The Tightrope Experience
Picture yourself taking on the challenge to practise walking on a tightrope.
As you approach the rope with caution to take your first step, you check your foot position. You consider your balance and look at your intended destination. You consider your posture and take a deep breath in. You try and fall but are caught by the safety net.
Encountering life experiences can be like walking on a tightrope.
The skills required for, balance, focus, determination, and posture in tightrope walking mirrors that of how we navigate the journey of life. To perfect these skills, takes practice, which may mean you lose balance, fall, and get back up again.
Falling off
We cannot always get things right which can be frustrating and confusing but remember it’s ok to make mistakes. What helps is to get back up and to learn from said mistakes. If you do fall, what helps you to get back up? Like a tightrope walker will have a safety net, to help get them back on board and realign themselves to continue their journey. Do you have a safety net? If so, what is this mesh made up of?
Your net can be a combination of external and internal wefts. The things that keep you going. The things that encourage you. The things that protect you.
Identifying your safety net
It can help to reflect on what makes up your supportive web and how strong it is in holding you.
A great way to explore this is to try this exercise, which can help you identify your personal support network that facilitates positive mental wellbeing.
Grab an A3 size or bigger piece of paper (please use a device if you prefer) and follow the steps below. You will also need different coloured pens. Feel free to be as creative as you like.
Draw a picture or symbol of yourself in the centre.
Using one colour, draw pictures or symbols of all the people that offer you emotional support around your centre. This can be family, friends, teachers, or professionals. Tip: consider their distance to the centre (you). i.e., how often you engage with them.
Using one colour (different to step 2), draw pictures or symbols of the activities that help you to de-stress and/ or help you to re-centre yourself. This could involve your hobbies, self-care activities, etc.
give an indication of the strength of these supports. Are they strong or weak links? Is this support regular or occasional? You can indicate this by drawing dotted lines to indicate occasional support and heavier lines to indicate strong or regular support.
Now add the things that block your progress in a different (unused) coloured pen. Indicate what stops you from getting the support you need? You might include criticism from other people, self-doubt, low mood, anxiety, or the unavailability of support.
This is your net. Take a moment and analyse this support network. From this reflection would you make any changes? What would they be?
Top tips to expand or strengthen your net
Find a home for that armour. Learn when to be vulnerable, by challenging yourself to be different and better in your encounters. This can help you to feel secure as you form better attachments within your net.
Explore other relationships or activities. You may have been let down, don’t want to be a burden, or even taught not to rely on others. Look into finding a variety of supportive elements to help expand your net.
Take control over what you want in your life and how you want it.
Review your support system regularly. We evolve and things may change due to circumstances. Check your interests. Check how effective the connectors within your net are.
It is common within the black community to maintain a ‘strong’ stance and not depend on others. We are beings that thrive on interaction with others, therefore, to lean on the right people or things can only be beneficial for our mental wellbeing, as it helps your fall to be caught and held.
The tightrope walking experience may no longer feel so scary, hopeless, and isolating.
Written by Eve Banahene, BMMUK therapist and Mental Health Advisor.
You can visit Eve’s personal website here.