The Day I Walked Away at the DMV — and What It Taught Me About My Fear of Confrontation in Midlife

by Vicki Pike

After dragging my feet for weeks, I finally went into the DMV to transfer the title on my car.

My paperwork had already been submitted and approved online, and the instructions said I could either mail them in (mail an original pink-slip? I don’t think so), or bring them in to an office.

I chose the latter.

When I arrived at the DMV that afternoon I was in luck, there were maybe 3 people in the waiting room, and no one in line.

I was called up to the window and handed my paperwork to the DMV representative, letting them know what I needed. They took it without looking up from their computer.

My expectation was they would confirm the originals, enter everything into the system, and I would walk away feeling accomplished. In my mind it was already done.

But I could tell right away that wasn’t going to be the case. My confidence took an immediate dive.

After flipping through a few of the pages the rep asked “Didn’t they say to mail the originals?”

I said “Yes, that was one of the options. The other was to submit them in person”.

They rep didn’t respond, and instead continued to flip through the paperwork. Still not looking at me.

I sensed they were less than thrilled.

After a few more moments of uncomfortable silence, I heard myself say “So, would it just be better to go home and mail in the originals?”.

“Yes, that would be better” they said, eagerly handing back all of my paperwork and returning to their computer screen. I could practically feel their relief.

I actually THANKED THEM, then turned around and went home. Paperwork still in hand. Mission still not accomplished. Self-confidence tanked.

On my way home I told myself that it was easier to just leave…that I was “keeping the peace”, and avoiding the hassle of standing around and waiting for them to file the paperwork.

But those were lies.

In truth, I left to avoid confrontation.

It felt ‘safer’ to shut down and walk away, than to risk the potential reaction of speaking up for myself.

After all, what if I was wrong? What if they got upset with me?

What if they didn’t like me?

It was fear, and the uncertainty of another person’s reaction, that made me abandon my purpose.

And it wasn’t the first time.

THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THE BOOK

From a young age I’ve believed that confrontation was scary and unpredictable. I never knew when one innocent sentence or action from me could provoke someone else to anger, or worse.

Not always, but often enough.

As a result I became an expert at people-pleasing and reading the room, I knew when to back down and stay quiet.

I also learned that I could sometimes influence another person’s reactions by my words and demeanor. The less confrontational I was, the better the chance I had of avoiding fear, or pain (and maybe even the risk of rejection?).

But I’m in my fifties now.

And after many years (and thousands of dollars) of coaching and self-help discovery, I’ve come to understand myself much better – what drives my actions and causes my results – and I’ve gained a confidence in myself that I’ve never had before.

But this.

My fear of confrontation still lurks beneath the surface.

It’s why I put off going to the DMV for weeks in the first place.

It’s why I put off responding to my apartment manager after they over-charged me hundreds of dollars in “repairs” that were not my responsibility.

It’s why I stay in relationships long after it’s time to leave.

It may feel safer to stay small, and quiet, and not speak up for myself in the simplest of ways, but it doesn’t serve me in the long run.

It keeps me stuck, and unproductive.

And I’ve come too far in my life to feel like that anymore.

What I want to feel is confident and empowered. I want to be respectful to others, but also respectful to myself, and speak up for what I want.

CHANGING THE NARRATIVE

The truth is, I don’t know what the DMV rep was thinking. I don’t know their reason for not wanting to process my paperwork…maybe they were already late for their lunch break? Maybe they were short-handed and no one else knew how to enter everything into the system?

Maybe, it had nothing to do with me.

The bottom line is: how someone else acts isn’t within my control.

How I react, is.

Normally, when I sense a possible confrontation, my nervous systems prickles up. …I become flushed and anxious, triggered into an instant fight or flight response.

But it’s just a conversation. Just words.

Nothing has gone wrong, and I know I’m capable of reasonable thought.

Instead of giving into fight or flight, what I might have done instead was stay present, take a deep breath, have patience, and trust myself.

I could have suggested taking a number and waiting in the lobby until someone else could help me. Or politely point out the case number on the paperwork to let them know that everything was already approved and just had to submit the originals under that case number.

I could have put more effort into standing up for myself, instead of walking away to “keep the peace”, while secretly feeling like I had been rejected.

The truth is I rejected myself first by not even trying.

But that doesn’t have to be the case anymore. I’m aware now of why I feel what I feel. And the next time I feel my fight or flight response starts to prickle up, I can recognize it, take a breath, and change my reaction.

In doing so, I change my own narrative.

And so can you.

We deserve to stand up for ourselves, and have our own back.

And when we start taking ourselves seriously, others will do the same.

Discover What’s Possible

Are You Still Choosing To Believe The Worst About Yourself?

