"But When You Get There, You are A Lion"

On "Pre-feeling" and Actual Doing

Hello ♡,

I am fresh off a weekend of many things I look forward to sharing with you in the near future!

But for this week, I wonder what you feel about pre-feeling and pre-fearing (all the feelings you might stew in when worrying BEFORE something) - and who you are when you are actually IN the thing you worried about and dreaded.

Very often we sink the mud of our different worries, anxieties, and dread about something before it even happens. It can be as small as a coffee date we regret setting, or as large as a surgery. Either way, we may often find ourselves folding in on ourselves, feeling like a stack of cards with no solid courage at the center. This kind of “pre-feeling” usually has a predictable narrative: this will suck, you will struggle, it will be awful, you can’t handle this, this is too much, it’s too hard for you, and whatever other worries you have for that thing.

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash

My favorite definition of anxiety by Sissy Goff always comes to mind when I think about pre-feeling, and it is:

“Anxiety is an overestimation of the problem, and an underestimation of yourself.”

This definition applies to any pre-feeling, dread, or worry that you may or may not want to classify as anxiety. We are stuck in the mud of our feelings before an event often because of the particularly potent combination of overestimating the problem in comparison to how we are underestimating ourselves. This sounds like, “I can’t do this,” “This is too much for me,” “I am not up to this.”

It is essential we don’t take the perhaps familiar route of invalidating how hard something is for us, even if it is just a coffee date we dread. Learning to stop overestimating the problem does not mean invalidating your feelings. It is just a matter of proportions. “Sure this thing is big and difficult for me this week, but it is not a difficulty I am incapable of.”

And so, it is essential we learn to stop underestimating ourselves. In my counseling work this is what I see so often as a a courage depleter. It isn’t that we’re unwilling to do hard things, it is often that we don’t think we are capable.

Recently when someone that knows me well said to me, “I know you are dreading this right now and overwhelmed, and don’t feel like you can do it. But when you get there, you are a lion,” it summed this whole thing up for me. I was stuck in my fear, unsure I could handle this thing, and that person reminded me of who they know I am when I am IN the thing. And that gave me courage to walk out on trust that I could handle it. And you know what? I did.

Photo by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash

So, here is what I am proposing for us today - Who are you when you are IN it? I am not asking who you fear you are before it. Who are you when you are actually in it?

I imagine you are a lion too, or your own version of a lion. When you are understandably stuck in your pre-feeling, fearing you can’t do the thing, remember who you were last time you were IN a thing you dreaded. Remember how you showed up and who you were when you handled a hard thing. Maybe it was caring for someone sick, maybe it was running a marathon, maybe it was bravely telling someone something, maybe it was quitting something or someone, maybe it was saying no, maybe it was being yourself when you wouldn’t have before, maybe it was just a hard week.

Who are you when you are IN the thing?

My guess is you are a lion.

Photo by Jorge Coromina on Unsplash

And the key is not to invalidate your hard thing, but to remember who you truly are.

With you,

Monica