A few weeks ago, my husband and I went on a hike. The hike was in a hilly area and it was pretty muddy on most of the relatively short path. My shoes weren’t the best for this hike and I found myself slipping a bit and tensing up with each step down the small hill that we were on. The more I tensed up, the more anxious I became about falling. My movements became more tentative and I found myself feeling almost panicked about falling.

I’m sure this will surprise none of you when I tell you that I ultimately fell. Not just once, but twice. Both times were rather dramatic, slow motion, right on my behind type of falls. My pride was severely damaged, but physically I only had a bruised bum and some scrapes on my elbows. However, I found myself rethinking how and why I fell and how to do things differently next time.

Facing our Fears

The biggest fear I had on that hike was falling and that’s what I did. The interesting thing is that with the way the path was set up, it was highly unlikely that a fall would cause me any real damage. Yet I was fixated on not falling. That fixation led to me tensing up and most likely causing myself to fall. It was a metaphor for so much of what happens in life.

We focus on what we don’t want to happen, we fixate on it, we fear it, and that leads to causing ourselves to experience exactly what we didn’t want to happen. “I hope I don’t mess up this interview.” “Oh, I hope I don’t do a bad job on this speech.” And we repeat this again and again, until all we can picture is messing things up. It’s the perfect storm to mess up or fall. 

When my husband and I hiked back, which was mostly uphill on that same muddy hill, I changed my focus. I focused on conquering that hike, on enjoying it, and on pushing myself to the challenge. I came upon part of the climb that was difficult for me and at first I thought, “I don’t think I can do this.” I caught myself on that mindset and I changed it. Suddenly, I saw an easier route to climbing that muddy hill. 

Here’s the bottom line of this muddy fall story: Ask yourself what you fear most, face it, and assuming you can live through that, change your focus. Focus on what you want to happen versus what you don’t want to happen. What’s the worst that can happen? A muddy fall? Trust me, it’s really not as bad as I made it out to be and my husband had a great laugh watching me fall . . . twice. 

Love,

Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC