Have you ever had an uncomfortable emotional reaction to something and then spent years avoiding it at all costs?
Me too.
For most of my life,
Endurance sports triggered something intense inside of me.
Hikes,
Steep climbs,
Heart racing.
Then,
Suddenly,
I felt pure rage.
My inner world would shift from calm to feral,
Like an animal ready to lash out.
And I'm not even exaggerating.
Because of this,
I politely declined hiking trips and physical challenges.
I simply avoided them.
The other day,
I decided to walk to a new beach.
The GPS said it was 10 minutes away,
But I didn't see that ETA was by car.
By the time I realized it,
I still had a long walk,
But decided to keep going.
Then the hills began.
And as my heart started to race,
I was able to encourage myself and say things like,
You can do it,
And almost there.
That worked for a little bit,
Until the steep inclines triggered something familiar.
My patience snapped.
I cursed,
I stomped,
And I felt the rage of a small child.
But the beach was so close,
So I kept walking.
Then,
Finally,
I arrived.
And yes,
The beach was beautiful.
But I felt so angry,
So I plopped down on a rock to catch my breath.
People have always told me that they feel so happy after they finish a difficult hike or some challenge.
But not me.
I still feel mad for hours after.
So after I calmed down,
I asked myself,
Is there even a mustard seed of happiness that we made it to this beach?
And the answer was,
No.
I asked myself why,
What was happening inside of me?
And then a memory came to mind.
It was me as a small child at Disney World,
When I was obviously exhausted of walking in the heat.
I recalled screaming and crying in distress while my mom just ignored me.
She's a narcissist,
So anything other than happiness was unacceptable.
I was often forced into endurance and other physical challenges without care or support.
That helplessness became encoded into my body.
It said that endurance equals powerlessness.
And this is the root of the trigger.
This insight was huge.
I realized I'd aborted endurance sports all of my life because of it.
And now I have an opportunity to rewrite the script.
Now I will face physical challenges with awareness by giving myself the choice to continue or to stop while acknowledging my discomfort with care.
This is something a healthy parent would have done.
And now I get to give it to myself.
A funny thing is,
Is now I sense that I might actually enjoy endurance activities.
I just never had the chance to explore them fully because of this massive trigger I tried to avoid.
So the lesson here is that noticing triggers or big emotional reactions aren't enough.
We need to ask ourselves questions and figure out the root.
From there,
We can give our inner child the support we should have gotten and rewire our nervous system.
So tell me,
Do you have a trigger that has made you avoid certain activities or situations?
And do you know where it stems from?
Let me know in the comments.
