Check Your Gas Tank

A year or so after getting my motorcycle, I taught myself how to change the oil. It’s really no big deal if you’re at all mechanically inclined. But if, like me, you’re not, and if, like me, said motorcycle was the most expensive toy you’d ever bought for yourself, changing your own oil is  super scary.

The first time I rode my bike after changing the oil myself, I was hyper fixated on whether or not I’d screwed the filter on tight enough. I’d heard horror stories about them coming loose, creating an oil slick under the back tire causing people to slip and wreck.  

I kept listening through the roar of the air in my helmet for any sounds in the engine that would tell me something was off and it was about to seize.

In my mix of pride that I had done a hard thing (for me) and that it seemed to be working (!), I completely forgot to top off my gas tank, and so I ran out of gas a few miles shy of the closest gas station. 

This story reminds me of my client Kelly. She has been working with me for a little under a year, and has made great strides in terms of trusting her gut on things big and small in her life, not being a people pleaser, and especially in showing up with more of herself in romantic relationships.  

In a recent session with me, she beamed with pride as she told me she had done a hard thing (for her): she had broken up with the guy she was dating without having to seek out my counsel or the advice of her friends. 

I clapped and cheered because in the past she would have had multiple conversations with other people and an SOS coaching session with me about what she should do. 

Kelly was feeling so confident in her own knowing about her dating life, that she shared how she wanted to have one more conversation with an ex to get the closure she hadn’t gotten. Could we work through what she would say?

As I asked her what was important to her to convey to this ex, it became clear that she knew exactly what she wanted to say to him. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation—except when she thought about what her best friend would say about her talking to her ex. The best friend who had been there for all the ups and even more downs. The best friend who had said not over my dead body will I ever let you get back together with him again. 

Kelly knew she just needed to talk to her ex and that she would never get back together with him. She trusted her new set of skills around being kind to someone else while also being a stand for herself, but she was terrified that talking to her ex would put a rift in her relationship with her best friend because she didn’t know that Kelly had these new skills.

Time to show her, I said.

Kelly was so proud and nervous about how she was applying her new knowledge and tools romantically that she totally missed that she needed to bring the same attention and skill to a relationship she had always felt more comfortable in, the one with her best friend.

Sometimes we focus so much on how to change patterns in one relationship that we don’t see how those patterns show up and hold us back in other important relationships.

Or: once you  learn how to change your oil, you still need to keep tabs on your gas tank.

Try this: take a moment and think of relationships you are changing patterns in. Now ask yourself what other people in relationship with you  might not see that you’ve changed? Or might not like that you’ve changed? Do you have any fear about certain people knowing you in this new, changed way? 

As you get more true to yourself in one relationship there can be a domino effect that takes you by surprise and creates anxiety in new places.

Learning the tools to address discomfort and overcome anxiety in all of your relationships–personal or professional, lifelong or brand new–means that you know how to navigate being your whole self everywhere you go. That’s what I teach people how to do in my Yours Truly program. Check it out!