I used to like Max Lucado’s inspirational quote “The reason the windshield is bigger than your rearview mirror is because where you’re headed is more important that what you left behind.”
But after a crazy crack-up in my backyard recently, I junked that old clunker.
At my age it seems “the Behind me” is way bigger than what’s ahead of me. And sometimes when I’m keeping my eye on the future, something weird from the Past jumps out & makes me swerve.
Remember the children’s story about Chicken Little running around the farmyard shouting, “The sky is falling. The sky is falling” after an acorn fell on her head?
Well, try imagining me, a grown woman, running around my yard like a cartoon character yelling, “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do!” It was hysterical!
My husband had been stringing the outdoor lights I wanted in our tree when his ladder fell over. When I heard him yell to stand his ladder back up, I panicked. All I could see were his feet dangling ten feet above my head. I think I actually heard him laughing as I ran around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off.
I usually don’t panic like that. But, darn, I was sideswiped by a memory before I even saw it coming.
When I was 14 years old, I heard my dad yelling “Janet! Janet!” from the garage. When I got out there, I found him hanging from the guide track, his hand wedged in by the spring, and blood running down his arm. His ladder had fallen over while he was trying to fix the broken spring, and the 150- pound garage door had slammed to the ground. I doubt I weighed a hundred pounds back then, but my dad told me I had to raise the garage door so he could get down. I don’t know where I got the strength -- I was so afraid -- but somehow I lifted that door.
After reading Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book, Whole Brain Living, I felt a little better about being such a chicken knowing emotional cells in the left hemisphere of our brains can actually be triggered by an experience or trauma from our Past. Those cells then activate an automatic response called fight, flight, or freeze. I must have had all three in a matter of seconds.
Dr. Taylor says we can stay in the driver’s seat and avoid going out of control because of our emotional reactivity to our Past. We just have to pay attention to the Present, watch for the Warning signs and
Breathe, Janet — Just Breathe
“Sometimes I wonder if all this is happening because I didn’t forward that email to 10 people.” ~ Anonymous
DID YOU EVER HAVE A TIME YOU JUST NEEDED TO BREATHE?
Van Gogh’s early painting “Skull of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette” at The Immersive Experience
I love this story. When my grandkids were little, a friend of theirs used to say “Don’t Pancake!” instead of “Panic” - we still say that to this day!
I loved the quote, thanks for sharing it. I think we have to look ahead and face what is coming, but we will be better prepared if we look at our past mistakes and successes.
When I was a child and did some mischief, my mom told me that she would take a deep breath so as not to yell at me... now I understand, I put that into practice sometimes with my students.🌼