In one of my psychology classes last fall, we talked about something called immersion therapy: gradually easing someone out of a phobia by slowly confronting them with what they’re afraid of.
But that doesn’t work for everyone, and sometimes people have to face their fear head-on with no chance to test the waters. Like someone who’s afraid of water, so their friends toss them in a lake. Or even parents teaching their kids to ride a bike – I remember crashing into a bush when I was starting to ride without training wheels and my Dad let go. I was annoyed, but I survived, I got over it, and rode without help from then on.
Training Camp brought some things to light that I had always known on some level, but had done my best to hide or justify: I don’t give myself a lot of grace, my pride keeps me from accepting myself and makes me feel guilty, and I don’t believe people when they say good things about me.
There was one day at camp where we had to do a really intense circuit workout sort of thing in groups of 5 – with everyone tied to each other. Twice I pushed myself to my limits, but couldn’t complete the task at hand, leaving my teammates to cover for me. I felt so guilty I couldn’t stand it – I thought I was nothing more than dead weight and holding the other four girls back. The combination of physical exhaustion and emotional frustration proved to be too much to handle, and when the rest of my group was encouraging me, saying that I was doing great, I didn’t want to hear it. I felt so bad for not being able to repay them for their help that I felt I didn’t deserve any encouragement. At one point I was so irritated by the “you’re doing fine” that I responded “No, I’m not” and asked them to stop insisting that I was.
I am not proud of that moment.
Not at all.
Reflecting on that day has made me realize how unhealthy that mindset is – how I can’t show the same grace I show to others. (Or that God shows to me, for that matter). If the situation were reversed, I would have never expected any of the other girls to owe anything to me, and yet I felt I owed something to them. I’m still sorting out exactly why I feel this way, but it was certainly brought to my attention, and now I can address it as I clearly need to.
Ada, Megan, Haleigh, and Liz – I want to publicly apologize for the way I reacted to the things you said to me. I should have accepted them, and please know I do appreciate it, albeit a little too late. When I felt like a complete and utter failure, you did not think of me that way, and it took me breaking down in front of everyone to finally see that maybe I should start believing what people say and stop putting myself down.
As hard as it is to figure these things out about myself, it needed to be done. I had to be thrown into the metaphorical lake of my insecurities to make any progress at all, because I could never have jumped in on my own.
