My blue jeans caught on fire -- while I was wearing them. The accident involved hot dogs and a sterno that overturned, a 'family fun' day at school and denim blue jeans woven with a heavy amount of lycra spandex as only cheap jeans are.
Humans spend a lot of time worrying about events and situations that may happen in the future. What starts out as a chance thought fluttering on'by turns into a full-blown eventuality that we're playing out in a 1,001 ways and imagining how we'll handle. But it's the situations that we can't even imagine happening that are, in fact, the ones that happen. It's the twist in our logical minds that makes us spend an inordinate amount of time fearful about stuff that probably won't happen, yet blind to the things that will happen. Our logical minds have a hard time dealing with shocks.
Even as my knee was burning, my mind was rationalizing the pain: "It's just a splash of hot water. It's not a big deal. It'll start cooling off." My mind knew all the answers even as my body was in pain and the heat wasn't going away. There was a delay between the body's senses and experiences, and my mind. There was a lag in how my mind processed the physical experience and how "off" it was in its analysis as it tried to "keep control". Even after doing yoga for years, it's been shocking and humbling to have witnessed my mind going into dysfunction so quickly. It was only until I saw the orange glow spreading across my jeans and my shoelace burning did my mind finally get it: you're on fire and you could be in serious danger here, girl. Run, Scream, Shout. Stop, Drop, Roll
How many times do we encounter daily physical and emotional pain that our minds are only too willing to shrug off, justify, rationalize and then try to move on from? It's how most of us live until one day the pain is too great or just so obvious that we can't ignore it anymore and find that none of the tools in our arsenal -- everything from positive thinking to praying to keeping calm and moving on-- help anymore in keeping our ego swaddled and protected. We have to get real; aware about the change happening around us, all the time, in a blink, and for absolutely no reason, and the focus and discipline to deal with it in real-time. Whether happy or sad, terrifying or joyous, we deal with it all. Real. Deal.
Blue Jeans Blog had needed a reboot for a while and there is nothing like a trial by fire to help burn off a few impurities. Media critiques and the work that comes from my journalism gig don't belong here on my Blue Jeans Blog, for one thing. A separate blog Media Musings has been created for that. Staying focused on sharing the everyday, the ordinary -- both the pleasant and unpleasant -- and the practical disciplines of yoga to manage it all are.
Humans spend a lot of time worrying about events and situations that may happen in the future. What starts out as a chance thought fluttering on'by turns into a full-blown eventuality that we're playing out in a 1,001 ways and imagining how we'll handle. But it's the situations that we can't even imagine happening that are, in fact, the ones that happen. It's the twist in our logical minds that makes us spend an inordinate amount of time fearful about stuff that probably won't happen, yet blind to the things that will happen. Our logical minds have a hard time dealing with shocks.
Even as my knee was burning, my mind was rationalizing the pain: "It's just a splash of hot water. It's not a big deal. It'll start cooling off." My mind knew all the answers even as my body was in pain and the heat wasn't going away. There was a delay between the body's senses and experiences, and my mind. There was a lag in how my mind processed the physical experience and how "off" it was in its analysis as it tried to "keep control". Even after doing yoga for years, it's been shocking and humbling to have witnessed my mind going into dysfunction so quickly. It was only until I saw the orange glow spreading across my jeans and my shoelace burning did my mind finally get it: you're on fire and you could be in serious danger here, girl. Run, Scream, Shout. Stop, Drop, Roll
How many times do we encounter daily physical and emotional pain that our minds are only too willing to shrug off, justify, rationalize and then try to move on from? It's how most of us live until one day the pain is too great or just so obvious that we can't ignore it anymore and find that none of the tools in our arsenal -- everything from positive thinking to praying to keeping calm and moving on-- help anymore in keeping our ego swaddled and protected. We have to get real; aware about the change happening around us, all the time, in a blink, and for absolutely no reason, and the focus and discipline to deal with it in real-time. Whether happy or sad, terrifying or joyous, we deal with it all. Real. Deal.
Blue Jeans Blog had needed a reboot for a while and there is nothing like a trial by fire to help burn off a few impurities. Media critiques and the work that comes from my journalism gig don't belong here on my Blue Jeans Blog, for one thing. A separate blog Media Musings has been created for that. Staying focused on sharing the everyday, the ordinary -- both the pleasant and unpleasant -- and the practical disciplines of yoga to manage it all are.
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