CPR on a Mannequin
Hey, welcome to Made of More. I'm Leigh, and here we explore the mind, the heart, and the lessons life throws at us. Every episode, I share stories from my own life and use analogies to break down big ideas about growth, emotions, and self-discovery.
If you're ready to reflect, laugh a little bit, and see what you're really made of, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
Have you ever been so committed to fixing something that you forgot to check whether the thing you were trying to fix was actually alive? Because I have a scenario for you.
You walk into a room, and there's a mannequin lying on the floor, completely lifeless. Obviously, it's a mannequin. But for some reason, you decide that today is the day you're going to save this mannequin.
So you get down on the floor, put your hands together, and start doing CPR. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
You're compressing this mannequin's chest like your life depends on it. You're sweating, you're crying, you're yelling, come on! And the mannequin is just lying there, because it's a mannequin.
It has no pulse, it has no lungs, it has no consciousness. It has no idea that you are currently putting your entire soul into this situation, but you are determined. You are going to save this mannequin if it is the last thing you do.
And then somewhere beside you, you hear someone say, excuse me, I need help. You look over. There's an actual human being sitting on the floor.
They're conscious, they're breathing, they're looking directly at you. They're asking you for help. And you look back at the mannequin.
You think, I can't leave yet. I've already been doing so much. So you keep going.
One, two, three, four, come on mannequin. And the person beside you says, please. And you say, I know, I'm trying.
But you're not trying to help them. You're trying to save the mannequin.
And I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous because obviously if there is a real person asking you for help while you are performing CPR on a piece of plastic, you should probably redirect your attention.
But sometimes I think we do this emotionally all the time. We become so committed to reviving things that cannot respond to us, that we stop noticing the things that still can.
We keep pouring life into dead situations, dead relationships, dead dreams, dead versions of ourselves, dead expectations, dead conversations, dead possibilities.
And meanwhile, there is something right beside us that is still breathing, still responding, still asking, still alive. And we don't notice because we're too busy trying to bring something back to life that has already stopped answering.
So, let's stay in this room for a second. You're on the floor next to this mannequin. You've decided that you are responsible for saving it.
Maybe nobody even asked you to. And that's the funny part. Nobody handed you the mannequin and said, this is your responsibility.
You just saw it there and decided if you walked away, you would have failed. So, you start CPR. And the longer you do it, the harder it becomes to stop.
Because now you've invested time, you've invested energy, your hands hurt, your back hurts, you're sweating through your shirt, your hair is in your face. You are emotionally attached to the outcome.
And every time you think about stopping, a little voice says, but what if the next compression is the one that works? So, you keep going. One, two, three, four.
Meanwhile, the actual person next to you says, hey, I'm here. You hear them, you absolutely hear them. But you tell yourself that you'll get to them when you're done.
Because surely all of this effort has to mean something. Surely if you work hard enough, something has to change. Surely if you just do it correctly, patiently, consistently, lovingly, persistently enough, this mannequin will eventually become alive.
The Cost of Fixation
And that is where fixation becomes dangerous. Because fixation doesn't always look like obsession in the dramatic sense.
Sometimes fixation looks like loyalty, sometimes it looks like patience, sometimes it looks like hope, sometimes it looks like being the person who refuses to give up. And those things can be beautiful.
Persistence can save lives, commitment can build incredible things, hope can carry you through places you never thought you'd survive.
But there is a difference between refusing to give up on something that is still capable of responding and refusing to accept that something has stopped responding at all. And that difference can cost us a lot.
Because when you are staring at the mannequin, you might not notice the person beside you getting quieter. You might not notice them looking around for somebody else. You might not notice that they're no longer asking as loudly.
You might not notice that they're slowly deciding that you're not coming. And eventually, you might look over it and realize that the person who was asking for your help has gotten up and walked away.
And you are still on the floor, still doing CPR, still telling yourself that you just need one more attempt. And now, we're getting ridiculous because you've been doing CPR on this mannequin for like 45 minutes.
At this point, the mannequin should honestly be paying rent. You have developed a relationship with it. You've named it, you know its personality, you know what it would have wanted.
You have started saying things like, come on, Greg, we talked about this. You are exhausted, your hands are shaking. Someone walks into the room and says, what are you doing?
And you're like, I'm saving Greg. And they look at you, then they look at Greg, then they look back at you, that's a mannequin. And you get offended.
