Like Riding a Bike
For a long time there was a recurring theme related to riding a bike in my life. It started way back when I learned how to ride a bicycle when I was a kid.
I’d been trying to teach myself how to ride for a few days. Trying and failing. I guess I was kind of klutzy when I was a kid. So, this older kid said he had a way that would teach me how to ride almost immediately. So I bit.
Dead Man’s Alley
We went up a few blocks from my house right across from my grade school to a place everyone I knew called Dead Man’s Alley. I didn’t (still don’t, for certain) have any idea how it got that name. What was about to happen would give me my first hint.
Dead Man’s Alley was, in a way, just a big hole in the ground. It had a steep hill going down into this valley at both ends.
Here’s my new-found friend’s bright idea. We just go to the top of one end of the alley. I get on the bike and he gives me a shove and I go down the hill. Now, what could possibly go wrong with that?
I was about 8 years old and invincible so I was game to give it a try.
I got on the bike and he gave me a shove and off I went. He was right about one thing. I didn’t have any trouble balancing the bike. I went down into the alley at breakneck speed almost as straight as an arrow’s flight.
Trouble is I was terrified. The only thing I was able to do was to hold on for my life and go where the bike took me. I was too petrified to steer the bike. Unfortunately it was headed straight for a telephone pole at the bottom of the big dip.
And I hit it. I was okay. My bike didn’t fare as well. But obviously, that whole experience made a bigger impression on me than I did on that telephone pole.
I did that freezing thing for a long time after that when I got in a tough situation on the bike. I know now that it was just a flooding of adrenaline and cortisol. But that didn’t do me any good at the time.
So What?
So, what does that have to do with anger flexibility? A lot, it turns out.
One of the things I’ve learned about riding a bike is that when you do it, you are in a constant state of falling. At the same time you have to lean one way or the other to keep the bicycle upright. When you master this skill all you have to do is aim the bike toward where you want to go and, voilà, you are riding a bike.
That’s a pretty good description of anger flexibility.
In life, we are constantly in the process of falling into one feeling or another. We are going to experience them, no matter what we do. The goal then is to find ways not to fall under the spell of either feelings we like to have or feelings we dread.
What is it that guides us in making the right choices when it comes to anger? Like riding the bike, we have to decide what direction we want our lives to go.
If anyone has told you that life is supposed to be an easy ride, they were pulling your leg. Life will bring all kinds of twists and turns, all kinds of feelings. Life is like that. It’s a contact sport. There will be times when we will lean toward happiness and other feelings that we might enjoy. At other times, life will be stressful, depressing, and lean toward feeling like that – including of course anger.
If we lean too far toward either one side or the other, we are sure to tip over. Anger flexibility means to take whatever feeling we are having in stride and to keep on pedaling toward what is truly important.
Once you learn that feelings don’t have to be your master, that they are simply experiences that you are having at a given moment in time, you can make the choices bring you closer to your values and goals.
Once you get that, you never forget it. It’s just like riding a bike.
About Mike