You know that saying, waiting for the other shoe to drop? It’s a strange metaphor when you visualize it. Pairs of shoes dangling in the air thudding to the ground one at a time….I want to know why shoes are falling from the sky and when the next heel is going to strike me down. If we’re living in some shoe cobblers dystopian nightmare, I at least want an umbrella warning. What kind of shoe is it? This is important, if it's a flat mist of sneakers then I’m less concerned about death compared to stiletto hour. Does footlocker gain or lose stock in a world where shoes fall from the sky? Maybe the shoe monopolies become our greatest offense.
That seemed like a pointless beginning to this post didn’t it? Just like the phenomena of waiting for a metaphorical shoe to drop.
I guarantee you have worried about at least 3 things today already. What am I going to eat, do the kids have snacks, do we need to order groceries or can we wait until Friday? Fridge looks full, but what if someone invites me out to dinner then that broccoli in the crisper is definitely going to go bad and I am committed to making less waste this year?! Maybe it's not any of those things, maybe you’re not worried about anything. Well firstly, good for you, secondly, you are full of shit. Everyone feels worried at some point. What we do with that worry at the moment is the difference between waiting for the other shoe to drop, and wearing your new pair of shoes.
Things are going so well! Too well…suspiciously well…
Hello trauma and attachment issues it's me, again, except I don’t know that it's me because I am too deep in a worry shit storm.
It’s so unconscious. The way my brain can think of three thousand horrible scenarios and endings to anything happening in my life. This is when any kind of issue or mistake can become dangerous for me. If things are going relatively well…you know the Brene Brown bit on Netflix “Families good, friends are good, house is good, jobs good…shit.” Because immediately we imagine one of those great things in our lives going downhill for no reason other than our brain not recognizing that good is not a trigger for bad. Bad happens at an inconsistent and unrecognizable pattern. I have a hard time accepting that suffering is going to be a part of my life and there is nothing that I can do about it because I don’t know when it will happen. I have difficulty accepting that failure is going to happen because I’ve chosen a growth path and there is nothing that I can do to completely ensure success.
That fucking terrifies me.
I feel that fear of the unknown in my gut and my chest. It reminds me of how we taught children to recognize emotions in the body when I interned with a child guidance clinic. We teach kids how to recognize physical symptoms of anger, like feeling hot and tensing our muscles, and for fear we give them examples of butterflies flying around their bellies. For me, fear feels like a dark gaseous fist has covered my intestines and reached around my organs until it found my heart, and squeezed. For me, fear looks like never climbing out of poverty or debt. Fear sounds like my thoughts telling me I’m mediocre and don’t have what it takes to be a great social worker, wife, or mother. Fear is waiting for the other shoe to drop from the sky.
My fear is ingrained from years of warped child perspective on the things the adults in my life were doing. My fear tells me to enjoy this night out because I need to save money and this will be the last outing for awhile. So enjoy it, while it lasts, right?
Are we really enjoying it though? If we’re already thinking of what we will have to do in the future to control the success in our lives right now then how are we enjoying success at all?
Let's look at this thought again: “Families good, friends are good, house is good, jobs good…shit.” The things are going well mindset can be a fragile container when something goes wrong. This is my story:
We finally found a private property that would let us rent their venue for a small event and cleaning fee for our wedding. COVID and Capitalism really put a damper on our venue options so we were SO grateful this property fell into our laps. Fast forward a couple months, we toured the property and it was beautiful. We get to work on catering and it's stressful but I’m in my stay positive everything that is meant to be will be mindset so everything is fine. COVID and capitalism make that hard too. Nevertheless we shall persist! So, I’m ignoring the incremental feelings of overwhelmed, shame, and guilt because fuck those I am persisting dammit! So, after feeling satisfied with a few catering leads I ventured to the dance floor rental company. May as well plan it all this week. Right?! I am so in control! I AM PERSISTENCE.
Then came the call that crumbled my precarious positivity. This gremlin precedes to tell me she did not get my email request last week and asks her co-worker, while on the phone with me, if she did. She did not. Finally, I just asked if they have rentals available for our wedding and her response really shook me. Remember, I’m in a fragile state of optimism here. So, the rental place refuses to deliver to our venue. Some sort of longstanding feud between the rental company and the venue owner, spilt blood, bad blood, whatever. The rental woman goes as far as to tell me to consider other venues.
