Go Away, Negative Self-Talk!

The 30 minute drive back home tonight was rough. Not gonna lie. Tonight we worked on how to maintain your formation against offense. I was a blocker. I pretty much sucked.

I'm trying to process all the feelings and I think it boils down to these points:

• I'm feeling frustrated because I'm not good at derby yet. I've basically jumped from playing at a level equivalent to middle school baseball to playing at the level  of  the minor league (with major league players included) in about 6 months. Self doubt about me not being ready for the premier league creeps in on days like these. I really have to be careful about not thinking that everyone is at a higher experience level. Instead, I need to see this as a growing opportunity. 
• I don't want to be the weakest link on the team. I've always been at least above average at everything that I've done and being the worst at this point isn't the best feeling. Thoughts about my teammates wondering if drafting me was the right choice definitely creeps in all the time. And then in a post practice chat, my captain tells me tonight that everyone on the team has patience for me and that I should just keep working and learning at my own pace. That was exactly what I needed to hear. 

So really, after processing everything, it all boils down to a pride thing. I want to look good, I want to be good like...now.

But this is a really good reminder to myself and a great lesson to show my kids how being good at something comes from hard work. My 7 and 5 year old have been working on martial arts for a year now. My 7 year old was convinced that after 1 year of training, he can take down any bad guy if he needed to. So we both have gotten good reality checks lately. 

Roller derby has really brought out the insecurities that I've had about myself that I've maybe covered up for many years. The effects of having non-involved parents, not living or attending the same school for more than 2 years at a time, I realized, has made me very insecure about myself, and more specifically I have self-esteem issues to the point where I often wonder why anyone would want to be my friend. 

But I have to realize that my worth does not come from other people. I don't have to do things for them, or be like them for them to call me friend. My worth comes from the one who has created me. I am a hard worker who is faithful to whatever I get involved in. I need to remember to just be myself and try my best and that's all I really have to do. 

Anyways, in the meantime, I'm going to just keep skating.

I signed up for a mash-up so I'm super excited to get more playtime. I'm sure I'll make a post about it afterwards.