She was cute. Really cute.

She was also playing the piano. Doubly attractive.

But there was no way I was going to talk to her.

I was walking around the airport looking for my gate when I heard her playing. She was playing a piano cover of something you might hear on the radio, like Drake or something.

I’m always a sucker for piano covers (and cute girls) so I sat down nearby and listened.

After a few songs, I started hearing my friends yammering in my head:

“Go talk to her.”

“Just do it.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Don’t be a pansy.”

I started getting nervous.

I felt a knot in my stomach. My hands started sweating a little. My hands are sweating a little just writing this.

Throughout my life, I’ve generally done okay in high pressure moments.

Presenting to a group of people? No problem.

Competing in games? Easy.

But talking to girls? Pretty terrifying.

One time in college, I was standing next to a girl I liked at a group event. We were talking about something random when she casually mentioned that she liked me.

On the outside, I was quiet and stoic.

On the inside, I panicked.

I froze up and didn’t say anything back to her.

After a little while (what now seems like forever in my head), she must have gotten bored or thought something was wrong, so she slowly turned away and left.

/facepalm

With this girl at the piano, it was happening again.

What do I do? What do I say? What if it goes wrong??

At the same time, a group of dudes also saw her. They started making a commotion, and one dude had a piece of paper and pen in his hand, pretending like he was about ask her for an autograph.

I got even more nervous thinking about what would happen if they saw me talk to her.

“Will they laugh at me?”

“What would they say if they saw me go up to her?”

“I didn’t really feel like talking to her anyway…”

Damn you, fear brain.

Mind Over Matter

I used a mindfulness trick I knew to calm down.

I put my attention on where I felt the nervousness the most. My stomach felt heavy, my chest felt tight, and my heart was racing. And as each of these sensations came up, I rested my attention onto each of them, really digging into what the sensation felt like.

My brain wanted to wander to the what ifs and the worst case scenarios, and whenever I noticed this, I’d bring my attention back to the sensations in my body.

Slowly, my heart stopped beating so hard. My stomach stopped feeling so queasy. My face felt less flushed, and my breathing slowed down.

And then I was back to neutral.

So I went to talk to her.

It went…okay.

We talked about piano, connected over our reasons for playing, and eventually, I sat down next to her to play.

“Did you get her number?” my friends usually ask.

Getting numbers is really hard okay.

—–

Would I still have talked to her had I not learned about mindfulness and all the ways to deal with emotions?

It’s doubtful, and much more likely I would have made up some excuse not to talk to her instead.

“Well…I do need to get to my gate…”

Regardless, I can say Meng’s techniques helped bolster my confidence long enough for me to step past my fear and take action.

That feeling when you realize a Google engineer helped you approach a girl.