I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about all the things I have to do, how to get all my work done, how to not go bankrupt, how to breathe… you know, the usual. I think I made myself feel a little queasy with fear & worry.
Anyway, as I was lying there, all curled up and looking out the window at a city of sprawling red lights in the early morning my mind begain to think about our family’s travel-sickness. I realise this may seem a bit odd.
Eh?! I hear you say, ‘travel sickness?’ Well, let me explain.
ALL of my family get travel & motion-sickness. It doesn’t matter what it is that we’re in; car, bus, train, plane, boat, rides… it happens to all of us. The throats get tight, the air feels whoozy and basically, well, basically we make for terrible travelers!!
And this got me thinking a little. This sick feeling in my stomach. It got me thinking about about what my mom used to say to us (still does, if we’re in the car…), as a technique to counter-act or prevent our car-sickness. When you’re sitting in the car and you’re not feeling too well, my mom always always says without fail, to “Look Straight Ahead!” And it makes a difference.
There’s something about the continuity of seeing where your body’s about to be taken that helps with the brain making a physical connection to the body’s movement. You focus, you breathe, and you look straight ahead, and this way, you are able to survive the car journey relatively well. It’s engrained in me, those three words of sense & help.
So you understand, that when I was lying there and feeling slightly queasy that the words popped into my mind immediately. And I know I wasn’t in a car, or a physical moving vehicle, but life was moving me in ways I couldn’t predict… which is similar to a car, if you think about it. And if this is the case, which I suspect it always will be, all you can do is, well, you need to ‘Look Straight Ahead’. Don’t think about all the cliff edges and terrifying things that are paralysing you from action. Don’t see them. Look straight ahead. Move forward, & it will all be okay in the end… And if it isn’t well, you can always take a break and get out of the car for a bit before trying again.
So that’s what I’m doing today. No time for stressing.
I’m Looking Straight ahead.
thea.
xx