Don't talk about him like that. Now you're defending the mannequin. You don't know what we've been through.
Meanwhile, there is a living human being standing five feet away watching this entire thing unfold. And they say, I actually still need help. And you're like, I know, I'm almost done.
But you're not almost done. You've been almost done for an hour. You keep thinking the next attempt will be different because you've already put so much into this one.
You think, if I stop now, everything I did was for nothing. And that sentence right there is where so many of us get stuck. Because sometimes we don't continue because something is working.
We continue because stopping would force us to admit that what we've already invested cannot be recovered. And nobody likes that feeling.
We hate the idea that we spent months, years, energy, money, love, attention, creativity, patience, tears, and pieces of ourselves on something that ultimately did not become what we wanted it to become. So we keep compressing the mannequin's chest.
We keep sending the text. We keep explaining ourselves. We keep trying to get the apology.
We keep rebuilding the same relationship. We keep refreshing the page. We keep applying for the same opportunity.
We keep trying to force a dream into the exact shape we originally imagined. We keep saying, maybe if I try one more time, and sometimes one more time is actually persistence, but sometimes one more time is just another way of avoiding grief.
Because if you stop, you have to look at what happened. You have to acknowledge that you cannot make the mannequin breathe, and that can hurt more than the work itself. So, you keep working.
Not because you believe it's working anymore, but because stopping would mean accepting that it isn't. Sometimes, the thing you are trying hardest to save is not the thing that needs you anymore. And that doesn't necessarily mean it was worthless.
It doesn't mean the relationship meant nothing. It doesn't mean the dream was stupid. It doesn't mean you wasted your life.
It doesn't mean you were foolish for caring. It means that something can be meaningful and still be finished. Something can have been real and still no longer be alive in the way that it once was.
Something can have mattered deeply and still not be where you are supposed to keep putting your energy. And I think that's one of the hardest things for human beings to accept, because we're taught to celebrate persistence.
We love the story where somebody refuses to give up and eventually everything works out. We love the montage where the person keeps practicing, keeps knocking on doors, keeps trying, and finally gets the thing. We love never give up.
But sometimes never give up is not wisdom. Sometimes it's a trap. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop compressing the chest of something that isn't responding and look around the room.
Because maybe there's something else there. Maybe there's a person who loves you. Maybe there's an opportunity you haven't noticed because you've been staring at the closed door.
Maybe there's a version of yourself that desperately needs your attention. Maybe there's a dream that is actually alive but doesn't look like the one you originally chose.
Maybe there is a part of your life that is quietly saying, I'm still here, while you are screaming at something else to come back. And I think fixation can make us blind to that.
When we decide that one particular outcome has to happen, our attention narrows. We stop asking, what is actually alive here? And start asking, how do I make this specific thing happen?
And those questions are not the same. One is responsive, the other is controlling. One observes reality, the other tries to negotiate with it.
And sometimes life is telling you, this isn't responding. While you are standing there thinking, I just haven't tried hard enough. There is a particular kind of grief that comes from realizing you cannot save something simply because you love it.
And I think that grief deserves more attention than we give it. Because sometimes love makes us believe that effort can overcome anything. If I care enough, I'll fix it.
If I communicate better, they'll understand. If I become better, they'll stay. If I explain myself one more time, they'll finally see my perspective.
If I work hard enough, the dream will happen. If I wait longer, the opportunity will come back. If I give more, they'll give more.
If I stay patient, the situation will change. And sometimes it does. But sometimes you are giving CPR to a mannequin.
And the hardest part isn't realizing the mannequin is a mannequin. The hardest part is realizing how much of yourself you put into trying to make it breathe.
Because now you're not just grieving the thing, you're grieving the version of yourself who believed that if she worked hard enough, she could make anything happen. This goes for you too, or they. You get what I mean?
You're grieving the time, you're grieving the possibility, you're grieving the future you imagine, you're grieving all the little moments where you thought maybe tomorrow.
And maybe that's why we become so fixated, because as long as we're still trying, we don't have to grieve. As long as we're still sending the message, we don't have to accept that they aren't responding.
As long as we're still checking the website, we don't have to accept that the opportunity is gone. As long as we're still trying to fix the relationship, we don't have to sit with the possibility that it cannot be fixed by us.
As long as we're still forcing ourselves to become the person we thought we were supposed to be, we don't have to meet the person we actually are. And grief is uncomfortable. My god, it is extremely uncomfortable.
