OMG Magazine | Thursday 26th September, 2013 • PAGE 7
If you’re not willing to risk, then you’re not really willing to gain Holly Sidell
I was lying in bed this morning, waking up next to a man who I am beginning to build a relationship with. I’ve been really happy. We’re remarkably compatible on every level. And I
feel safe with him. I’ve been opening up more than I ever have with a man. I am vulnerable, I am honest. But this morning, I panic. We talked last night about former lovers, and what we’ve learned from them, and the heartache, etc. So I woke up this morning and Fort Knox had literally been built up around my heart. Commence walls up. Why would I want to put myself through this again? Why would I want to be completely vulnerable to another person and completely surrender to the joy and possibilities of love when it may just end, like most relationships do, with heartache? Seriously. What’s the point? From talking to my friends, my clients, my family, and just the general population, it would seem this scenario is familiar. We all (or, well, most of us) want a partner to share our lives with. A teammate, a lover, someone who has our back no matter what, someone that we can just be unconditionally accepted and supported by, and who we unconditionally accept and support. Yet, in order to get there, we have to risk. We have to risk completely trusting and opening ourselves up. We can never have this kind of relationship until we do. It’s ironic because we want it so badly, yet at the same time, our survival mode automatically kicks in and we want to also protect ourselves just as badly, if not more. This is also a good point to remember because whoever you are in a relationship with is dealing with their own version of this. My shutting down from him this morning had nothing to do with me not wanting to be with him, but had everything to do with me and my own fears. We all have to get to our own place with this. We’ve all had different levels of hurt, betrayal, and heartbreak. But for me, for the first time, I am at a place where I am choosing to tell the
Scientists discover one of the greatest contributing factors to happiness — You’ll thank me later Who would have thought that such a simple action can have such a profound effect on the level of happiness in our lives? Catch the setup in the first 30 seconds, the beauty of the experiment unfolding, the perfect moment at 4:25 that had me a bit choked up, and the best takeaway from it all at 6:25.
The Science of Happiness An Experiment in Gratitude -
fears and the walls to F-OFF. I’m over it. For me, the risk of being vulnerable far outweighs the risk of being safe and mediocre anymore. The fears and walls of course come up, and will probably continue to come up. But it’s what I do with them... They come up, I feel them, I hear them, but I am choosing to breathe through them. I am choosing to be honest with the man I am dating and tell him how frigging scared I am instead of just shutting down. You see, all of these things in our lives are a choice. We can choose to do things differently and make choices that go against our inherent triggered reactions that are really just protection mechanisms. And what are these protection mechanisms, really? Someone hurt us once maybe a parent, a sibling, a romantic partner, and we decide that we never will be hurt or abandoned like that again, so we create our own protection against something that is not even real!! We put up a block that can potentially keep joy and love out of our lives because one person hurt us one time. OK, so maybe lots of people hurt us lots of times... But if we continue with that wall, then we will never get to experience the joy. Ever. I am choosing to move forward so that I can have the opportunity to see if I can experience the kind of relationship I know I am capable of where I am willing to risk, to lose. Because if we’re not willing to risk or lose then, think about it, we’re not really willing to gain. I don’t want to just cruise on autopilot and have a “comfortable” life and experience. Nothing in life is a guarantee. So why not choose to ride out the journey at your top game? So next time you feel your own walls come up, you feel yourself starting to shut down, see it and observe it, and just breathe into it. And CHOOSE to not indulge it. CHOOSE to do it differently. Because it IS a choice. And choosing to feel the fear and do it anyways? That’s where the magic is. That’s what life’s about.