Maybe, Just Maybe, I Don't Need To Steel Myself for the Day Anymore

First published on June 30, 2021

When I was nine, one of the most formative events of my life took place. I went to school for the first time.

My parents, in their beautiful determination to not be ruled by social convention, had chosen to home educate my sister and me. Their reasons for that decision are varied and complex, of course, as were the reasons that when I was nine and my sister was six, we went to school.

I count that period of home education as one of the absolute privileges of my life, and I can see in it so much of who I am today. And not just any home education, but a home education focused around the curious, nurturing personalities of those two people. It is my curiosity, my creativity, my sensitivity, my intuition, my storytelling, my independence, my heart and my love of freedom. And so much more.

And then something different happened. And it was hard. From the open, curious freedom of my early life, to an institution of rules, people and ways of being that I just didn't understand. Those first teachers did an amazing job, in many ways, but they had no idea, really, how to deal with me, just as I had no idea how to deal with them, their systems and their conventions.

I look back on that period of transition, which took me years, as one of the hardest times of my life. And I can see in it so much of who I am today. It is my ability to understand what other people think. To really question the rules. To be able to fit in in almost any room. It is my reliance on my own perspectives, not the perspectives of others: no blind acceptance of the rules for me. And, it is my social anxiety, my inability to absorb praise and my worries about what other people think of me. And so much more.

A few months ago, my friends Adam and Kerry interviewed me (for the second time) on their podcast, Two Coach Confidence. Among other topics, we spoke about my morning routine, designed, essentially, to support me from the fragile, sad person I am when I wake up, to the open, curious, confident person I want to be (read more about that routine in the article that started that conversation here). Kerry speculates, from their investigation into confidence, that in fact confidence is just a belief that things will be OK. That's what my morning routine is for: to get me from someone who believes things will not be OK to someone who believes things are and will be.

In that episode, we also spoke about habits, including this writing practice, the one you're reading. And Adam, part way through our conversation about mornings said, beautifully and curiously, something like: it sounds like you might have a habit, here, Robbie, about feeling sad in the morning.

And, of course, I do. And it originated in those mornings, where the freedom of my first years was restricted by the routines and orders of a school system. Where my sensitivity suddenly became a liability and had to be closed off. Where something, some early childhood innocence, was gradually lost.

It was all the mornings my parents would come to my room as I woke up, sit with me, listening to the sports on the radio, learning about the music I loved, loving me and spending time with me, to help me get to the point where I could go to school. It is the dread of those days, of those people who didn't understand me, of the isolation and the loneliness and the desire to stay in the safety of my home. It is the steeling myself for the day.

And it served me well. It served to steady and solidify me as I grew, learned and thrived through school. As I stepped out into the world. It served to take me out of fear and gradually into the world. Just as my morning routine did and does. It helped me be able to interact with people, to socialise, to work with and for others. It helped me function in this incredibly social world we live in.

And maybe, just maybe, I don't need to steel myself for the day any more. That was what Adam's reflection showed me.

We are what we practise, you see, and we're always practising something. So best, by far, to be aware of what we are practising. I, you see, am in some ways practising sadness and fragility in the morning. And we are what we practise.

So now I notice it, sometimes. Those feelings in the morning, almost three decades after they were real. And, luckily, I know that I have at least some choice over these things. And I can smile, in the morning, sometimes, and remember that I'm not that little boy any more. That I am a grown man. That I have a life I can be incredibly grateful for. That I can practise something different, this morning, if I choose to.