(You can stop that now)

Photo by Bekah Russom on Unsplash

When I was around 14 years old I shared a room with my sister. It wasn’t a big room but I enjoyed moving my bed and dresser around just to change things up whenever I got bored with the layout. The bed was heavy so it took a lot of shoving, pushing, and pulling to get it where I wanted, but it was always worth the effort.

One time I had spent most of the day rearranging my bed at the far end of the room, closer to the window, which gave me more space in the middle of the room. It was cozier, and I was happy with it.

When I was done I opened the bedroom door to proudly show my parents what I had accomplished.

My mom nodded and said it looked okay. My dad pointed out that I was blocking the heat from the baseboards because my bed was too close to it. I hadn’t noticed that but I said I was okay with it. We argued back and forth for a minute, and I don’t remember what else was said exactly, but our conversation ended with my dad yelling “Dummy!” at me before storming back down the hallway.

At the time I had a chip on my shoulder so I didn’t think anything my dad could say would bother me.

But my dad telling me I was dumb did bother me. It bothered me so much that I spent the next 40 years trying to prove him wrong, even though I secretly believed he was right.

I think I doubted my intelligence long before that moment, and my dad’s words just confirmed the thoughts I already had.

My brain was very good at providing evidence to back up my belief. I consistently got A’s in advanced English, and A’s and B’s in advanced biology, but those were easy to dismiss.

It’s the D’s and F’s I received in math class – everything from basic algebra to geometry – that my brain focused on. I would see “everyone else” around me (and by everyone I mean the 2 or 3 people who were good at math) answering questions like it all made perfect sense to them. Meanwhile, I stared at the jumble of numbers and symbols on my paper, holding back tears, because none of it made any sense to me and I was too embarrassed to ask for help.

I chose the smallest sample of what my brain had to offer and used it as evidence to prove my thought, and my dad’s words, that I was, indeed, dumb.

But why? Why do so many of us choose to believe the worst about ourselves?

Thinking back now it might have been that I was afraid of being smart. According to my primal brain smart people stood out. Parents and teachers expected things from them. If I wasn’t smart I didn’t have that kind of responsibility, no one would expect anything from me, and I could blend in and not get noticed.

Whatever the reason, I spent the majority of my life hiding, playing small, and not believing in myself. I never took the time to learn who I was and what I was capable of, so I was left with believing another person’s opinion of me.

Here’s the reality – negative words are just words, they only hurt when part of us believes them to be true.

Are you also believing – and finding validation for – something negative about yourself, and using select, outside opinions to confirm your internal bias? Have you been hiding and playing small, for whatever reason?

If you are, I can promise it isn’t serving you. And it isn’t serving the people around you who love you.

No one else is like you…no one before you was, and no one after you will be. You are, and will always be the only amazing, beautiful, unique, you. You deserve to know yourself and to share your true self with your loved ones around you.

You deserve to discover how capable you truly are, decide what you want and who you want to be, and then go out and create it.

Artist, writer, dancer, architect, investor, lawyer, teacher, it’s all open to you.

Discover What’s Possible.

P.S. If any of this resonates with you – I can help! Let’s connect and let me show you how to discover who you are and how to create your full, intentional life.

We’re Still Looking for That A+

But who’s doing the grading now?

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

When I was a kid I sucked at math.

I mean really sucked. Like, never–made–eye–contact, left–the–class–in–tears, had–to–cheat–my–way–to–a–D–in–geometry kind of sucked.

By the 6th grade, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t smart enough to understand math and I never would be.

Not only had I accepted that as a fact (instead of just a thought), I also made it mean that I wasn’t as smart as everyone else who did understand math, in spite of the consistent A’s I had been getting in English and biology.

Walking into algebra class every day with the belief that I wasn’t as smart as everyone else did not set me up for success. I felt defeated, resentful, and angry, and as a result, I resisted the instruction and blocked myself from even trying to understand it. It was a cycle that I perpetuated throughout high school.

When we were kids we had someone outside of ourselves constantly judging or grading us…teachers, parents, or family figures. I understand their jobs were to teach us, but as kids, it was difficult to separate the grades we were given on paper (or verbally) from our worth as a person. A’s = (We were) Good. B’s = (We were) Okay. C’s = (We were) Average (but more like less-than). D’s = (We were) Bad. F = (We were a) Failure.

It was cut and dry. It said right there on the paper – you were good enough, or you weren’t.

What are you still grading yourself on?

It took me a long time to challenge the belief that I was dumb when it came to math.

Some math makes sense to me now, especially as it applies to things I’m actually interested in. I began to understand basic fractions when I started baking, and I discovered that I was fascinated with physics when I started studying exercise science (Power = Work/Time, Work = Force x Distance).

As kids we were raised believing that the Power of Approval needs to come from outside of ourselves – teachers, parents, and authority figures, because we had no power of our own back then.

But many of us are still living our lives in pursuit of that external A+.

