I noticed a tear in my daughters eye as she emerged from the shower. I honestly thought she was just extremely tired this morning. But no, it wasn’t that. Soccer evaluations were in a couple of hours and she was terrified. She was worried that she wouldn’t know what to do, having never played before. She was fearful of not being good enough and yet, she still wanted to play. She can be good at displaying big emotions when she wants to, so I was expecting this to get bigger and more dramatic by the minute. I thought fast. I asked her to tell me what she knew about soccer. What is the point of the game, I asked. “To win a trophy!”, she says. Boy did I laugh!!! But again, I asked. She knew the point of scoring a goal and stopping the other team from doing the same and which direction her goal would be. Suffice it to say, she knew enough for any 8 year old that had never played and wanted to join a rec team.
So, true to self, I turned to the affirmation statements that we have been saying for years. “What about when you say, I am brave!”? Aren’t you always able to do anything you decide you want to no matter how scary it might seem before you try? Have you ever shown yourself to be anything other than brave? She looks at me, “like jumping off the high dive into the lake?”. “Exactly like that or riding on an inner tube behind the boat going super fast or wake surfing behind the boat. Or when we went to Copenhagen by ourselves without Daddy and we were just fine!” She nods and then it’s over.
I’d like to think it will always be this easy with her but I know that’s an unreasonable wish. But I do know that there are things that she can say to herself as life goes on that will jog these memories. But it starts now, speaking affirmations and reminding her of all she’s done that required her to be so brave so that as parents we can help build that confidence in her.
I think about my own life and things that make me afraid, moving to other cities or putting myself out there with a new business venture. Just like I find myself reminding her of ways she has succeeded, jogging her memory, my husband also finds ways to reassure me. He reminds me of past successes and that we have always been okay and that life is always going to be about change and growth. His famous saying is that, “the Universe not only works it out but it works in our favor.” I find myself saying these things to myself on my own now. And I hope that is what she will grow to do as well.
Of course we went to her soccer evaluations and she said it was easy. She said, she didn’t even know why she was nervous. I told her that there will always be things that she’ll be fearful of and that’s okay. Fear is a normal emotion but choosing to fight through it shows character. We can either live a life full of new experiences or just sit on the sidelines. I pray she will always choose to fight through the fear.
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