“You played in the water for almost three hours today.”
I barely mouthed those words to my 4-year-old son with my eyes closed, lying on the lounge chair on the balcony of our rental condo as the hot, sandy, and salty day we had at the beach was winding down.
“I know! It was so much fun. I’d stay longer if you let me. Can I stay in the water longer tomorrow? Mom… mom, mom, m-o-o-o-om? Are you listening?”
I was smiling and savoring the sounds of excitement and enthusiasm in my boy’s sweet voice while drifting in and out of a coma-like state only a scorching hot sunny day at the beach can do to a person.
“Mom! Can I stay in the water longer tomorrow?”
Suddenly, an idea like unexpected lighting, a bolt of pure white light illuminating the entire beach in a blinding flash, hit me and shook me out of my lazy snooze.
I felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water on my head. I sat up, grabbed my knees, trying to contain my excitement, and asked him calmly.
“You know how you didn’t want to go into the water at first?”
“Yeah?” he said hesitantly.
“Why was that?” I smiled.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders and kept them next to his years for a few seconds as if he forgot how to bring them back down.
My son was getting annoyed because he knew an avalanche of questions was about to come his way.
“Remember how at first you said that the water was ice-cold, and then you ran back out, and even though you really wanted to go in, you wouldn’t even try?” I asked gently but looked laser-focused on his face.
“Ugh! Not again. I don’t like these questions, mom. Can we please not do this again?”
I was numbing the pain inside me and managed to answer him cheerfully.
“OK, I’ll just say what I think, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Fine…” He released a sigh of relief and annoyance and hesitantly gave me permission to go on.
“You know what I think? I think what happened at the beach today proved that you’re brave and can do anything you put your mind to, even if it seems impossible at first. Do you know how I know? I know this, because despite being scared of the cold water, you came back and tried again. You were still scared, but you did a couple more steps and kept trying.”
“Mom, I know. You told me this a million times that trying always works.” He said it in a funny and kind of mocking voice to mimic me. “I thought I would freeze and drown, ” he blurted out.
“You didn’t have to go in. You could do plenty of other things, like making sand castles. But you went in despite your fear. And guess what? It was so worth it, right? It was so much fun that you didn’t want to come out. And whatever bad thing you thought might happen ended up not being true. That’s because when you’re brave, the fear is scared of you.”
I paused, checked to ensure I still had his attention and went on the offense against this monster called Selective Mutism holding my son hostage.
“So do you agree that’s what happened?”
“I… guess…But I still don’t like these talks. They’re dumb.”
I wasn’t going to give up. I kept on gently pushing my “agenda”.
“You know what this is similar to? This is just like when you don’t talk to some people in public and freeze like you did in the water today. Then you distract yourself so you don’t have to try. And just lik you didn’t have to go back in the water, you don’t have to talk. But if you TRY like you tried today, then you’ll see how brave you are. You don’t have to talk, but you have to try. Trying is what’s brave. A lot of times we think something bad will happen, like you thought you’d freeze and drown in the water, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and made you happy, right? Well, that’s because you tried despite being scared. Do you think you can TRY to talk next time someone asks you a question?”
Now I froze because I feared he’d run away from me or change the subject. After all, it’d happened so many times before, but I wasn’t going to give up no matter how hard it hurt me inside.
My bright, handsome, adorable boy looked down for a moment, got a little teary-eyed and just when I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, he looked at me and said: “ OK! I’ll try if you promise not to ask these questions anymore. I hate these questions.”
“You promise?” I exclaimed.
“Does it count if I try but still can’t talk?”
“Sure!” I sang. “But you have to promise that you will try. I can always tell whether you’re trying something or just avoiding it. I can see it in your eyes”
“Yeah, I promise.”
I hugged my boy so tight and asked in a silly voice: “Last question, last question, how can I spoil you now? Ice cream? Movie?”
“Oh, I know!” he giggled, “How about going back to the beach and playing in the water?”
“Dude, that’s crazy! It’s pitch black out there.”
“It’s OK, mom. Just TRY! Remember? Trying always works.”
Check out my unedited, raw and full of hon’t ,ake pe video that made a huge difference in our journey of kicking anxiety’s butt.
