Little fears
On getting past easy-to-miss mental blocks
Over the past few months, it’s been difficult to get our 8-year-old to sleep. Like, really difficult. He has wanted us to lie down with him in his bed until he falls asleep, and then to come back to his room and do it again when he wakes up later in the night, which happens two or three times a night on most nights.
Doing this for one night isn’t a big deal for us. We can handle that. But when this pattern repeats itself night after night after night… it’s not so easy to be functional for work and life the next day. 😃
There are lots of reasons how we got here; maybe it started when I began letting him sleep in the bed with me when we visit my parents, or when my wife has been away on trips for work. Or, it could be from laying with him to read before bed, and we just got in the habit of staying with him to help him fall asleep.
He slept so well as a baby and as a toddler, so it’s been a bit of a puzzle why he’s having so much trouble now. He is older now, of course, and so his mind and imagination are more active — he has bad dreams sometimes, and imagines scary sounds. The dark also is scary (it was for me too, when I was his age).
A few nights ago, we realized we had to try something different. So, after researching the best way to wean him off having us there by his side every night, we tried having him go to sleep by himself. We told him we’d check on him every 5 to 10 minutes, but that we wanted him to try laying his head on the pillow and falling asleep on his own, in his room by himself.
We tried a few things to ease into the change — turning off the TV earlier than usual, talking him through how tonight would be different, and reading together in bed. All to make it feel like most any night.
And… it did not go well.
Turns out, taking us away from his bedtime routine was like removing the net from underneath a trapeze artist on a highwire — all he could focus on was that we weren’t there. Despite our promises to check on him in just a few minutes, he kept getting out of bed and coming back to our room, insisting that one of us come with him.
Normally, we get him to bed around 8:30 p.m. But this night, we all were up until nearly midnight, trying valiantly — but unsuccessfully — to stick with our plan. At last, I gave in and agreed to sit in the chair next to his bed, which finally put him at ease.
He fell asleep in two minutes.
As we were struggling through that night, something kept popping back in my mind, an experience we had several years ago with our golden retriever Murphy, who passed away back in 2019.
It was almost ten years ago, right after my wife and I got married and moved into our house together with my stepdaughter. Murphy, who as a puppy was happy, sweet and affectionate, seemed to have gone through a personality change.
Once playful and gentle, he began snarling, barking and growling at people he didn’t know — especially children, which shocked us (how threatening can a 4-year-old be?) and basically everyone who approached him, guessing that he would be an easy dog to pet, because of his breed.
Though I’ll never know why for certain, I have what I think is a pretty good guess: for a few months between the time we got engaged and then got married and moved in together, I lived with a friend and had to board Murphy with a trainer who lived in a tiny rural town way outside Atlanta.
I lived with him because I sold my condo more quickly than I expected to, which left me no place to live until my wife and I could buy the home we live in now. Buying a home is… complicated 😞
Staying on the farm for those few months, with only other dogs to socialize with — and almost zero contact with humans — got him out of the habit of being around people. Animals approach each other, and behave with one another, in different ways than we do.
Dogs, especially, aren’t subtle when they communicate with each other. They growl, they bark, they snarl. That’s okay if you’re only a dog living with other dogs. But if you live in a house with people, that kind of socialization is a recipe for trouble.
Because Murphy had been around dogs, and dogs only, for an extended period of time, he became like them. He had to re-learn how to be around people or we weren’t going to be able to keep him — certainly not with a baby on the way, as we learned my wife was pregnant right after we moved in together.
What to do? We called a different trainer, who had an idea about how to help him. What Murphy needed, the trainer told us, was to be de-sensitized to the “threat” children posed. He needed to learn that they wouldn’t hurt him, that he could let them approach him and pet him, and that everything would be okay.
Okay, great. I can follow that idea. But how to do it?
Two friends of ours — whom I’ll never be able to thank enough — volunteered their kids to help us train him. To help us help Murphy learn not to be afraid. To do this, they came over to our house, where the trainer had them stand on one end of our kitchen, and sat with Murphy at the other end.
Murphy did what we expected. He growled, he barked. He’d quiet down, and if one of the kids took even one step in his direction, he’d start barking and growling again. I have to admit, it was a little scary.
But every time he quieted back down, the trainer would give him a treat. He was rewarding him for being settled, for being relaxed. Then, one of the kids would take another step in his direction, and if Murphy didn’t react, he’d give him another treat. The more quiet and relaxed he was, the more treats he received.
