Trusting Myself, and then Trusting Myself More

...Knowing when to not think. 

As the title of this blog states, life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  I have really made this my mission the last ten months - constantly doing things that I had never done before: things that I thought I wasn't able to do and that scared me.  From hanging up flyers for my English lessons to running an improvisational comedy troupe in Spanish, I have really impressed myself with what I am able to build if I believe in myself and stop thinking so much.  Stop thinking about the what if's.  The what if nobody comes.  The what if I don't know what to say.  The what if I fail. 

And what IF I fail?  When I look back on all of the events so far in my life... I don't think I can think of even one that I would say was a failure.  I think the truth is there is no such thing.  It is just an idea... a scary idea... but not a reality.  Things often don't go as one had planned.  You loose your work or a class goes super poorly, but none of that is failure.  It is all just an experience from which to learn and move forward, that much stronger and more ready than before. 

I have talked a lot about the emotional and intellectual comfort zone, but not much about the physical. 

"Why not do something that scares me like hanging upside-down  from ribbons in the Manuel Antonio community center?"  This was more or less my thought yesterday as I decided to get on the bus for aerial dance class.  In that moment of commitment, I put aside the thoughts in my head saying that I wasn't strong enough or skilled enough to do something like that.  I thought, "well, I can always just watch the class..."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Watching the class was not an option, because I WAS the class.  There we were, Vane and I, running around the dirty fake grass of the indoor soccer field, putting up the dusty ladder to let down the ribbons.  The next thing I knew, I was doing somersaults and handstands against the wall.  I must say that I had been afraid of doing somersaults and handstands for a long time.  Whenever we did them in yoga, I kind of "half tried" and the other half held back.  My mind told me, "It's ok... you just aren't built to do these things. Maybe one day you'll work up to it" and other things of that sort. I thought I was just being kind to myself...

But, yesterday.... I did them. "Stop thinking. It is your mind that is stopping you," says Vane as I flail around.. kicking my legs up towards the wall... crumpling to the floor.  

"Don't look down at the ground.  Change your focus. Use your momentum to keep going.  Go faster.  No thinking."  There was no option but to do it.  She wasn't going to allow me to give up on myself.  And this was exactly what I needed.  It turns out, I could do these things.  The "maybe I will work up to it someday" became today. 

"Trust yourself.  Ok, now trust yourself more."

From the warm-up, that was already beyond what I thought I could accomplish, we moved to the ribbons.  The mind out of the way, I was ready to do whatever crazy task was ahead.  I mean, I had already done at least three things I thought I couldn't do.  And I had a teacher by my side that believed in me.  A belief that wasn't like a "I think you can do it" but more like a "you already did it... you just haven't experienced it yet."

So, up we went.  Climbing, tying ourselves in knots, flipping upside-down.  In moments where my hands felt like they were slipping and I was about to flip back over and come down, there was Vane saying, "Trust yourself.  Ok, now trust yourself more.  When you think you can't hold on anymore, hold on one breath longer."   It is true.  I held on that one breath longer and I was still ok.  I was still in the air. 

As you can probably already tell, these words and these experiences apply to a lot more than aerial dance.  These are ideas by which one can live life. 

Dance teachers can be such wise people and I've been blessed to have had some really excellent ones.  Ones that not only believe in me, but help me to realize how much I believe in myself.