It's Going to Hurt

I took my 2-year old daughter, Olive, to a lab the other day to have some blood drawn for some standard testing.  As soon as we walked in the smell of latex gloves, alcohol swabs and the universal smell of sterility made my anxiety rise (even though I was not going to be stuck with any needles).

The phlebotomist brought us back, sat us down and began looking for a vein on Olive’s little arm.  It would be at this point (if it were me getting poked) that the panic would swell – “It’s going to hurt” would be the background noise in my mind.  Olive simply watched on as the technician  prepped the area and then inserted the needle.  She needed to do this twice to get into the vein.  Olive just observed.  She was finished shortly thereafter and Olive got her cartoon bandage and it was at that point Olive calmly stated, “It hurt”. We left and went to the pool and that was the end of it.

It occurred to me through this experience that I may be going into many experiences with a pre-conceived notion of whether it will be hard or easy, or painful or pleasant.   How often have I avoided an experience because “It is going to hurt.”  I thought about it after leaving the blood lab: does it hurt to have my blood drawn?  I can’t even be sure, in truth; I am too distracted by my predetermined angst to be present to the actual experience. 

I thought about how I have avoided going to a spinning class because “It was going to hurt” or "be too hard".  I thought about how long it took me to adhere to an evening food curfew out of fears and assumptions of it being too difficult.   I decided to go to my first spinning class this week.  It was like jumping off the diving board for the first time – it wasn’t that scary or too hard and it was so empowering to have done the thing that scared me.  There were moments when indeed it was challenging and “hard”.  But I took a lesson from Olive and decided that I would get out of my own way and simply observe the pain (or pleasure for that matter) as it came.  Nothing to be gained from anticipating hurt - just jump into the thing you have been avoiding and let yourself feel.