This went on for at least twenty or thirty minutes. There were slip-ups; Murphy occasionally would revert back to growling when one of the kids got too close. Then we’d start over from the beginning.
But by the end of this process — a process that took hours, to be sure — Murphy was laying on his side on the floor, letting the kids pet him and feed him treats. His tail was wagging, which I didn’t realize until I heard it thumping as it hit the floor.
I should add that Murphy wasn’t 100 percent transformed overnight. It took time for him to let go of his fear of children; we kept reinforcing his good behavior, and got him out and around people as much as we could, to re-socialize him with the world.
But by the last year of his life, he was the hit of my son’s 6th birthday party, as about two dozen kids swarmed him in our backyard, showering him with pets and pulling on him in all directions. He loved the attention and the affection, which he returned in kind with lots of nuzzling.
I realize this is just a story about a dog, and it might not seem like it can tell us much. But it told me something important: if Murphy can do it, it’s possible for us too. We can move past our fears and anxieties, especially when we have the help of our friends and family, when we learn to let go, and when we put lots of nudges in our environment that help prod us in the direction we want to go.
This is relevant to me now because, on a run a few weeks ago, I injured my foot. It hurt bad — really bad — enough for me to have to stop running for a while. And that’s what I needed to do.
Now that a few weeks have passed, however, it’s probably time for me to test out my foot, to see how it feels when I run. But at this point, I’m afraid to. I’ve been telling myself that I’m hurt, and so I can’t run. Even though I know, at some point I will have healed. It will be time to exercise again.
I’m reminded of that famous quotation attributed to St. Augustine — “Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!” I want to run again, I want to exercise again… just not yet.
But days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. If I don’t get over this little fear I have, one day I’ll look up and realize many months, perhaps even a year have passed. And I’ll be more out-of-shape, and coming back to running will be that much harder.
So, how can I ask my son to try to get over his fear, if I can’t do it myself?
That’s the question I’m finally facing squarely, as I write this to you. (I realize this isn’t a huge deal, or a huge fear that strikes me to the core of my soul. I get that this isn’t all that important. But sometimes those little fears, the ones we don’t even realize we have, are what hold us back the most.)
Do you have a similar mental block that you’ve ever struggled with? How did you overcome it? I’d love to hear your story, either in the comments or in a reply back.
In the meantime, I hope you’ve had an amazing week and been able to get some great running in — as always, let me know how it’s going and keep in touch.
Your friend,
— Terrell
Something I loved this week
Running With Malcolm Gladwell: Arguing About the GOAT, and Sharing What Running Teaches for Life. You may have stumbled across this too, as it’s a conversation between two of the biggest newsletter writers I know — Malcolm Gladwell, a huge running enthusiast and the author of books like The Tipping Point and Outliers, along with David Epstein, the author of the book Range.
In this chat, they talk about their running heroes — Haile Gebrselassie is Gladwell’s, while Epstein cites Meb Keflezighi — and I especially loved this exchange:
What lesson have you learned from running that transfers to the rest of your life?
MG: Training is all about faith and patience: you go for a run one day and the next—and over and over and over again for weeks and months—in the hopes that one day you will be able to race as fast as you could possibly race. And—more often than not—that’s exactly what happens! I think we all need reminders that if you persist at something difficult, something of value will result. Running does that for me.
DE: For me, I think it’s the idea of setting short-term, actionable goals. For years I set time goals. But those didn’t really help me, at least in the 800. The race is done, and you look at the clock, and you either got it or didn’t. If you didn’t, you’re sad. If you did, you’re happy. So what? It didn’t help me get better. Eventually, I ditched that, and made actionable goals for experiments. “Move with 350 meters to go this time,” or “Run the first lap under 54.”
You can read the whole thing here.
Also, don’t forget — we have an app now! 👍
Have you considered teaming up with your son so the two of you get past your fears together? You could tell him how afraid you are to try running again, really share your thoughts and anxieties and then tell him how you plan to over come those fears, and then show him by doing, maybe even asking for his support as you move forward. You can then open up the conversation to his fears about sleeping alone and when he sees how brave his dad is, he may be inspired to do the same, with your support of course! Caveat this idea... I am not a parent, so this could be totally hairbrained! LOL!
Over the past three years I have noticed a change in my breathing. Long story short I was diagnosed with COPD even though I quit smoking 30 years ago. I’ve been struggling with being afraid to do any races because I used to know I could get through anything…even if I had to walk but I don’t feel like that any more. Then I remembered that the marathons I’ve done in the past were work but were primarily a mental thing…so I keep chugging along and try not to give into the fear.