Sometimes the little lessons of light are analogies and others are literally the lesson.

For example, my attempt to summit Mt. Baker was a great analogy (as you may have read in my previous post “This is Me”). There were lessons to learn, some of which I think I still haven’t figured out. 

There are other times, like my 13 year old son’s close friend passing away, in which the lesson is that he will learn coping skills, he will grow, and hopefully increase in his faith through this hard thing.

I believe that you and I are here to learn and grow…. To learn to love and live more like God and Christ and experience real joy. They are our example but without all the ups and downs of life, we cannot achieve that increased love, knowledge, living and feeling joy.

I learn a lot when I seek out these little lessons of light. They are great reminders of why we are here.

This morning, we woke up at 4am to drive home in time for my son to be at a very important event. We needed to allow for up to at least 5 hours in case we hit traffic.  We left by 4:30am.

In the process of leaving, my husband misplaced his paracord bracelet. He noticed once we drove away so we went back to the air bnb so he could find it.  I waited in the car. After a few minutes he returned without his bracelet so I offered to take a look inside, too.

I walked in the door, closed it and looked down to my right and there it was, lying on the floor. As I returned to the car almost immediately, my husband was shocked and feeling embarrassed. He had been a little frazzled when he went looking for his bracelet. I was not.

When you are frazzled, your brain is in more of a fight or flight, survival mode and it is much harder for it to focus on important things, or even anything sometimes.  That primitive brain (when you’re in fight or flight/survival mode) doesn’t know the difference between an actual threat and not.  It sees them all the same and thus your body responds the same.

Have you ever experienced that? You know the feeling, I’m sure.  Desperately searching for something you know that you just had in your bag.  You almost get frantic.  And usually you don’t find it or you eventually find it after searching your bag 4 or 5 times.  Ever done something like that?

It works the same in your every day doings—when you are stressed and frazzled for whatever reason—your brain does not focus well on anything.

But if you slow down, breathe calmly and reset your nervous system, the fight or flight mode dissipates.  Your body and therefor, your mind, settle and are then able to focus.

This was a great reminder for me and for you, don’t live your life frazzled and searching frantically for what is right in front of you. Stop. Slow down.  Breathe.  And then your body will reset, and you will be able to do what you need to do.  And you will be much calmer. More level-headed.

You have more control than you realize.