Only now we’re giving the Power of Approval to our bosses, our spouses, and even our own kids.

And that’s because we never learned that we could transition into creating our own approval.

What’s your current “math class”? Where are you giving yourself a ‘D’ or an ‘F’?

Losing weight?

Stopping overdrinking?

Going for that new job?

How does the grade you’re giving yourself make you feel?

Afraid?

Less than?

Defeated?

What actions do you take when you’re feeling that way? Do you avoid? Overeat? Overdrink?

What are the unwanted results of those actions?

If choose to believe that we’re not good enough at something our brains will be happy to produce plenty of evidence that the thought is true. That’s our brain’s job. It’s trying to keep us safe by protecting us from disappointment.

But what if we challenge that negative belief? What if we chose to believe something different, to believe “Maybe this IS possible for me?” What if we just need to figure out another way that makes sense to us?

Maybe if someone had taught me basic math in a cooking class I would have understood it and had the confidence to go on and learn even more. Instead, there was one person teaching it one way and my not understanding it led me to believe that I wasn’t good enough.

You Control the Gradebook Now

It’s time to stop grading yourself on a pass/fail basis, and start grading on a (GENEROUS) curve.

Life is not an exam, it’s a learning experience. There are no fill-in-the-blank, black-and-white answers.

And you’re not doing it wrong.

Get curious. Instead of focusing on what hasn’t worked in the past, ask your brain questions that will move you to future-forward action:

What if you could figure out how to stop overeating, overdrinking, or overconsuming? What way might look right for you?

What thoughts do YOU need to think, and what questions could you ask your brain, that would help you move forward towards that goal, instead of focusing on past evidence of what hasn’t worked?

Take some time, right now, to acknowledge what has worked for you in the past and everywhere you have succeeded. Give yourself ALL the credit for getting where you are and achieving what you have.

All of us have the knowledge and the power to teach ourselves anything we want to now, it’s no longer dependent on anyone outside of us. We control the grade book.

We just need to get curious and start asking good questions: What do I want to do next? What would success at that look like? And what might be the next right step to getting there?

You have everything you need right now. You’re good enough to start, right now. You can – and you will – figure out the rest as you go.

Discover what’s possible.

On a Scale of 1-10, How Would You Rate the Quality of Your Life, Right Now?

How you can improve the quality of your life if you do this one thing – and it won’t cost you a penny.

Photo by Marc Najera on Unsplash

We might be familiar with the term “quality of life” as it relates to someone who may be elderly or ill. I know it came up often when my husband was nearing the end of his battle with MS.

But we sometimes forget that every living person has a quality of life…whether good, bad, so–so, or awesome.

So how would you rate the quality of your life, right now…do you have what you want? Do you want what you have? Are you happy where you are at this stage of your life?

Rate each of the following statements on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best:

You’re happy with the material items you have and you don’t want more (clothes, car, house, electronics)

You’re doing what you want to day–to–day (job, routine)

Overall, you’re happy with where you are in life (physically, financially, living situation)

You’re happy with your relationships (spouse, partner, relatives)

Now total your score…was it a 20, or above? Was it average, or below?

Are you satisfied with your score, or do you think it could be better? Do you WANT it to be better?

Many of us grew up believing, and still believe, that our circumstances create our feelings —if we could just get that job, house, car, or person, then we could finally be happy (advertisers spend billions of dollars every year to keep that belief alive and well).

But what if the opposite were true?

What if we need to be happy first in order to create that desired job, house, car, or relationship?

Here’s an example:

I used to live in a big, bright, 2-bedroom apartment in an expensive, urban neighborhood that I thought I could afford.

It lasted about a year and a half before I had to admit that, mathematically, I actually COULDN’T afford it.

The apartment had a full garage, big, bright windows, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and an in-apartment washer and dryer (industrial size–be still my heart).

The new apartment I chose had one bedroom, one tiny bathroom, no dishwasher, no in-unit washer and dryer, and on-street parking only. Also, being in the city, had a much higher propensity for crime.

BUT, it was also about $700 cheaper a month.

If I had decided to leave my fancy apartment based on thoughts like “I have to leave”, “This isn’t fair”, “This place shouldn’t cost so much”, or “I shouldn’t have to do this”, I would have felt completely miserable about the circumstance of moving and would probably have resented the move.

But instead, I knew that I didn’t want to continue going deeper into debt for no reason. The extra amenities just weren’t that important to me, and I was tired of the constant stress of having to come up with the rent every month.

Initially, I was drawn to the city because the rents were so much cheaper. But what happened was I fell in love with the charm of the place.

My thoughts about it were: “I’m choosing to do this to save money and stress”, “I live alone so washing dishes by hand won’t bother me”, “the laundry room is only a few steps away from my apartment”, and “parking isn’t a big deal because there are so many awesome places within walking distance”.

