Identifying the experience That Holds You Back From Living the Life You Want to Live

This is a personal story about identifying experiences that lead to self-sabotage.  I have been soul searching for for many years.  I love soul searching because the process opens my heart in so many different ways.  I am able to identify past hurts, let them go, and embrace the newness of shedding yet another layer of the emotional onion.

I was talking with a good friend a while back about my quest to identify what is holding me back from the kind of success I would like to experience.  I explained to her that I had always been very successful in my work.  I had always worked hard to learn and master the art of moving up the success ladder.  But there is something, I explained, that is holding me back.  I always got to certain point where I was doing really well and then I would back off or just stop.  I couldn’t figure out why.  If I was doing so well, why in the world wouldn’t I climb higher?  I love climbing higher, I told her.  And she asked me if it was always like that for me or did I have some experience early on, as in my childhood, where I quit something I really loved.

As soon as she asked that question, I knew the answer.  So I told her the story.  I was just 14 years old and been dedicated to developing my gymnastic skills for about 5 years.  My father bought me a balance beam when I was young and I practiced handstands every single day.  I loved my beam.  My family moved to California where my parents put me in a gymnastics club so I could harness my skills and compete.  All was well for quite some time until one day my coach asked me to come in his office to talk about my talent.  He had a couch in his office that sat across from his desk.  He locked the door behind us.

I sat on the couch very nervous and he sat behind his desk.  I knew instinctively something was wrong because he had never invited me to his office before.  As he sat there talking to me about how much I had grown and how pretty I was becoming, I cringed and could not really hear a word after that.  I noticed he was shuffling behind his desk.  I was scared.  I wasn’t quite sure of what, but I knew this was not normal behavior.  I got up and walked quickly over to the door, explaining that I had to go because my mother was waiting for me.  The door was locked and I could not open it.

He got up and was completely nude from the waste down.  Needless to say, I was freaked out, ready to cry.  He quickly put some shorts on explaining that he was just sweaty and needed to change.  He opened the door for me and I rode my bike 5 miles home that day and ran right into my mothers arms hysterical.  Naturally, she was fuming.  This was 1979-1980 and there was not as much awareness about sexual abuse back then.  My mother decided not to tell my father because she was afraid that my father would go right down to the gym and kill my coach.   So my mother went down and had a few choice words with the coach.

None of this ever got out.  The next day the elite coach invited me to join his team.  He said I was ready.  And since all I cared about was gymnastics, I joined.  My mother came to all of my practices and watched my every move.  But I was unsettled.  I couldn’t focus.  Here I was being groomed to be an elite gymnast and I was frozen, unable to perform.  It was torture.  And although my new coach, who knew nothing, tried to encourage me and push me to new levels, I couldn’t and decided it was time to quit.

For many years I worked very hard to succeed only to sabotage myself right before I reached the top.  I would just beat myself up all over the place wondering why I couldn’t move past a certain point.  As I told my friend this story, she was able to help me identify why I had been sabotaging myself.  Since then I have been able to let it go and break through the glass ceiling.  I still get nervous at the break point, but know what it is and I let it go and allow myself to move forward knowing that one experience need no longer hold me back.

*Thank you Rachel for helping me move forward in my life so that I am able to help others do the same.*