The Other Shoe: Living Instead of Surviving
She sat across from me describing her trauma. She contemplated trying to find the right words. After a few moments, I said, “It’s like your waiting on the other shoe to fall.” We were both in agreement because both of us have lived those moments. Maybe you have as well. And this euphuism contains more truth than we often realize.
Brief History
I have wondered often about this expression because it often finds its way into my room. I cannot help but wonder, “Where did the first shoe go? Why is it falling? Who are people throwing out their shoes? Did it rain shoes somewhere?” Seems silly, but why did we adopt this phrase to represent our impending calamities?
History tells that the saying “It’s like waiting on the other shoe to fall [drop]” came from 19th and 20th centuries in New York where apartments were built with bedrooms stacked on top of each other. It was not uncommon to hear upstairs tenants take off their shoes and drop them on the floor leaving the tenant underneath to wait in expectation that the other shoe would make a similar sound. Sound familiar?
How often do we wait for the next “bad thing” to happen? How often to do we hear the “sound” of tragedy and trauma that we simply wait to experience it again? Peace, calm, and hopefulness appear, and we are quick to silence it because that feels too risky to accept. Tragedy, we know what to do with, but peace and calm seem a little to scary to listen to engage. However, there are ways to accept our past tragedies and traumas while also grabbing hold of the hope set before us so that we may live rather than merely survive.
Steps for the Hope Before us
1) Acknowledge and Acceptance
To heal, we must feel. We must acknowledge the hurt we have faced, the tragedies we have traversed. We cannot heal if we will not accept that we have “shoes.” Some of us have been in a torrential shoe downpour! Ignoring that will not magically make the pain go away. The only way we can truly overcome our tragedies and thrive in triumphs is to acknowledge and accept our hurts.
Psalm 56:8 reminds us, “You [God] have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.” God is aware of our pain. He has heard our every cry. He has not left us, nor forsaken us. He is Emmanual: God with us. We do not need to hide from him. We are not being unChrist-like in stating our pain, our tragedies. When we choose to do this, we allow our souls restoration.
2) Living rather than Surviving
Our bodies literally keep the score. When we have experienced any painful events or trauma, our bodies, minds, and hearts will try to protect us from going through that again. For many of us, we did not have the skills, support, or protection to face the hurt and harm we did. And then the next thing happened, and the next, and the next. The shoes just kept on a comin’. Our bodies and hearts registered it all, and our brains did what was necessary to get us through it all: put us in survival mode. This is a back of the brain activity. Every shoe that has fallen has set this off. However, now, we need to work on resetting our alarm system not to be afraid of impending shoes.
John 16:33 is clear, “And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world, you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!” (TPT). Notice that Jesus did not sugar coat anything. He was clear that we would face “trouble and sorrows.” Also, he did not say that we needed to pretend that we did not experience these things. In fact, he told us to have courage. We would not need courage if we were not facing something that required it. How are we to have courage? Trust in Him. Rest in Him. Know peace in Him. This is how we work towards living rather than surviving.
The goal is not have “shoes” not fall, for tragedies not to come. The goal is to know that when troubles and sorrows come, Christ is there. He is there to catch our tears, cradle us as we weep, and walk hand in hand with us as we go through the valleys of life and stand with us on the mountaintops.
3) Community
It is hard to heal alone. We may have swirling storms inside our minds daily trying to figure out how to make it through whatever impending doom we believe is awaiting us. Again, this is our survival mode in action, and when we have no one with whom we can share this with, no one to bear witness to our pain, we can feel defeated.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 reminds us, “Now about your love for one another…for you yourselves have taught by God to love each other.” We are not designed to live this life in isolation. We are built to connect. Connection can come through family, friends, churchships, and even therapy. Finding trusting and safe people for us to share our burdens is important so that they can intercede on our behalf, boldly approach the throne when we believe we cannot (Hebrews 4:16). Additionally, we have the chance to do this for others when they need this support.
Final Thoughts
Surviving falling “shoes” is hard. In this world we will have troubles and sorrows. But we can have courage because God is with us. When we acknowledge our pain, our need for him, we have more availability to experience living and living in community with trusted and safe people because “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).