So we choose effort, we choose control, we choose fixation. Because fixation feels productive, grief feels like sitting still. And sitting still can feel like failure when you've spent your entire life being praised for how hard you work.
But there's a difference between working hard and refusing to see reality. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop. Not because you don't care, but because you do.
Because you finally care enough to stop wasting the life that is still asking to be lived. I think for a long time, I was giving CPR to a mannequin and I didn't realize it.
I was so focused on keeping alive this version of myself that I had created around my mental health that I wasn't paying attention to the person who was actually still alive.
I had struggled with my mental health for so long that I started identifying with it. It became part of how I saw myself. I was the anxious one.
I was the struggling one. I was the one who had been through things. I was the one who wasn't okay.
And even when I started getting better, there was this part of me that kept looking backward. Like, I needed to keep checking on her. Like I needed to make sure I was still her.
And I think that's because she was familiar. I knew how to be her. I knew how to survive.
I knew how to be scared. I knew how to be hurt. But I didn't know who I was without all of that.
And that's terrifying, because when you've spent so much of your life trying to survive yourself, actually getting to live can feel unfamiliar. And I think I confused familiar, woof! I think I confused familiarity with identity.
I thought, this is just who I am. When really, it was just who I had been for a really long time, and there's a difference. I don't want to erase that version of me.
I don't want to pretend she wasn't real. She was. She went through things.
She hurt. She needed help. She deserved compassion.
But she doesn't need me to keep her alive anymore. And I think that's what I've been learning. I can love who I was without continuing to be her.
And I can understand why I became that person without making that person my permanent identity.
I can remember what happened to me without letting it decide who I would become next, because there is a version of me standing here now who is actually alive.
And she deserves some of the attention I've spent all these years giving to the person I used to be. She deserves to be known to. And maybe healing isn't about forgetting the person you were.
Maybe it's realizing that you don't have to keep giving CPR to a version of yourself that already survived. You can finally look up and realize you're alive.
Understanding Fixation
There are a few psychological concepts that sit underneath this metaphor, and one of the biggest is the sunk cost fallacy.
The sunk cost fallacy is essentially the tendency to continue investing in something because you've already invested so much in it. Even when continuing may no longer make sense, and you see it everywhere.
Someone stays in a situation because they've already spent five years there. Someone keeps pursuing a career they hate because they've already spent thousands of dollars on the education.
Someone keeps pouring energy into a relationship because we've been together for so long.
Someone keeps watching a terrible movie because we're already an hour in, and suddenly you're three hours into a movie where everyone is miserable because apparently the first hour and 45 minutes have become illegally binding.
But emotionally, some costs can become much more complicated because the investment isn't always money or time. Sometimes it's identity. You don't just think, I've spent five years on this.
You think, I am the person who makes this work. Walking away isn't just losing the thing, it feels like losing a piece of yourself.
There's also something called attentional fixation, where attention becomes locked onto a particular object, problem or goal, making it harder to notice other information around you. And that's exactly what happens in our mannequin room.
You're so focused on the mannequin that the person next to you becomes background noise. Your attention has narrowed. You're looking for evidence that the mannequin can be revived instead of looking at the entire environment.
And this can happen emotionally when we become hyper-focused on getting one particular outcome. We stop seeing alternatives because we're not actually looking for alternatives. We're looking for confirmation that our original plan can still work.
There is also a concept related to loss aversion. The idea that losses can feel more psychologically significant than equivalent gains.
So sometimes we aren't chasing the mannequin because we genuinely believe it will come back to life, or chasing it because accepting the loss feels unbearable. And I think this is why letting go can feel so wrong even when something isn't working.
Your brain isn't just calculating whether the thing is good for you, it's also reacting to the possibility of losing something you've invested in. And that's why sometimes you need to ask a very uncomfortable question.
If I had never invested in this before, would I choose it today? Not would I stay because I've already spent five years? Not would I continue because I've already tried so hard?
Just knowing what I know now, if I were standing at the beginning of this road, would I still walk down it? And that question can reveal a lot.
Shifting Focus
So let's go back into the room. You're still on the floor, your hands are tired, your arms are shaking, you're staring at the mannequin. You've been trying to save it for so long that you've forgotten what the room looks like.
And then you hear the person next to you again, except this time, they don't say, help me. They say, I'm leaving. And suddenly you look up, you actually look up, and you realize how much you've missed.