I chose to be happy about it first.

Most importantly I believed those thoughts, they all felt true to me so I didn’t have to lie to myself first and then struggle later to make the lies feel true.

The result of liking my situation ahead of time was that I got to actually enjoy my new space, which created the circumstance of me having a more desirable living space by choosing my thoughts about it.

These new thoughts also helped create the circumstance of being able to finally start getting out of debt (I’d trade the in-apartment washer and dryer for that any day, thank you!).

It’s not the circumstances that dictate our feelings, it’s our thoughts about that circumstance.

Based on that equation it’s possible to change the quality of your life without changing anything but your thoughts.

Better yet, you can IMPROVE the quality of our lives, just by improving your thoughts.

The next time you feel angry, sad, or not good enough because of your circumstances, step back and get curious about the thoughts you’re thinking that are causing your feelings.

You don’t have to trick yourself into believing your circumstances are rainbows and daisies, you just have to drop into a thought that feels a little bit better. A thought that gets you to a place where can at least feel more neutral.

And please don’t wait until you’re elderly or – God forbid – have a critical illness to start paying attention to your quality of life.

Start now.

Discover What’s Possible.

Click here if you want to learn more about how to not just improve your life, but live a fuller life than you ever thought possible!

Three Lies My Brain Tells Me Everyday

And How I Manage My Mind Around Them

My alarm goes off at 4:15 a.m.

I look at my phone screen and have to make the dreaded decision – “off”, or “snooze”?

I know what “off” will mean. It will mean falling back asleep and missing my 5 a.m. CrossFit class.

“Snooze” means I can delay that decision for another 10 minutes, but I will ultimately still have to decide.

Meanwhile…outside it’s cold and dark, and I’m inside under my king-sized comforter with my little terrier, Sam, snuggled beside me.

And so the battle begins.

Brain Lie No. 1 – This is Too Hard

Of course I don’t want to get up at 4 a.m. to go to the gym, even though I’m the one that set my alarm and literally labeled it: “Get up and go to the gym”.

My brain tries to convince me:
It’s too cold outside
It would be easier to stay in bed
It would be easier not to put myself through a workout

And I get it (primal) brain, you’re just trying to keep me safe, comfortable, and in the cave.

But I try to give my (prefrontal) brain the chance to rally back:

“That’s true, all of those things would be easier, but would those actions get me the results I want?”

Stronger
Healthier
More fit
Connected to a community of like-minded people

Will “easier” challenge me to move forward towards the goals I’ve set for my life?

(Then I also remember those cute leggings I bought and planned on wearing today – never discount external retail motivation).

I throw back the covers and get moving.

Big Brain Lie No. 2 – This Won’t Work Anyway, Why Bother?

My brain loves to pull this one out of its virtual back pocket anytime I want to do something creative, like write this blog post, create a post on Instagram, or develop my elevator pitch.

And it goes a little something like this:

I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work
No one else cares if I do this or not
No one will like it anyway

All of which adds up to = why bother?

Rally brain: You may be right, it may not work…

But what if it does?
What if my message reaches just one person?
What if my message HELPS just one person?
What if creating this makes me better at creating?

That’s usually enough to get me to pick up a pen and start writing, or pick up my phone and start posting.

Big Brain Lie No. 3 – aka THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL – What if I’m Not Good Enough?

This lie needs no introduction.

In fact, if I were a gambling woman, I would wager (for some reason I hear that in the voice of Captain Jack Sparrow), that half of you reading this right now would also have this as your Biggest Lie of All.

It’s the belief underlying most of my inaction.

This lie usually comes from what we learned to believe about ourselves while we were growing up (which is a whole other blog post in itself, so stay tuned).

But let’s give equal airtime to what could also be true:

How AM I already good enough?
How AM I already capable of doing hard things?
How AM I already capable of evolving into a better version of myself?

You don’t need to make your brain do a complete 180 and go from “I’m not good enough” to “I am good enough”, because it won’t stick if you don’t believe it.

Just pick a 10% better thought:

I have already evolved this far
I have gotten myself through x, y, and z, and I can get myself through this
I know so much more today than I did a year or six months ago

And then ask your brain to find evidence of those truths…did you learn to ride a bike? Drive a car? Start a new job? Raise a child?

I guarantee your brain will find the evidence of the positive if you tell it to.

We all have negative thoughts.

But we don’t have to believe or accept them.

We can ALWAYS choose to rally.

My unhelpful thoughts will always be a part of who I am. And on some days I may not rally. I may decide to sleep in or put off writing that blog post or creating that IG reel. And that’s okay.

But repeating those actions will not get me the results I want for my life.

I want a full life. I want to see what’s possible. I want to see what I am capable of achieving, and who I am capable of becoming.

And I chose to manage my brain in order to get there.

Who’s with me?