Catastrophic Thoughts & Overcoming Them

Most people would see this picture and think, “that’s just a normal kid doing normal kid things—no biggie”.

What MOST people don’t realize is that this has been a few years in the making. Not minutes, or weeks, YEARS. A few years ago Kaden asked to go on the ropes course and he did. He made his way up the stairs and onto the first platform and took three steps and FROZE. As in, someone came to help him, FROZE. His fear won that day and every day that we’ve been to Main Event since.

We call these catastrophic thoughts. All the “maybe this” or “maybe that” thoughts that creep into his head and paralyze him from being able to see all the wonderful things that can come from conquering your fear or by just trying.

MOST of us are able to assess a certain situation and know that those “maybe” or “mights” have a very SMALL chance of even occurring and that the reward far outweighs the risk.

Not Kaden. The unknown is one of his biggest internal struggles. He wants to be like “most” kids. He wants to get up there and not have all the internal battles with himself but it’s soooo dang hard for him.

And so when he does. When he decides that he won’t let fear win again—it’s something magical.

Did we talk about this for a week? You bet. Did we talk about his fears (heights) and then discuss everything he has already done to conquer fear? You bet. Did we talk about how the cruise ship will have its own course and this will be good practice? You bet. We analyzed it from every possible angle AND today, he put one foot in front of the other and he pushed fear aside, once again.

For “most” kids you wouldn’t think twice about them going on the ropes course—Logan included—for Kaden, this was a HUGE victory and you better believe we celebrated with ice cream. Even in 15 degree weather.