This weekend I had the blessed opportunity to go camping with my family (all but my eldest, who of course was with us in spirit <3). There were many things that made this trip “blessed”: we were blessed to camp at a beautiful site right beside a gorgeous lake; we were blessed by the neat structure a previous camper had built around the firepit to shelter our fire from wind; we were blessed by the copious amounts of spiders, who kept the lakeside mosquitos to a record low for our camping history; we were blessed by the awesome tree across the lake that my husband said looked “magical”, like something the Toll House elves might live in.
The blessing that stood out to me the most, however, was an experience I had that reminded me of something I’ve known for a good while, that I literally got to see put into play…
I got stung.
I was sitting in my camping chair, working on a creative project, when I suddenly felt a little sting as I moved my leg. I jumped; there was something in my pant leg.
Panic overtook me, I’ll admit, and my “no kill” philosophy toward insects - as with all life - went flying out the window as I smacked my hand down on the affected area to squish whatever had just attacked me.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I went to remove it by way of widening my pant leg… when the little bugger stung me again! This time much harder!
I literally yelled out as I balled up the culprit in the material of my yoga pants, keeping it firmly in my fist (even as it stung me one more time, on my thumb) and I literally yanked my pants completely off of my lower body. And it took quite a bit of yanking, too - the fistful of pants tightened the entire left leg around my actual leg, making it quite difficult to remove.
Finally the pants were off and I stood bare-assed for the world to see (fortunately ONLY the World COULD see, hahaha) as I searched my now-inside-out leggins for the offender…..
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This.
That’s right. That.
That little piece of jagged plastic is what caused the swollen ‘stings’ you saw at the beginning of this post.
I had been SO CONVINCED that it was an insect that had jabbed me - and NOT a piece of otherwise harmless plastic - that my brain flooded the jab-sites on my leg, and the one on my thumb, with antihistamines, causing all three tiny wounds to swell dramatically (I say dramatically because, for 3 plastic-pokes, it was exactly that: dramatic).
My brain - dear, sweet, well-meaning brain - took my cues of “Oh shit it’s a bug!” and reacted accordingly.
My brain - wonderful, loving, gullible brain - listened to my conscious concerns, and took the action that best alleviated those concerns.
My amazing, intelligent brain… acted pretty stupidly
…...because I told it to.
In this case, my instructions were incredibly unintentional. But then… so many of the instructions we relay to our brains are unintentional. Nevertheless, our wonderful brains listen, despite having more operating power than the most advanced of supercomputers, to what we mere mortals ACCIDENTALLY tell them to do.
So what, then, can we convince them to do on purpose??
I could go on and on about this, but something is telling me to leave it there, and when that ‘something’ talks, I listen… just as my brain listens to me.
-Journy
