I’ve been noticing this year how we get do-overs. Our experiences echo to one another if we are willing to sit humbly and quietly with the deep marks and the meaning that our nervous systems ascribe to the events we go through. Maybe the first time you were in a situation, it didn’t go well, you didn’t show up the way you wanted to, you weren’t ready, you couldn’t ride the wave. You crashed. You felt defeated. You went under.

And then, years and years later, it came back and you got another chance. I want to tell you about one of those times for me.

Four years ago this past Monday, I gave birth to Donald Grady. It was a rough birth, a rough pregnancy (my grading rubric is not nearly so harrowing as many, just hot and nauseous and miserable and biggest weight gain and a fever/illness at the end — requiring induction). I got an epidural, which I’d been hoping to avoid, and while I didn’t cuss (as much as the first time) through the labor, it was not a victorious-feeling day. It was a day that felt defeating, as if I was not able to mother him the way I wanted to through the big moment for us both.

This past Sunday (a day before his birthday), I got a do-over.

McDon (his desired title) had gone out on the boat on Saturday and watched the big kids get pulled in the tube (raft? whatever that thing is). He demurred when offered a turn.

Sunday morning before we left, we got another chance to go out on the water, and this time he wanted to go, if he could be with Momma. So, on to the tube I scrambled.

(Sidebar: I’d skiied the day before and decided that the memory of water skiing in my 20s was WAY BETTER than the reality of skiing in my 30s. I am way more fit than I was then, but wow, the “fun” wasn’t nearly so fun and the fear was very much bigger and what on earth do we do this anyway??)

The boat sped up and Donnie held on. I was deep breathing (to soothe my sympathetic nervous system) and low moaning (to vibrate my vagus nerve) and focusing on the shore line instead of the waves that buffeted the tube with each bump, and consciously releasing the tension in my jaw and my legs and back. It was awful. I hated it. I forced a pleasant(?) expression on to my face and chatted with Donnie. And that’s when I realized it: I was getting a do over.

This was another time that my child wanted my companionship and leadership to lean on and experience something new. This was another time that was uncomfortable for me, that I wanted to be somewhere else doing something else. This was another time that no one could substitute for me in my child’s life, he wanted me, specifically, and it was a chance to show up and be present and use the tools I had to be a soft landing and a safe support for the adventure he longed to encounter.

Of course giving birth isn’t really comparable to a run around the lake in an inner tube on a Sunday morning — we weren’t even dumped off the float! — but I don’t think our nervous systems need an exact replication in order to rewire and to learn and to heal.

So here’s the thing. We never know when these opportunities will crop up, and we surely cannot manufacture these moments (though perhaps we can shake them free in therapy, maybe). So what are we doing in the meanwhile, every day, habitually, to make ourselves ready for when we might get a do-over?

What habits or practices are you using to grow your nervous system strength?

How are you sharpening your senses to notice when a do-over moment is happening?

How do you want to show up for a do-over moment, and what do you need to be ready?

I’d love to hear the answers, and if you’d like to talk more about how to attune these figurative muscles, I’d love to talk. Reach out!