Aha!

[kayre]

A few weeks ago I posted about how I love to bake, but my husband and daughter used to subtly talk me out of it (thankfully, both have now stopped and daughter has become a positive encourager, plus I've gotten better at ignoring them when they slip). Anyway, cellio asked me why I thought they did that, and I've been pondering it ever since. I had an intuitive understanding of it but couldn't find words, until we were watching an obstacle course competition (Ultimate Beastmaster) and a contestant froze when facing a long jump between obstacles about 8 feet above water. For more than a minute he wavered, setting up and then pulling back. Eventually he made the jump successfully, though he fell on the next.

I immediately flashed back to one of the rites of passage of my childhood-- jumping off the high diving board at the neighborhood pool (10 feet, I believe). When a kid climbed up that ladder for the first time, a little ripple of reaction would go around that end of the pool, and folks would start cheering-- you can do it! just jump! it'll be fine! But if the child froze, the shouts would turn to-- it's okay! you don't have to, you can come back down! And of course sometimes that was the right reaction; no need for a child to traumatize themselves over that kind of a jump, and we kids didn't torment anyone who backed down.

It's a feeling a lot like stage fright, another form of performance anxiety. As a musician I've long since learned to deal with that. I spent some time consciously learning to play well despite nerves, and of course that naturally made the nerves mostly go away. I still feel nervous before a performance in a new venue, or premiering a difficult piece, but I know how to get through it.

I think there's something like that performance anxiety, like taking that jump off the high board, at the beginning of any project or new endeavor with any element of risk. My daughter and especially my husband have a tough time with that; they are likely to spend a long time at the end of the board, and even back down a few times. And I think they project that onto me re my baking (and some other projects)-- and they jump to that "it's okay, honey, you can climb back down" reaction when I'm actually ready to jump.

Comments

[cellio]

Oh, interesting! So you probably have less performance anxiety than most (because of all the practice you get), or at least you push through it. They, on the other hand, have memories of being on the high dive and don't have lots of experience pushing through it, so their *own* instinct is to back down, and they project. Huh. Now that you say it, that makes a lot of sense -- we humans tend to assume, unless challenged or we work to overcome it, that other people are like us.

[amaebi]

Ahhhhhhh! That's very interesting!