When I was in gymnastics we had some really challenging tricks we did on every event. To most people the beam seemed the scariest. Doing flips on a 4 inch wide beam, 4 feet above the ground was the easiest to comprehend. But what I find funny is that why we were able to do this crazy tricks on the beam, we would trip walking on the floor and fall on the ground.
It was the joke of the gym. Gymnasts are some of the most clumsiest people I have ever met. I can’t tell you the sheer number of injuries I had, not from the hard stuff, but from walking. Thinking back I understand this a little more. Not why I tripped walking to another event but why I didn’t fall doing the hard stuff. I believe it was simply because I was prepared.
I was focused on what I needed to do when I needed to do it (during the trick). Walking from event to event, I wasn’t focused on walking as much as I was focused on getting to my destination. That was when I was looking to far ahead and not the next step.
It’s amazing to me the lessons we can learn from our past. IF we can get to a space of objectivity and grace. I used to call myself a dork, or dumb, or an idiot. But all that did was kick me when I was down. I never gave myself the opportunity to grow and learn from those mistakes. I created this unwritten rule that failure or tripping was not an option.
And this is why my therapist tells me, that I need to tell the little girl inside me to “shut up and back off”. I was mean to myself. I never allowed myself to have grace. Up until a year ago, I didn’t even really understand what that meant. Give yourself grace.
Do you know what the definition of the word grace is? Because I didn’t.
simple elegance or refinement of movement