It. Broke. Me.
I call my fiancé on the verge of tears, in between sessions, because wedding planning occurs during my lunch break and spare evening times. I tell him what happened and out come all of these huge fears like word vomit.
“What if we can’t find anyone to help us?” “What if we get all these people here and have to cancel the wedding?” It spilled out of me and I felt sad and angry and fearful all at once. It was a real shitstorm of feelings at 2 o’clock on a Tuesday. Luckily, my fiancé is the most wonderful human being who has learned how to respond and support me through a thought storm. After I throw all my fears at him, we realize how much of our energy we had been spending on the wedding. It was to the point where it became a restriction around creativity and joy and I had not seen it. I do this thing where I hyper focus on something and don’t feel comfortable until the project is complete. Somehow that transformed into booking catering, rental flooring, bartending, and planning an entire wedding in one week.
The core issue is ignoring feelings of shame, guilt, and fear. I tend to go into hyper focus mode when those feelings arise because it gives me a semblance of control over my environment.
Shame tells me, "You are not worthy of a beautiful wedding with loving supportive people."
Guilt tells me, "All of these people love you and you need to provide for them because they’re taking time to come to your wedding."
Fear tells me, "Everyone you love will be bored at the wedding and think you’re a failure."
My thoughts respond with action: slider station, yard games, open bar-because MAYBE the more I provide and the harder I throw my energy into this then those fears won’t come true! I’m thinking of all the possible shoes that could drop, at any moment, driven by a train of emotion.
What helped me settle down was making one decision: I was going to take the rest of the week off from wedding planning. I needed to step away to see what was driving these responses as well as get an idea of what I actually wanted. When we are driven by shame/guilt/fear we can lose our authentic selves in the process. We can lose sight of our success, strengths, and the abundance in our lives. I’m learning that letting those feelings hold space, feeling the pain associated with them, allowing the thoughts to pass and just focusing on the emotion helps me identify why the feelings are there. We were all born worthy of love, joy, and abundance. Yet, we tend to question them when they arise. Why? That’s what you can find out.
The next time you find yourself feeling shame, guilt, or fear try to set a timer for just 2 minutes. For those 2 minutes, allow yourself to really feel fear. Take note of any images, people, thoughts, scenes that arise during this reflection. You may find your fear stems from witnessing a family member fail at something or is driven by values instilled in you that maybe don’t serve who you are authentically. If you can, write down your reflection, or record yourself speaking your fears out loud. Then ask yourself, what evidence do I have that this is true? In DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) we talk a lot about “sticking to the facts.” This means that when thoughts arise we STOP and assess our thoughts based on only facts. They said this, then I said this, and I feel blank. Be curious about your shame, guilt, and fear. If you feel comfortable, continue reflecting on the images and other scenes that arise when you hold space for these feelings as you ask yourself why this situation cultivated fear. Is there evidence that the thoughts you have will 100% happen? If the answer is yes, then maybe you are psychic. Kidding. If the answer is yes, then assess what you have power in. I have no power in how wedding vendors will respond. I have no power over the way wedding guests may or may not judge my wedding.
My power lies in my thoughts and actions. My power is naming feelings of shame, guilt, and fear when they arise. I have the power to respect my body enough to hold space for strong feelings. No matter how painful it feels, the greatest impact of emotions is their duration. Shame, guilt, fear, and grief come in waves. Just like waves in the ocean, they can build up, hold space, then ultimately crash and cascade into gentle pools on the shore. Allow yourself to feel gratitude for the good in your life. I love a good writing pen. Sometimes my gratitude is as simple as feeling grateful for a smooth gliding pen across paper. This is good and I feel safe in expressing my gratitude for inanimate objects. If I venture further into gratitude, I can allow myself to feel the joy in my life and relationships. I can be more mindful of what's happening right in front of me, rather than the stories I’m telling myself about life. What if, instead of thinking what if, we just hold space for what's happening right now. What if our what if’s became uplifting? Just for today, you can be brave. You can choose gratitude and joy. You can proceed with the knowledge that bravery and courage, being your true self, will be met with failure. You have the power to be curious about your thoughts and emotions and choose what to do with them.
So, are you going to wait for that other shoe to drop, or are you going to try on those new shoes?