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GrowYour Confidence
If you fall, get right back up
There’s an ice skating rink by my house. They drag it out the day after Halloween and try to make it last till Easter, which is always a joke. It covers a perfectly nice courtyard, and is ugly as sin. For days I bitch and moan about it, until the shrink in me has the urge to watch people skate. I’m not at all interested in the show-off skaters, who skate so fast, they command more than their share of ice. They execute their tricks with finesse. I hate them.
What do you do when you “fall“?— escape or stay?
The skaters I like are the ones who are hanging on by a thread. They wobble and reach for a friend, who are as unstable as they are. They cling to the railings with such desperation that it’s hard to believe they actually paid for the privilege.
And then, there are my favorites. The ones who fly, flop, land on their hands or their butts. The traffic of the rink stops briefly as the wounded warrior achieves some verticality. I wince at the fall itself. But as a therapist, I’m most interested in the getting up and the keeping going.
Who are the ones who look mortified, like no human being has ever fallen on the ice before? Who slithers and slinks off the ice, avoiding the encouragement of their parents to stick it out?
