Thoughts on "what if."
Living in a space of expectation and possibility (with a sprinkling of football).
Did you hear the news?
The Eagles won the Super Bowl!!!!
I know, I know. Most of you reading this newsletter probably care very little about football and might even be shocked to know how much I love the sport. (Although, if you saw my house on any given winter Sunday during my childhood, you would have seen my mother indoctrinating me with love and simultaneous frustration over the Eagles. It’s in my blood.)
Before you click out of this Substack for fear that I will wax on about Fangio or DeJean’s pick 6, know that the point of this newsletter is not about football or about winning the Super Bowl.
It’s not about the mountain top. It’s about the possibility, the anticipation that you might scale the mountain.
For the past two weeks, I’ve heard this question posed many times: “How are you feeling about the game?” I’ve asked the question, and I’ve been the recipient of the question. One of the answers I heard the most was:
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
What does it mean when you are approaching the possibility of something good, something exciting, but you’re “trying not to think about it?”
Usually, in my case, it means that I don’t want to think about it in case I’m disappointed with the result, so I’m essentially trying to prepare myself for a result that I don’t want.
I had my first panic attack in college. It came on suddenly, unexpectedly, while I was accompanying a choir performance at Temple University. I started sweating, my vision tunneled, and I felt like I was going to pass out on the piano bench. The lights were too hot; my hands moved on auto-pilot as my brain started spiraling potential outcomes–all negative. What if I passed out and fell off the bench? What if I couldn’t play anymore and the concert was ruined? What if? What if?
The panic attacks continued in frequency and intensity. Certain triggers emerged–getting stuck in traffic, going onstage to perform, driving over a bridge (another trait I inherited from my mother), and getting sick. I self-categorized as an anxious person.
I had anxiety.
I was sharing this with my friend Kat a couple of weeks ago in our hotel room at NAMM, and she looked shocked. “That does not sound like you at all.” She’s right. 39-year-old Sarah is a different woman. I don’t consider myself to be an anxious person anymore, and I don’t get panic attacks. I wrote about my fear of flying disappearing a year ago and have been labeled as “chill vibes” by my high school students. It’s not that I never get anxious or am perfectly optimistic all the time. It’s just not a major part of my story anymore.
How?
At some point, I think my brain started to see possibility and expectation as a beautiful thing, not a terrifying thing.
We are fed so many “what ifs” that lead us to prepare for the worst at all times. I don’t know about you, but preparing for the worst and sitting in anxiety spirals never actually helped me better deal with “the worsts” when they came.
So, instead of “what ifs” carrying doom and panic, could they carry hope and excitement?
Two weeks ago, it was “What if the Eagles actually win the Superbowl?!!” I let myself feel what that would feel like. I listened to sports radio. I watched YouTube videos. I hyped the kids. We made bracelets and necklaces and practiced the E-A-G-L-E-S fight chant. We weren’t “not thinking about it.” We WERE THINKING ABOUT IT, and it felt really good to think about something so big, so epic.
As I type this, I can’t help but notice how the feeling of actually winning wasn’t even as exciting as the anticipation of possibility.
Living in the space of “what could be possible?” is thrilling if we allow it to be so. Here are some of the “what ifs” I’ve had to reframe to keep going these past two years–
What if I quit my job and we have no benefits and my company fails and I send my family into financial ruin?
What if I quit my job and am able to grow this business to sustainability in a way that lives are changed and classrooms are impacted forever?
What if I fly all the way to California to pitch this curriculum project and I seem like I don’t know what I’m talking about and people think I’m a waste of time and money?
What if this project works and I get to collaborate with people I love to do cool things?
What if I never figure out the one thing I’m supposed to be doing?
What if I embrace the multiplicities of who I am and stop telling myself I have to be one thing? What if I see multiple passions as a gift, not a deficit?
What if I never get over my fear of flying?
What if I do?
What are your “what ifs” this week? How can we dream of what’s possible and not be burdened by spirals of impossibility?
Inspiration
🎧 Our book club book this month is The Measure, and I read it on the plane yesterday morning. There are aspects of the writing I don’t love, but the premise is so interesting and I did fall in love with some of the characters. Have you read it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
🎧 Ok, I am going to talk about football once more (and then I promised it’s back to arts and education and books!!). If I had to boil down all of what inspires me about this Eagles team into one word, it would be community. It was so cool to watch this group of athletes work together to truly embrace team: to literally block for each other for the good of the overall group, not personal gain or personal stats. I’ve been meditating on this concept– who am I blocking for? Who am I elevating and allowing to run past me because it’s their turn for a win?
Creative
🌟 I am excited to share that you can officially pre-save my song, “The Pines” that I recorded as part of the Liberti Arts initiative to support artists in our community! My friends Melissa, Chelsea, Kenan, and Josh all collaborated on the track and I’m so, so happy with how it turned out. Haley Harmon did the artwork (I’m obsessed) and I’ll share more about her and that commission in a future newsletter.
🌟 I got invited to my first paid storytelling show 😱. I was so excited to tell a story about my painter grandfather who sketched images of his girlfriend after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Sadly, the event was canceled due to weather, but I’m hopeful that this won’t be the last chance I get to tell stories “for a living.”
Thanks for subscribing and reading. I hope you can love the “what if.”
Connect with my work elsewhere:
🎧 listen to my podcast with Kimberly McGlonn
💻 order my children’s book, Rosie Rocks!
📚 visit my fair-pay publishing company, F-flat Books.
🎤 get songwriting support through Songwriting for M.E.
This reframing is POWERFUL! I’m excited to intentionally use it and share it ❤️❤️❤️