An Unexpected Lesson...

Did I tell yall the story about when my eight year old niece told me she was proud of me?

So check it…

We’re in Frankenmuth, right, and they have this new wall climbing and high ropes course.  Niece decides that she wants to do it…Of course Granny (my mom) is not going with her (lol) so I agree to do them with her.

Now, if you really, really know me, you know that heights and I have a challenging relationship. 

So we decide to start with the rock climbing wall. Now, me being the protective aunt that I am, I encouraged niece to go first (devil smile).

She goes, does pretty well, and then stops at certain height, unable to make it to the top of the wall.  Here I come, climbing the wall next to her, and I mess around and stop on my wall at the same point she stopped at on hers. We both make our way down.

So now we switch and get prepped for the high ropes. Niece is ready. She takes off before I even get completely strapped in. I’m like “Niece, hold on!”... Cuz where is she going without me?!

It’s like three levels to these high ropes.  We take the first level with no issues.  I even step out on this extended ledge and ring the bell.  So I’m like, cool I’m warmed up and ready.

We get to the second level and there’s a short zip line.  

Niece goes…I stand and watch…Mind you....the zip line zips across with nothing below it...but the main floor...no net...no soft landing...just floor. Up until this point, there had always been something under my feet to walk on, and sometimes even a net, a handle, etc. to hold on to (aside from the rope attached to my harness).

I decide to pass. Niece goes twice, then we move on to the third level.

Now…if I thought that first zip line was bad….BABY the THIRD LEVEL ZIP LINE!!!  I was second guessing everything! I mean you can literally look down and see DEATH! What we tryna do?!

Niece is like, “Come on Aunt Neé”….I’m like “Aunty gotta rethink this decision…I’m not ready”…At this point I’m contemplating whether I should be doing this at all at this big age!

Niece goes…Zip..no issues.  I start letting kids go past me..

They are literally floating across this zip line yall!  I could not move…

Then this little kid comes…and I do mean little (well as small as allowed on the course)...Bruh….No fear…..

I’m like, “If they can do it, I can do it”

I walk up to the attendant so he can prep me…

I look back, see other kids in line…I move right on out the way and let them go…

At this point, Niece has come back around…"Did you go Aunt Neé?" 

Why is she playing yall? She knows I’ve been stranded in this same spot for 15 minutes….

So Niece goes again…Floating….

And then…..This young kid comes with his dad.  The father heard me talking to the Attendant about being scared, turns to me, and goes, “You know, I’ve learned that, you just gotta trust the equipment.” Then he and his kid zip across. 

I’m like, simple…I can do this…just trust the equipment….

So I ask the Attendant if I can go backward…you know, what I can’t see won’t kill me, right?

So of course he says sure…I sit, backward, close my eyes…and trust the equipment..

I made it the other side. So now my niece is watching from across the way, “You did it!”

Yup!  And you know what….I went back and did it again…this time with my eyes open..

After, Niece and I went back to the rock climbing walls again…This time we both made it to the top!

She looked at me during our little water break and said, “You know what Aunt Neé, I’m proud of you.”

She has no idea how much she made me smile…

Moral of the story…this is how anxiety often works, at least for me. It's when the fear immobilizes me because I'm so aware of what’s in front of me that I get scared of what could happen, and my mind sees everything that could go wrong. So much so that I forget to trust the equipment that was built with the intent to protect me from every imaginable harm.  Consider me on the rope course. I'm strapped in a harness that is attached the course in such a way that I would have to literally cut the ropes in order to fall. And yet, when I got to the zip line, and didn't have anything under my feet to stand on, I became afraid. Not just because I didn't think the harness would hold me, but because I couldn't control where or how I would get across. My feet had no where to stand and I was forced to let the zip line take me across to the other side. I had no choice but to fully trust the equipment.

It can feel a bit uncertain at times when we don't have total control over our lives. And that uncertainty is reinforced when things do go wrong and our fears become reality. This is more of a reason why we walk by faith and not by sight. We can become discouraged by what we see, completely unaware of what is working in our favor behind the scenes. This is a perfect example of trusting the process. Manifestation requires faith, and faith requires courage. Sometimes you gotta close your eyes and just go for it….God got you….He won’t let you fall.