It was stinking hot, it was humid, it was summer in Ontario. I was out riding my bike with a group of roadies I don’t normally ride with. As we rounded this one particular corner I felt my insides rearing like a horse on it’s hind legs. Not too far in the distance the yellow center line just shot straight up, right up into the sky. I’m not a fan of hills, not even a little bit. Here I was, the heat bearing down on me like a wet blanket with nowhere to go but up. I was trapped.
“What were you thinking?” She said. “Huh?” I said.
“I mean, what were you thinking riding with these guys?”
“Ya, I know, this sucks.”“You know you’ll never make it up.”
“I’ll just gear down and take my time.”
“You’re going to have to walk it up. How embarrassing.”
Wow, I thought. Who invited her?
You’re probably thinking, “Who is that? If someone talked to me like that I’d kick them to the curb.” But guess what? You’ve got a friend just like that.
Meet Matilda. The mean girl who lives inside my head. What’s your mean girl’s name?
Too often our worst enemy is us. And when it comes to doing things that are just outside our comfort zone, like going to the gym or public speaking or meeting new people, the mean girl in our head has a hissy fit. But here’s a trick; name your mean girl. That’s right. This gives you a little distance between your emotions and her nasty remarks.
It’s true she doesn’t mean to be nasty, she can’t help it because Matilda is our primal brain, the lizard brain, if you will. Her job is to keep us safe. Since there aren’t any Sabre-toothed size threats in most of our lives today, she overreacts to anything that even remotely smells of change, achievement or risk.
How many times has ‘that voice’ activated fear in your body that was completely disproportionate to what you were about to do? For example, going on a job interview,
signing up for a 5k run, launching your line of greeting cards. Your heart beats faster, you sweat, you hyperventilate, feels like a flight or fight response doesn’t it? Is that disproportionate? You bet. Going for a job interview isn’t going to kill you, but your primal brain sensing the discomfort sends your fear response into orbit.
You will never be rid of Matilda so learn to ignore her, especially when reality is telling you that you’re not in the crisis that Matilda is trying to convince you you’re in. You ignore her by pushing ahead, by keeping her rantings in perspective, being aware of the fear and moving forward. This builds ‘courage muscles.’
Don’t worry, ‘courage muscles’ won’t bulk you up, well maybe not on the outside. But how cool would it be to exercise those courage muscles so often and so affectively that you wouldn’t think twice about ditching that mean girl and making the changes you need to make in your life. Very cool indeed, I would say. To the curb you go, Matilda!
THE BEST FRIEND YOU NEED IS...YOU!
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