When the Training Wheels Come Off
When I was a young girl, I begged my mom to take the training wheels off my bubblegum colored bike. I was convinced I was ready: bold, brave, bursting with belief in myself. That’s the beautiful thing about being a child: you think you’re ready for everything, because you don’t yet know what falling really feels like.
She smiled, her eyes soft and knowing, and said, “Okay, Elizabeth. Let’s go.”
I can still feel her hands on the back of my seat. Steady. Sure. Sacred. She jogged behind me as we circled the block, gripping my bike’s seat, my little legs pedaling furiously, my heart full of fire on my pink bike with whimsical tassels on the handles and a blossoming floral basket leading the way. This was my petal-powered parade.
“Let go!” I shouted.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Yes! I’m ready!”
And she did.
And I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready.
I fell. I fell hard.
The pavement met me like a hard truth. My knees split open. The wind was knocked out of me. I wanted to scream, but before I could, there she was. Scooping me up, holding my face, brushing away the gravel, the blood, the shame, the tears. She didn’t say I shouldn’t have fallen. She didn’t ask why I wasn’t more careful. She just held me.
The most profound realization came in the moments following the crash, surrounded by stillness and the jolt of pain. It wasn't about avoiding the fall, but the incredible comfort of knowing there were hands to help, voices to offer comfort and aid.
And now…
She’s gone. She has passed. I have fallen again, but this time, onto the unwelcoming concrete of personal grief and suffering.
The training wheels are off again.
Not from a bicycle, but from life itself.
No one tells you adulthood is one long ride without handlebars. There are no bumpers, no soft places to land, and no mother jogging behind you just in case. You fall, and the world keeps spinning. You fall, and sometimes, no one sees. No one comes. No one lifts you up.
What do you do when the person who picked you up no longer can?
What do you do when your grown-up scrapes are emotional, when your heart breaks, your spirit cracks, your sense of self bleeds?
I’ll tell you what I’ve done as of recent: I’ve cried in grocery store parking lots. I whispered her name into my pillow at 2 a.m. I wake up with tears in my eyes. I’ve longed, viscerally and desperately, for just one more moment of being the oldest daughter or the young girl who didn’t worry or think about falling.
And maybe you know that ache too.
Maybe you’ve lost your someone, the one who steadied you, loved you without condition, who believed in you even when you couldn’t see straight, whether it be as a child, or as an adult, or both.
Maybe you’re tired of standing back up by yourself.
Maybe you, too, are bruised in places no one can see.
Here’s the thing I’m slowly, painfully learning:
The training wheels came off for a reason.
Because she believed I could ride without them, not simply because I asked.
She believed in something I didn’t yet see in myself. And maybe, just maybe, that belief is still here, woven into my bones, my breath, my bravery.
Even now, I sometimes feel her in the wind when I’m wobbling. In the warmth on my shoulder when I think I’m alone. In her repeating whisper that says, “Just hold on,” when I swear I can’t.
Still, the ache is real. And grief? It’s not something you “get over.” It’s something you grow around.
But, I promise you, there are ways to feel held again.
For me personally, self-hypnosis through meditation, has helped me find her, my mom, again, not out in the world, but deep within, where the echoes of her love still live. It’s like discovering the training wheels she once removed weren’t discarded after all, they just became invisible. Tucked inside me. Holding me steady in ways I didn’t realize.
Through moments of silence, I’ve come to hear her voice again, like it used to sound when she jogged behind me, saying, “You’re okay. Keep going. I’m right here.” That voice still exists. It lives in the quiet spaces of my breath, in the stillness beneath the noise.
In moments when life knocks me sideways and I feel like I can’t keep going, it’s her steadiness in this childhood memory I reach for. Mindful exploration reminds me how to call these powerful emotions back, to feel her hands guiding me, not from behind a bicycle anymore, but from somewhere deeper. Somewhere eternal.
Even though she’s no longer here to catch me when I fall, her love became the training wheels I now carry inside, the ones that remind me: I’m still safe. I’m still loved. I still know how to ride.
And in the way I now speak to myself, in the way I rise after each fall, in the way I whisper, the little girl within me mothers herself by exclaiming, “Just hold on, Elizabeth,” and with those words:
I become the one holding the seat.
I become the voice she once was.
And she… never really let go. She really never let go and she never will.
And maybe, if you’re reading this, it’s your turn now, to remember what was always true:
You’re allowed to cry. You’re allowed to fall.
You’re allowed to miss the one who used to catch you.
But don’t forget…
You may have also once begged for the training wheels to come off because you knew you were ready.
And even now, through the heartbreak and the ache,
you still are.
We are not broken. We are becoming.
This pain you’re feeling…it isn’t the ending.
It’s the deep breath before getting back on the bike.
The pause before the push forward.
It’s the trembling moment when your hands find the handlebars again, even with tear-stained cheeks and shaky legs.
We are not shattered. We are resurrecting.
Like a child who falls, scrapes their knees, and still whispers, “Let me try again.”
We rise with invisible training wheels beneath us, built from love that never left, memories that still hold us, and a quiet courage we didn’t know we had until now.
You may feel alone. You may feel like no one is running beside you or behind you.
But somewhere inside, you still remember how to ride.
And more than that, you remember how to believe in yourself through your steadiness and your balance.
JUST HOLD ON.
Even if it’s just a quiet whisper through your tears…let a loving, maternal voice cheer you on, softly reminding you, over and over, to just hold on.
Now ride…ride even though your heart feels heavy and you may feel wounded. Ride with a spirit weary but unbroken. Rise and ride, even when each crash leaves a deeper ache, and never stop moving forward. Keep going, keep holding on to the the handle bars of life that offer hope.
Three Reframing Questions to Help You Ride Again:
What if my greatest strength isn’t that I never fall, but that I always rise, even without a helping hand behind me?
How might I begin to internalize her love, not just as a memory, but as a living presence I carry forward?
If I could show up for myself now the way others once did… what would I say, what would I offer, and how would I love the broken pieces back to wholeness?
By Liz Landon, Certified Hypnotist, Healing Expert & Creator of the Release Resistance Formula™
