Mom vs. the Pole

My mama. Is she not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?

My mom was the first to teach my siblings and me that our thoughts have a way of becoming whatever we focus on.

She has always believed that the universe listens—not just to what you say, but to what you think. Which, frankly, always made me a little nervous. If every passing thought became reality, any cruel person I came across in my childhood would have been wandering around clutching their stomachs in regret. I used to think making someone spontaneously poop their pants would be the perfect superpower to use on people who were mean. I still stand by that today.

When we were kids, Mom drilled the power of thought into us through a story that became legend. It was about a bicycle and a pole.

The setting of Mom’s story was her childhood home on Lexington in the northeast neighborhood of Kansas City. The house was perched on a hill so steep it could double as an Olympic ski jump. Thankfully, her home was closer to the bottom of the steep hill, but not close enough to bring any real comfort to my young mom when she finally became brave enough to ride her bicycle solo for the first time. 

The obstacle that challenged Mom’s courage was a single utility pole at the bottom of the hill. Despite the fact that the pole was just there, minding its own business, it became the embodiment of Mom’s deepest fear.

Each time she’d get ready to push off and ride her bike unassisted, she’d picture that pole, visualize herself hitting it, and—overcome by fear— she’d convince herself that this day wasn’t the day for bravery and would abort the mission. 

Finally, one day, she decided to feel the fear and do it anyway. She took a deep breath, pushed off, and pulled her feet up onto the pedals. And just as her hair began to whip in the wind and she started to feel the giddiness of freedom and success…

She hit the pole.

As if her bicycle had a homing beacon set, it beelined directly into the pole, slamming the tire and, consequently, sending Mom’s tiny frame flopping and bobbing like a small crash-test dummy with brunette hair. 

Mom used to remind us of her pole story whenever one of us felt trepidation and said things like, “I don’t think I can do it” or “I’m scared I’ll mess it up.” She’d smile and respond with, “If you keep seeing yourself hit the pole, honey, you will hit the pole. You might as well imagine yourself steering clear of it.”

It was her way of saying that the stories we tell ourselves have power, and that worry is just negative imagination in disguise (even though worry is part of her Rellihan DNA). She reminded us that we can choose to see the best possible outcome just as easily as we can picture the worst—so why not go in the direction of the positive outcome?

I used to think about Mom’s pole story more often than I’d like to admit; mostly because I’ve hit a few metaphoric poles of my own. There was the time during my first driving test when I told myself I’d never be able to parallel park, and, right on cue, I damaged the fender of my parents’ car as I nearly took out a parking meter. Or, that time when I first began producing video that I’d convinced myself I would bomb an on-camera interview. I spent the entire time talking so fast that the person I was interviewing stared back at me with eyes resembling the wide-eyed emoji. 

The truth is, I inherited both Mom’s creative imagination and her anxious realism. I used to be able to visualize an entire disaster in cinematic detail. Thank goodness I’ve done a lot of work around recognizing that our thoughts don’t have meaning or weight, except for the weight we give them. It was liberating to learn how not to buy into my own thoughts, but, wow, did I test Mom’s pole theory throughout my youth. 

She was right. What we think about, we bring about. When I picture something as doomed, it usually is. When I picture it as possible, it has a way of working out, even if not on my schedule or in the way I planned.

I think about Mom’s first free falling ride and wonder how liberating it would have been if she had missed the pole. She pushes off, finds her balance, and sails down Lexington Avenue like the Queen of Schwinn, hair blowing, beaming with the confidence of someone who has finally conquered gravity.

That’s the version I think about when I catch myself picturing worst-case scenarios instead of possibilities. Because what if instead of rehearsing disaster, we let ourselves coast a little bit? What if we pictured things working out—not perfectly, but gracefully enough that we could actually enjoy the ride?

When we let our minds shift into that kind of flow, when our thoughts get behind us instead of trying to trip us up—life really does unfold more smoothly. Doors open, “coincidences” line up where opportunity feels like it’s coming from every direction, and people extend a welcoming wave instead of flipping you the middle finger while attempting to merge onto the highway. It’s all a mindset, really. And maybe, for me, it’s a little bit of Mom’s DNA reminding me that the wind in your hair feels way better when you’re not bracing for impact.

The hard part, of course, is that imagining the good stuff feels more vulnerable. Hope can sometimes be scarier than fear because it reminds us that we have something to lose. And if we imagine the worst thing that can happen, then we won’t be surprised when it does. 

But Mom’s story of a bicycle and a pole reminds me that fear doesn’t stop the outcome—it just steers us in the wrong direction. You still end up at the bottom of the hill; it’s just whether you’re laughing or bleeding when you get there.