(No, it’s not your screen – the plane window had smudges on it…)
Taking a chance and getting on a plane
I’m waiting for a plane to take me 15.5 hours away, to LA, so I can spend time with a man I met there 2 months ago. I severely doubt that “2 years ago me” would have even thought about taking such a chance and doing this. “2 years ago me” wouldn’t have even given this man the time of day in the first place. No, “2 years ago me” would have never have done this… and if she did, she certainly wouldn’t have told anyone about it!
I wasn’t expecting to have met this man and I hardly welcomed him with open arms! The Man was a friend of my cousin and I was really not interested in meeting him. We all went out to karaoke and my plan was to go, be cordial, sing some songs and then scarper… The Man turned out to be nothing like I had expected so, when he tried to strike up conversation with me, I applied my default setting for Situations In Which I’m Not Entirely Comfortable which is to be decidedly spiky and stand off-ish. The Man wasn’t rude or inappropriate or threatening, in fact he was polite, funny, kind and considerate. I found myself starting to re-think my original plan.
My standard armour of “I don’t need you, I’m super tough, look how hard I am, you can’t hurt me, don’t even think about trying anything” had been worn for so long I wasn’t sure how to take it off.
I was in this weird place of being able to feel it as armour, wanting to set it down but also being scared to. Honestly, having been on approximately 2 coffee dates in the last 6+ years I wasn’t sure I remembered how to talk to someone I was even vaguely interested in. I was also a bit freaked out that he liked me – Previous experiences had taught me that anyone who wanted to get physically or emotionally close to me was going to hurt me.
So, I (very) slowly allowed myself to be vulnerable, tiny bit by tiny bit, I let some of my guard down and let conversation start to flow; I started to let him in, to share some of my thoughts and feelings, regardless of what I thought he might think about them or how he might respond. I allowed myself to trust my intuition that this man was safe, that he was genuine and that he meant me no harm.
Like many people, I’ve had some shitty things happen in my life – people have been dishonest, taken advantage, broken my trust and, broken my heart; They have hurt me in so so many ways (I’ve hardly been a perfect human either but that’s another story for another day. Perhaps.)… and I’ve carried all of that around with me, like an encyclopaedia of pain ready to be pulled out and referenced at the slightest suggestion, ready to add in more incidences, more evidence, to reinforce and prove the theory of “See, no-one can be trusted, people close to you will hurt you” and, most commonly, “See, all of this happens because you’re not worthy of anything else, you aren’t likeable, you aren’t worthy of love, this is what life looks like for you; Better get used to it.”
Through practicing Breathwork, I’ve been learning to let go of these old beliefs and to start to respond to this fear differently. I’ve been learning to listen out for what my intuition tells me about a situation or a person; I’ve learnt that there is no bravery without vulnerability (Thanks Brene Brown!) and I’m also learning that if I hide myself away, on my own, for fear of getting hurt then I end up feeling lonely and angry and sad. So I took a chance when I met this man – In my heart this chance felt like a massive risk, like I was carving open my entire self open for this man to see. It felt like I was making a change so obvious you could see it from the moon! From his perspective I think it looked more like I stopped doing my best impression of a fierce ice queen ready to obliterate anyone who dared to cross her… and turned into a slightly less icy queen…
Turns out that what felt huge and terrifying for me on the inside didn’t really look like that much different on the outside.
And so this is where I am now, at Melbourne airport, about to take a chance. About to get on a plane to spend time with this man for he next 10 days. Do I feel vulnerable, yes. Do I feel a strange mixture of excitement, joy and nervousness? Yup. Am I scared that I’ll get there and I’ll just bolt, run away from it all or get that armour out again? A little. Are the old stories of “Oooh, you’ll get there and he won’t like you anymore” and “Oh, you’re hilarious, he never actually liked you in the first place!” starting up like old fairground rides in my head? Yes, yes they are and I’m doing my best to just watch them run their course rather than climbing on that old familiar merry-go-round and letting it whirl me around until I feel sick.
I’m going with an open heart. I’m going and trying on a feeling of ‘being ok’ with this feeling of being so very vulnerable. I’m going with the knowledge that I don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s ok. Yeah, “2 years ago me” definitely would NOT have done that!
