Options, Choices, Better Black Leggings

Every now and then I’m invited to something where I feel like I want to show up a little better than I do in my normal momlife day-to-day.    That happened recently, and just as I was about to ruin a good day running around looking for a better pair of black leggings I noticed my mental state and I paused.

Did I want to buy new stuff?  No.  Did I need, really need, something new for this event or was I just trying to feel better about myself in the face of my own social anxiety and wanting to show up “better”?  YES!  Would it be okay to run around trying to buy something else?  Sure.  

BUT another option was to not do that, to spend the day doing more necessary and desirable things, and to try to face my anxiety for what it is: A feeling, not totally related to reality, based on subterranean thoughts that I can call to the surface and then make go away.  

The feeling will be there but the thoughts that somehow I can fix the feeling, feel better, by getting new clothes, will be gone.  And I’ll save some money, time, and pollution. 

So awesome.

One other resilience triumph moment recently — I was trapped on a plane and the guy behind me was snoring so loudly it was disturbing me through my earplugs ....  For a while I sat there, a victim of his heinous noise.  

Then I began to think — could I be ok with the noise?  Not likely.  Could I tap him and gently ask him to ... stop snoring like a freight train?  I considered the option, really, then decided that was unkind and possibly dangerous.  What else?  What else?  The flight was completely full.  

I grabbed my son Ax’s over-ear headset and put them on OVER the earplugs.  Actually, I tried to do it but my kid was sleeping on one of my arms so I struggled with the headset one-handed for a bit and then - extra bonus points - I asked for help from the total stranger seated on the other side of me who was happy to pause his show to help place the headset over my ears while my arm was pinned by the sleeping child.  

And then, headsets on, quiet bliss.

Now that may not seem like a huge change but for me it really was.  To be able to access the creativity to not sit in suffering and self-pity OR go on the offensive to re-arrange the world around me is a big win.  And even more, to ask for help when I couldn’t execute the plan on my own — amazing.  Possibly, a breakthrough.  

My more advanced readers might be thinking the other option would be to get over it and not take the guy’s snoring as such a painful event.  But that option wasn’t available to me at that juncture.  But I could still co-exist with others, in close quarters, without ruining anyone else’s day or my own.  I’m gonna keep going.

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