue. It’s not a lack of confidence. It is not trusting myself to make the ‘right’ decision. The past couple of years have been so hard with losing family members, my marriage, even a couple of friends. I was going through the motions of life for so long. It felt like all I was doing was surviving. I am no longer in survival mode. Now that all the decisions are mine and mine alone, I had become afraid to make one. Not trusting that the outcome would be what I had in my head. I’ve lost trust in a few people, but that should not have carried over to myself. Yet it did.
I heard a recent podcast episode of Rachel Hollis’ Rise podcast. The topic was making big decisions. She had said that we overthink ourselves into a bad decision. That was such a light bulb moment!! We, I, had ended up with analysis paralysis. She goes on to explain that the longer you hesitate the worse it becomes. It’s a decision out of fear is always the wrong choice. Just wow!! Yeah, she’s right.
It’s time to move forward. Into what, I’m not sure. Forward is where I need to be. I do know that I have two kids that are happy and healthy. That is always my priority. Now, it’s time to work on building trust with myself again. It’s time to trust my own wings.
