Have you ever had a situation where what you feared about a thing was so much worse than it actually was? Like you made up stories in your head about how bad it was going to be? You thought up of all the worst case scenarios and just dreaded doing that thing you knew you had to do?
I sort of had a similar thing happen with me this week, except it wasn’t me, it was a person coming in to see me.
I got a call for a person scheduling a visit for her mother. She told me that her mom hasn’t been hearing for such a long time and has gotten to the point where she was isolating herself because she lacked confidence holding a conversation (hearing and responding appropriately). She also mentioned that her mom had a bad experience ten years ago (with a hearing provider/hearing aid) and was worried she’d have a repeat experience. Well, on the day of their visit, we were able to evaluate her mom’s hearing and communication needs and we discussed the appropriate solutions, with a follow up hearing aid fitting scheduled.
That was a few days ago.
I received an email message today thanking me for the ease in the process, and that they’d both imagined it would be more difficult than it actually was.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
Sometimes we psyche ourselves out of doing the thing we need to do because we imagine it will be so much worse than it actually is. We make up stories in our minds about failing at it. We think about all the things that go wrong and essentially self-sabotage ourselves from taking chances, taking care of our bodies, trying new things, stepping out of our comfort zone, and being all that we can be. Sometimes, the hardest thing about all of it is taking the first step, but once we take that step and do the thing with the fear, we realize it is not so hard and that the stories we made up about it simply weren’t true.
This mom and her daughter had the most vibrant, beautiful personalities. Once we started talking, I got to know how full of life this person was, and how much not hearing well for all these years might have affected her outgoing nature. She is giving herself a chance to hear and communicate well again, and I am just so excited to walk the path with her, and watch her get back to the person was and will continue being, fully.
“Feel the fear, do it anyway.”