Do you have a favorite amusement park ride?
I used to love roller coasters. Not the huge monster drop and short ride ones but the older, more traditionally designed ones. It always amused me how much I enjoyed roller coasters but got motion sick in cars. I think it was the adrenaline rush and the flow of fresh air on my face.
When I was teaching Physical Science, one of my and my students’ favorite physics units was designing model roller coasters. Roller coasters are a great way to learn the laws of physics. In my classroom, the only energy available to move the car comes from the design of the track. The initial first and steepest drop creates the kinetic energy for the vehicle to travel the rest of the ups, downs, and turns. Ideally, the design gets the car to the end of the track, ending the ride. To ride again, the vehicle needs to start back at the first and steepest drop.
There’s a lesson in friction here, too, but I’ll get to that another time.
I have thought my life was similar to a roller coaster’s ups, downs, twists, turns, and new starts.
I was wrong.
To be fair, there are definitely times when this was and is an accurate and great descriptor. But, as I have been putting in the work to learn, unearth, and evolve, I have come to realize that, more accurately, I have been on a merry-go-round. Going round and round, up and down, with no specific start or end location, riding the same ride. Just up and down and round and round. Revolving and therefore not able to fully evolve.
Huge Ah-Ha moment for me.
There is comfort and a false sense of safety in familiar and established patterns and behaviors. Fear of the unknown and unfamiliar can stop you in your tracks, interrupting forward movement. The easier solution reduces the risk of failure, keeping you stuck in place. This is especially true if you are a recovering people-pleasing nurturer like me.
But then, something happens that would have fallen in line with established patterns and response behavior in the past. But, this time, it finally hits and pushes the awareness door the rest of the way open.
I can give myself grace, compassion, and love as I work through the process of understanding that I have kept myself on the merry-go-round I’ll call my past history. Oh, I have changed the ride by switching carousel horses and even moving towards exiting the ride. But, I finally realized I’d kept one hand on a pole, keeping myself on the ride. Going up and down, round and round.
That something that hit my awareness door fully open happened to me not too long ago. It was a defining moment, a delineation of my past. My choice, now, was to either remain in past patterns or walk through the door opened to all the possibilities for my future, my life.
Finally, I am getting off the merry-go-round. I am ready to choose myself fully, even though it scares the crap out of me.
If you envision your life as riding a roller coaster, I invite you to take some self-nurturing time and figure out if you are on a roller coaster or a merry-go-round. I assure you, it will be time well spent.
