I saw something that brought me to tears today as I was driving down the freeway. There was a dead Canadian goose in the middle lane and I immediately felt sad. Then, I noticed another goose on the side of the road…patiently sitting there. Tears began to flow as I remembered geese mate for life and her mate was dead. My mind created a story about how lonely she would be and how awful a thing to happen. Next, I began to wonder how people feel when their mate dies suddenly and how I would feel if my mate died unexpected in such a violent manner. After a few minutes of my mind wandering through various scenarios, I noticed I was feeling worse and worse. So, I began to shift from my stories about the ‘tragedy’. My tears stopped as I became more curious than sad and began wondering…how long would the goose sit there in the hard cement? Would she sacrifice herself before abandoning her mate? I slipped back into the present.
We humans love to share stories so I shared the sad story with my hairdresser and she immediately recounted a similar experience. Hers was seeing a mother duck lead her living babies to the side of the road and coming back to sit with her two dead babies. She too burst into tears at the sad sight. There’s nothing like an emotional story to create immediate rapport.
What I observed from my reaction was how easy it was to feel and care deeply as well as create a story which may or may not be true. It would have been easy to just say, oh that’s too bad, poor goose and go about my business or to continue to ramp up my emotional involvement and create a huge drama about cars whizzing by and no one (including me) stopping to help the poor sad, lonely goose sitting and grieving over the death of her mate.
Solution: Allowing ourselves to slip into our feelings is important and it’s also equally important to slip out when we feel complete.
Healthier Choice: When we notice ourselves drifting into a mental narration and creating our story about an event, we can observe what is causing us to be hooked into the event and pivot into wondering more than assuming which feels very different
Tried & True Tip: Keeping our attention on what’s happening now is vital to our well being. I could have easily been distracted enough to have an accident myself. Notice how easily you slip into your mind and out of the flow of life. Feel your feelings but be aware they can lead you on a ‘wild goose chase’.
Filed under: Personal Growth | Tagged: allowing our feelings, choices, choose healthier, choosing, eating healthier, eating healthy, healthier, healthiest, healthy, Healthy Lifestyle, sheryl, sheryl allen, tried and true tips
