Feelings

When you're on a trip and the miles are endless and you feel like perhaps the map is wrong and that you've indeed become trapped in a vicious circle and not getting anywhere, do you ever feel like you'll honestly never arrive at your destination?

Feeling that you'll never arrive and actually experiencing an endless road are two different things, thankfully. But, that feeling can over ride your ability to comprehend that nowhere on God's earth is there a road that has no end. Every trip has a destination.

When your computer is acting up and doing strange things in strange ways and you get really frustrated that the task you almost had completed in a certain program, had to become terminated because it committed an illegal operation, do you ever feel the sudden urge to throw your mouse into the screen?

Feeling that urge and acting on that urge are two different things. Feeling it doesn't cause the screen to crack and shatter but acting on it will. That feeling can result in a rather brash action but keeping that feeling in check, will keep your current computer problem from getting bigger. By staying calm, you can inoculate yourself to the actions of "the stupid computer" and actually impress yourself when in just 5 minutes, the whole system crashes and you remain unflustered and unfrustrated.

When your children are fussy and you've had a long day and you're tired and overwhelmed with yet another mess on the floor and suddenly, a little squabble breaks out and the littlest one gets another owie in the tussle, do you ever feel the sudden urge to open the door and start running?

Flight instinct is a very real and necessary thing for animals but for moms, it would be devastating. What could happen to your home and children in your absence? Thankfully, feeling that urge to run and acting on it are two very different things. Usually a deep breath and a whispered prayer can calm the situation enough that you quit staring longingly at the front door. At that point, you can look for the bright side (up coming nap time, hubby on his way home from work, etc.) and plunge even deeper into your home life and darling children.

When you're in childbirth and the intensity of labor has gone beyond your limit and you think in your head that this will never end, do you ever feel the sudden urge to just jump up and walk out of the room while telling the nurses and your concerned husband that you're done, this isn't working -- the baby will never come?

Most, if not all moms experience this feeling but I know of no one that successfully acted on it. Usually, that point in labor indicates to the health care providers that the end is indeed near.

There's something about our bodies and our feelings that when we tell ourselves we can take a hardship no longer, suddenly, the situation plunges even deeper and we find that what we thought was an unimaginable depth, becomes the very place where we find or experience the way out. We amaze ourselves at the hidden ability in our bodies to tolerate and endure difficulty.

No matter what road we may be on in life, this experience comes to everyone. Sometimes it's through a computer, other times its through people, and other times through physical pain. Recognizing it's challenging points, can better help us endure them long enough to realize that yes, we'll indeed survive.

Hitting rock bottom means one thing: time to jump off another cliff. But, focusing on our feelings can make us climb the rope back to the top of the problem and then we end up sitting there for unnecessary time, waiting for the situation to change. Embracing the difficulty, plunging into the the prospect of change and finding ways to overcome the problem instead of it overcoming us, are the very practices we should focus on when the feeling to run or turn around overwhelm us.

When you hit the point of no return, don't listen to your feelings; jump! And enjoy the ride down.