David W. Zierk, PsyD

Take a chance or make a choice.

When all is said and done, life is measured by the risks you dare to take, not the ones you skip over.

Whether you take a chance and stick your neck out a little further than usual or decide to, once and for all, grab the tiger by the tail, you increase the odds of making a memory. When this moment goes well, and someone witnesses it, you feel something amazing…you feel alive!

Think about the joy and fulfillment that comes over you when you cross the finish line of your first half marathon. Interestingly, when someone you know is there to celebrate your accomplishment, your joy turns to exhilaration. Somehow, the sharing of life’s moments makes life more worth living. The upside of working hard and daring yourself to finish bolstered your sense of becoming the person you were always meant to be.

The downside of grabbing the tiger’s tail is known far too well. Something might go wrong, very wrong. Instead of beaming with joy, the risk of taking risks is that you may end up empty-handed or, much worse, broken or brokenhearted.

So, along your life’s journey, what happens in the outside world shapes your inside world. A critical insight is that the flip side is also true. What happens inside of you influences how you deal with the outside world. In this way, the interplay between the two worlds gives rise to your felt sense of security and insecurity.

For instance, if you were routinely successful in academics, taking quizzes and passing tests puts you in a place of confidence. On the other hand, if you fall short on luck when making friends, your confidence in social situations likely provokes a sense of unsteadiness.

Another name for the deeply private experience of feeling insecure is “thin ice.” The sense of being unsteady, uncertain, and maybe a little afraid happens when your insecurity shows up and takes over. The key to this thought process is knowing when your ice is thinning.

As illustrated below, your outside world is filled with ups and downs, while your inside world is filled with twists and turns. Navigating these two worlds is tricky.

When contemplating this model of resilience and tenacity, I was initially stymied as to what “ice” stood for. While my intuition wouldn’t leave it alone, my imagination kept falling short. Stumped, I trusted something would eventually come to me.

Then, the lightbulb of creativity turned on in the middle of the night. That’s when I realized that “ice” represents your “inner connection to everything.” Your ice is thick when this inner connection to everything is steady and strong. But the ice thins when your connection becomes less stable and more uncertain. During moments of “thin ice,” your insecurities take over, and they show up in different forms. Consider what form of insecurity best fits your sense of self: inadequacy, inferiority, insignificance, ineptness, insanity, or some combination.

Recovering from thin-ice moments requires the conscious and deliberate practice of four steps. In specific order, these steps include Awareness, Acknowledgment, Analysis, and the courage to Adapt.

Go to the Relationship Intelligence website to learn more about opportunities to explore how to handle those moments when you are on thin ice.

Press the button below to learn more about how your mind works as described in Dr. Zierk’s book, Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?