You realize there were windows in this room. You realize there was another door. You realize there were other people.
You realize the person beside you had been alive the entire time. They were breathing, they were talking, they were reaching toward you. They didn't need you to resurrect them.
They needed you to notice them. And maybe that's the second aha, because sometimes the thing you're supposed to save isn't the thing you've been staring at. Sometimes you're so focused on resurrecting the past that you don't notice the present.
You're trying to make yesterday happen again while today is standing right beside you. And I'm not saying you should abandon everything the moment it becomes difficult. That's not the lesson.
Some things need persistence. Some people need patience. Some dreams take years.
Some relationships go through seasons. Some things look dead when they're actually resting. The point is not quit.
The point is pay attention to whether there is a response. Is there movement? Is there reciprocity?
Is there growth? Is there communication? Is there life?
Are you the only person compressing the chest? Because if you are the only one trying to create movement, that tells you something.
And sometimes we get so used to being the rescuer that we don't even notice we've started rescuing things that aren't asking to be rescued. We think our value comes from being needed, so we find things to save.
We find people to fix, we find problems to solve, we find impossible goals to conquer, and then we wonder why we're exhausted. But maybe you don't need to be needed by everything. Maybe you need to be present for what is actually alive.
Your job isn't to make everything breathe. Maybe your job is to recognize what is already breathing and give it somewhere to grow.
Sometimes we become so committed to bringing something back to life that we forget to notice what is still alive beside us.
What is Still Alive
So here's your challenge for this week. I want you to think about one thing in your life that you keep trying to revive. Don't judge yourself for it.
Don't immediately decide that you need to walk away. Just identify it. Ask yourself, what am I repeatedly pouring energy into that isn't really responding to me?
And then ask yourself the harder question, what might I be neglecting because I'm so focused on this? Maybe it's your body. Maybe it's your creativity.
Maybe it's a friendship. Maybe it's your career. Maybe it's your peace.
Maybe it's your future. Maybe it's a dream you keep postponing because you're waiting for another dream to finally work out. Maybe it's yourself.
And I want you to notice something else. Are you trying to save it because it is actually alive and needs your effort, or because letting go would force you to admit that your effort cannot control the outcome?
Because those are very different things. If you realize that something is still worth fighting for, beautiful, fight for it, show up, communicate, work, build, love, try.
But if you realize you've been giving CPR to a mannequin, you're allowed to stop. You are allowed to put your hands down. You are allowed to breathe.
You are allowed to grieve what didn't happen. You are allowed to admit that you wanted something desperately and it still didn't work.
You are allowed to say, I gave this everything I knew how to give, and it still didn't become what I hoped it would become. That isn't failure. Sometimes that's reality.
And reality isn't your enemy. Reality is information. You don't have to hate the mannequin.
You don't have to throw it across the room. You don't have to pretend it never mattered. You can simply stop giving it your entire life.
Because somewhere beside you, there may be something alive. Maybe it's small. Maybe it's quiet.
Maybe it doesn't look impressive yet. Maybe it isn't what you originally planned, but it's breathing. It's responding.
It's asking. And you can't hear it if you're still screaming at something else to come back. So look around.
That's your challenge. Look around the room. What is still alive?
What still responds when you reach for it? What gives something back? What makes you feel like yourself?
What part of your life has been quietly knocking while you've been busy trying to force open another door? And maybe you don't need to answer all of those questions today.
Maybe you just noticing is enough, because sometimes the first step out of fixation isn't letting go. Sometimes it's looking up. Looking away from the thing you've been staring at long enough to see the rest of the room.
And maybe you'll realize there is more life here than you thought. Maybe there are people who love you. Maybe there are opportunities you haven't noticed.
Maybe there are parts of yourself you abandoned because you were waiting for something else to change. Maybe there's a future that doesn't require you to keep resurrecting the past.
And maybe, just maybe, you don't need to become better at saving things that won't respond. Maybe you need to become better at recognizing what deserves your attention. Because your energy is a life force.
Your attention is a life force. Your love is a life force. And where you put those things matters.
So please, before you spend another six months doing CPR on a mannequin, look around. There might be somebody beside you saying, I'm still here. There might be a dream saying, I'm still here.
There might be a version of you saying, I'm still here. And maybe this time, instead of answering, wait, I'm almost done, you look up and say, I know, I'm on my way.