When I was learning how to downhill mountain bike, it was scary sometimes because when I picked up speed there were many obstacles that were threatening, required split second decision-making, and had potential to harm or injure me. My mentor taught me that one of the best techniques I could learn was with my eyes to see the trail and intentionally choose the line of where I wanted my tires to go. He taught me that while I should be aware of the obstacles like rocks, roots, and trees that the trail presented that I would be a much more successful mountain biker if I focused my eyes on where I wanted to go instead of focusing on the obstacles and hoping that I did not run into them.
In relationships, there is an element of uncertainty that we learn to live with not knowing exactly what will come next in our life’s path. Naturally we want to know where we are going, how long it will take to get there, whether or not we will we be safe and comfortable. Renown researcher, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, defines anxiety as the phenomenon that happens when there is “low skills and high challenge” and is inversely related to the state of relaxation where there is “high skills and low challenge.” Building enough skills to mountain bike relaxed brings an exhilarating sense of accomplishment and enjoyment. Developing enough skills to navigating the challenging terrain of relationships is fulfilling and this is skill you can develop:
See the good in your partner, and say the good things that you see all the time.
This skill helps things go right. There are challenges and obstacles that we cannot accurately anticipate, but if we can learn like a skilled mountain biker to put energy and focus on desired goals of where we want to go in our relationships and what is good instead of putting energies into thinking “please don’t hit that tree, please don’t hit that tree” and focusing on what we don’t want to do, our lives will be full of certainty that no matter the challenge that we will have the resources be able to navigate our way through it.
