2. Owning My Story
Yesterday I was hit by a chairlift. I have been stewing on this embarrassment for 24 hours and I’m ready to let it go. I dropped one of my ski poles as I was getting on the chairlift and bent down to pick it up. I am not dextrous enough to pull this off, so I fell onto the ground and one of my skis popped off. I was flustered and tried to get out of the way (as if the chairlift would keep going with a pole and ski in the way). In my attempt to get out of the way, I put myself directly in front of the oncoming chair about to turn the corner. As I collided with the chair, everyone in line gasped. The collective gasp cannot be confirmed because MM was alone on the lift at this point and didn’t even see me get body-checked. The operator stopped the lift, grabbed my ski, and had me follow him to the side. Luckily he didn’t ask “are you okay?” For some reason, those three words always make me want to set myself on fire when I’m hurt or embarrassed. MM continued up the mountain while I tried to put my other ski back on, a process which took me a very long time. Eventually, I merged my way back into the queue and met MM at the top of the mountain. I wanted to disappear. I was wearing a purple jacket. I’m sure EVERYONE was thinking about what a loser I am.
I kept thinking “this should NOT have happened.” This sort of thing happens to schmucks who have never skied before. Not someone at my level! What level is that you say? Well, I am only now realizing that just because you were once good at something, doesn’t mean you will always be good at something.
I did not “grow up on the mountain” but I did learn to ski when I was fairly young. When I first learned to ski, I refused to use poles and chose to “gun it” straight down the mountain. I felt very confident in my abilities but maybe it was just the hubris of youth. So I still don’t know how to properly incorporate poles when I ski. I switched to snowboarding in middle school because skiing wasn’t “cool.” But I never improved my snowboarding skills because I would only go to the slopes once a year at best. Falling while snowboarding was allowed because it was much harder. But falling while skiing was unacceptable. You have two skis! One for each leg! **If you couldn’t stay upright skiing, you shouldn’t even be on the mountain.** I continued to snowboard sporadically throughout high school except for one ski session my senior year in 2010 which was great. I was even going off little jumps in the terrain park area. I didn’t make it to the mountains at all during college.
In 2016, I went skiing with some friends. I thought I would be able to hold my own. I was a decent skier, wasn’t I? I was not. I don’t know if the skis I rented were too long because I had overestimated my abilities, or I just was never that great of a skier to begin with, but the experience was brutal. I told my friends to ski on without me and I white knuckled through the day alone, falling a lot. I wouldn’t ski again for another 6 years. What had happened to me? **Something that used to be intuitive was now completely foreign and difficult. It was demoralizing.**
I took a ski lesson last year and suddenly it all felt second nature again. Maybe 2016 was a fluke and I was always capable? I was a decent skier! Until I got hit by a chairlift yesterday. Why do the lows sting so much more and stick around to haunt you?
I ended up skiing a few more runs after my collision yesterday but I couldn’t stop telling myself that this “should not” have happened TO ME. I was better than that. I did not make a fool of myself on the slopes. I am athletic! I can get on and off chairlifts with ease! Apparently not.
I went to therapy on Monday and received a handout on “cognitive distortions” and “10 ways to untwist your thinking.” Black-and-white thinking is a cognitive distortion and a solution would be to see things in “shades of grey.” So instead of labeling things “good or bad” (another distortion), I can give something a score from 0-100 to see that things are not so extreme. I had a lovely time skiing. My embarrassment was 10 minutes of the day. So I would still give the experience 85/100. 85. That number is surprisingly high for a day including a HUGE EMBARRASSMENT. Another way to untwist is to “define terms” like “loser.” This one doesn't seem too hard for me. Anytime I make a mistake, I am a loser. A loser is someone who drops their ski pole, bends down to pick it up, falls off the chair, then gets bowled over by another chair. So maybe that solution isn’t as helpful for me.
In the past, my perfectionism has been kind of a defense mechanism. Keeping me safe by avoiding anything that I wasn’t immediately good at. These past few days have helped me see what a handicap this tendency has been. Being a perfectionist doesn’t simply mean “I hold myself to high standards.” I can’t use it to feel superior even though the term has the word “perfect” in it. This lens is causing me considerable pain. It’s blocking me so much. It’s keeping me stuck.
I started going to therapy because I want to move from awareness to action. I am tired of knowing my limiting beliefs but doing nothing to change them, refusing to act differently. My therapist said I didn’t have to practice any solution this week, just to identify when I was using distorted thinking. I rolled my eyes at this. I am aware of my flaws - I need help FIXING them, not noticing them. But my skiing mishap has helped me have more compassion for myself. I am noticing that by replaying my embarrassment, I am re-shaming myself instead of moving on. By dwelling on the negative, I am perpetuating a fleeting moment and letting it live rent-free in my mind as evidence supporting the theory that I am a loser.
My ultimate goal of therapy is to improve my self-worth and I know holding on to “failures” (or simple mistakes as normal people with higher self-worth might call them), is in direct conflict with this goal. This week, the noticing does feel different. Being able to categorize my thinking and knowing that I am actively not practicing the solution feels gross. I used to be “aware” of my issues but now they are staring at me on a piece of paper on the dining room table. Reminding me that I have a choice. I can continue to collect evidence as to why I am a huge loser. Or I can let it go and move on. It was still an 85-day! Was it an embarrassing moment? Yes, but it was temporary, ephemeral. None of my friends witnessed it. But if I continue to hold my embarrassments close and tend to them like little flowers, they will grow.
My husband says I tend to embellish. Maybe no one gasped. I know deep down that no one cared. Why should I? I’m a decent skier. I just dropped my pole at a bad time. It’s okay.
I’m often reminded of a quote from the HBO documentary on Nora Ephron, “Everything Is Copy,” made by Nora’s son (which is excellent, you should go watch it right now). In it, he says “I now believe that what my mother meant was this: When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's you're a laugh, so you become a hero rather than the victim of the joke.”
Yesterday, I was hit by a chair lift. I’m telling you not so much to get a laugh but to acknowledge that if I keep it bottled up, it will hold more power over me than I’d like it to. Yes, it happened, but today, I’m ready to let it go.