A Journey of Courage
By: Lisa Dwight
Tags: Resilience, Courage, Parenting, Networking, Anxiety

My 4-year-old daughter, Ella had swimming lessons in preparation for the upcoming summer pool season. She had been really scared of going under water and “not be able to breathe,” as she would say. Needless to say, she was not thrilled about the impending lessons. So her dad and I did everything we could to prepare her and calm her nerves. My life motto with my daughter is “Have Courage and Be Kind.” So we would encourage her by saying things like “You’re going to have courage and be brave. The teacher is going to be with you the whole time. We won’t let anything happen to you. Courage, courage, courage.”

So the week of swimming lessons arrived and we were finally in a place where she was no longer entering into toddler-meltdown oblivion at the mere mention of it. We got her a shiny new mermaid swimsuit and beach towel. She had her little beach bag with a crab and other miscellaneous sea creatures on it. She actually seemed somewhat excited. So we get there, and it’s time for her to go with the teacher and begin the lesson. The parents, much to our chagrin, are instructed to go off to the side, and in my head I immediately start chanting, “Please don’t freak out, please don’t freak out. For the love of God, please don’t freak out.” And what does our extremely well prepped, easy-going, wonderful dear daughter do? She freaks…the f*ck…out. I mean, full on meltdown, complete with pleading for parental rescue and necessary physical restraint from the swim instructor.

Parents, we’ve all been there, or at least I hope I’m not alone in experiencing this horror. You are forced to deny your child the safe comfort of your loving arms, and instead endure the gut-wrenching obligation to walk away and let them find the courage that you have so diligently been training them to find. So walk away we did. And I’m not going to lie, that first lesson was rough. She cried for the first half of it. On the way home, she was noticeably run down from not only the physical exertion, but also the accompanying mental anguish. But the second day was much better. There were no tears, and dare I say she appeared to be enjoying herself, ever-so-slightly. By the third day, she was making definite swimming progress, and I could say with cautious certainty that she was indeed enjoying herself.

On the way home that third day, I asked her how she felt about the lesson. She paused, long enough for me to look in the rear-view mirror wondering about the cause of said pause, and I was lucky enough to see and hear her say, ”I’m a little scared…but I can do it!” Hearing her say those words took my breath away. It was one of those rare moments as a parent where you feel like you may, just MAY, be doing something right. The reason my life motto with her includes “have courage,” is because for me, those four little words, “I can do it” did not come out of my mouth very often growing up.

I grew up with, and suffer from anxiety disorder. Situations that are new to me, social events where I don’t know anyone, for me, are like swimming lessons when I’m afraid of not being able to breathe. Simple things, like new parking conditions, cause my anxiety to spike….”Parking lot A? I’ve never heard of parking lot A! Where the hell is parking lot A? Is parking lot A more expensive than parking lot B, because I only have enough cash for the standard parking lot B amount and the last time I went to parking lot B, the credit card machine was broken and the attendant was MIA…etc., etc.” Let’s just say, it’s an issue.

My mother also has severe anxiety, with depression and an eating disorder thrown in — the perfect trifecta of mental illness dysfunction, if you will. This type of behavior, avoiding situations that would cause any amount of anxiety, is what I grew up with, it’s all I knew. But I also knew it was no way to live. So when my daughter was born, I made a commitment to myself and to her, that I would not let this cycle continue. It’s okay to have anxiety, it’s not okay to let it hold you back in life. Unfortunately, that was a lesson that took me over 37 years to learn and begin to implement, but having children has a way of opening your eyes and handing you a giant perspective sandwich. So about four years ago, not long after my daughter was born, I challenged myself by joining the first networking organization I had ever joined in my then, 15-year marketing career. And I never would have imagined that just a few years later I would be saying what I’m about to say….Last year, I completed a record-setting year as president of that organization, which I believe also catapulted me into being chosen as part of Leadership Greenville Class 45, to acting as project team lead in supporting a project to benefit the local soup kitchen, and to being elected by my peers as the Class Representative. All of that has taken a conscious effort to ignore the anxiety that encourages me to hop on the next train out of each new experience, and instead, choose courage as a less comfortable, but more valiant mode of transportation.

When I told Ella that I got Class Representative of my Leadership Greenville class, her reaction was as if she knew exactly what the role meant and entailed. She gasped in excitement and said with a level of enthusiasm only a 4-year-old can deliver with believable sincerity, “Congratulations mom!…I’m SO proud of you”!

I hope that when my daughter grows up and understands what it means to actually be proud, that she will look back at what I’ve accomplished and be truly proud of me. That she will recognize that my choice when she was born — to stop living in fear, to start choosing courage over comfort, choosing bravery over anxiety, choosing to get in the swimming pool despite the fear — resulted in great reward. Because…I may be a little scared, but I can do it.