Today I was reminded of a toy I used to play with as a child. On Easter my siblings and I would often get those huge Easter baskets wrapped in cellophane containing wonderfully intriguing little toys. I remember being about eight years old when Chinese handcuffs were in my basket. As any child would do when given something they had never seen before, I first turned it every which way examining it, trying to figure out what you’d do with a cylinder of woven paper. My dad saw me looking at it quite puzzled. He said to stick a finger in each end. I did. Then he said now try to pull your fingers out. Imagine my surprise when the cylinder tightened around my fingers and I couldn’t get free. I immediately panicked. My dad told me to stop pulling, push my fingers in and then gently take them out. I felt the paper tube relax it’s grip and my panic subsided. (Now I couldn’t wait to pull the trick on my brother, but of course I’d let him sit in panic for longer than my dad let me.)
Imagine the times when something hits us in life and causes that panic sensation. We go berserk and react without thinking. Maybe we yell crazily at someone. Maybe we fall to our knees, crushed and in tears. Maybe we send a frantic, vile email. Maybe we post hurtful things on Facebook in a fit of rage. Maybe we run to someone else to tell our story and seek revenge. Then…..when our energy is depleted, and the panic subsided, it is only then we clearly see what damage we have done, and we suddenly see things we were blinded to. In hindsight, we see things differently and wish we hadn’t reacted so impulsively. Now, through our own causing, we have a mess that didn’t have to be if only we had remembered our childhood experience with Chinese handcuffs.
We might ask ourselves how much smaller would our mess be and how much lower our stress level, if, instead of going “berserk”, we had relaxed and leaned into our trouble, as our fingers would lean into the tube of the Chinese handcuffs. How differently would the situation be if only we had allowed ourselves to back away gently, like we learned to remove our fingers from the handcuffs and take some time to think and pray before typing or talking?
This is a huge, life-changing lesson I have learned on this journey, but it has to be practiced. Over the past nine months I have learned, through the discipline in the yoga studio, that as soon as panic and trouble strike in life, not to react impulsively when my feelings are hurt, or when I feel rejected or betrayed. As one of my beloved teachers, Leslie taught us, when the panic of the breath strikes, or the moaning and groaning and grimacing want to start, we quiet ourselves. She always says, “it’s ‘oh crap!’ on the inside, and calm and cool on the outside”. This lesson has improved the overall quality of my life and afforded peace in places that only anxiety and panic used to reside.
And so, as another day goes by, to quote Melody Beattie, “Few situations can be bettered by going berserk”, and …I have written.
Leave a Reply