I used to be hugely intimidated by bumper cars as a little girl. Not a phobia or repulsion, or even a disinterest, because I was also most definitely attracted to them and wanted desperately to drive one. I remember as a child going to the state fair and amusement parks with my seemingly more care-free older brother and younger sister, and they would always go to the bumper cars and drive them at least two or three times. I would watch them go and have so much fun driving and bumping into one another, laughing their heads off. And of course every time they would always ask me to join them too, but for whatever reason I was just too scared to try for what I remember to be a very long time. Instead, I would just watch them from the side trying to understand/analyze how bumper cars worked so that perhaps one day I would feel like it was something I could figure out and do to.
When I finally mustered up the courage to try, it was actually a pretty traumatizing experience because I just couldn’t make my car work. I would try and timidly press down on the pedal, and then the car would jerk violently back and forth, going no where, so I would quickly take my foot off the pedal. I would try again, in the same manner, again making the car jerk back and forth, not running smoothly so that I could drive forward or backward; again, I would quickly take my foot off the pedal, feeling more and more discouraged each time. Then I would get hit by other cars, of course, which were all up and running smoothly as expected. I wondered if my car was defective. But then in the previous rounds that I had carefully studied, there had been no defective cars…so, I would think then that maybe I was defective, that driving a bumper car simply wasn’t a skill or talent I could master, that enjoying bumper cars simply wasn’t in the stars for a girl like me. Needless to say, I was back on the sidelines watching for a significant period of time before I would dare to try again.
When I did finally try, however, I was ready now to ask my older brother for help. He got in a car close to the one I was in, and before driving off when the cars turned on, he drove over to me and pointed out which pedal I needed to press to move forward. (I believe one pedal went forward, and one backward). I proceeded to press down timidly as I had the first time, and immediately started feeling discouragement and dread creep up as the car started jerking like it had before. But then my brother instructed me to press my foot “all the way down.”
Once I pressed my foot all the way down, instead of taking it off the pedal when I felt the car jerk, to my delight the car moved quickly and smoothly forward, and then stopped only when I removed my foot. I then tried the other pedal, also pressing all the way down, and mastered driving my bumper car backwards. Then I happily proceeded to chasing after my brother and sister, no longer minding getting bumped along the way because now I new how to return the bumps.
Thanks to my brother taking the time to reveal the secret of driving a bumper car — which really wasn’t much of a “secret” after all, but for whatever reason was something I couldn’t quite figure out on my own — I was now in the game! =)
As I shared earlier, the past two weekends (Friday evenings, and all-day Saturdays), my husband and I attended an Issue-focused Inner Healing Training Seminar with our Church. As I mentioned previously, part of this training involved filling out an application for one of my own issues, so that one of the other participants could “practice” on me (while I practiced on someone else).
The issue I decided to tackle was remaining feelings of self-consciousness that cause me to experience inhibition in creativity, in things such as writing, singing, dancing, and art (like painting, drawing etc.).
My experience with bumper cars came to mind during my sharing with the person assigned to minister to me, as an illustration of how I see my feelings of self-consciousness and inhibition as limiting in my life. It is something I can live with because it doesn’t prevent me from being able to carry out my day to day responsibilities, but it definitely sidelines me and keeps me out of the game in certain areas of life that God seems to have put on my heart, and that perhaps He needs me to grow in in order to step up into more of my destiny and potential in life.
I have held judgments about myself in regards to these more artistic/creative pursuits in life, that they were not “as important” for someone like me as other things I judged to be more necessary/practical uses of my time and energy — not because I don’t see the value in such pursuits for people who are clearly super gifted and talented artistically, but because I don’t see/label myself as an “artist.” I’ve always thought that my lot in life was always more about academics, or ministry, or helping to encourage other people pursue their dreams, to fill in significant gaps/holes I see that perhaps other people do not see or do not care to fill.
And because of that, I never gave myself permission to invest any significant time, energy, money or even thought into these areas of my life. I could have ideas or inklings of wishing I could do this or that better, but felt too self-conscious to ever really fully “try” for fear of feeling or looking stupid or foolish. And because I felt too self-conscious to ever really fully “try,” like I couldn’t ever totally put myself out there or my whole heart into trying, I felt like it was better to not try at all than to try half- or quarter- hearted, in case others would see and judge me without the grace I would need if I ever hoped to overcome my self-consciousness and inhibition.
I realize now, however, that I can choose to try to dabble in this or that, in the safety of my home and in the safety of my community, and as I grow comfortable enough (one step at a time), I can start reaching out to people who I recognize as amazingly skilled and talented in different areas and invite their input, to ask for help to try and see if I could become better at things I’d like to learn and improve upon. And that even if I can’t, it’s okay =)
I believe that it is for a reason that God has given me some room in my life at least in this particular season to try out different things, even if it’s just for the fun of it. As I’m obedient in taking steps of faith in these areas, I feel like He will use this to break off any inhibitions that perhaps hold me back from making a bigger difference in whatever areas He has and is calling me to eventually tackle and take down.