This morning I had a bit of a sad and scary situation happen.
As I was driving to the store I noticed a very young boy (maybe 2-3 years old) running down the street through the intersection in front of my daughter and I. We watched him as we turned the corner & noticed a man jogging quickly behind him about 30 feet away.
I instantly pulled over to get closer to the young child and jumped out of the car. I yelled to the man & asked him if the little boy was his child. Confused, we both looked at each other, “No. I don’t know who he is. I just began to follow him after I noticed there was no adult with him,” he explained.
I walked over to the little boy & he turned away from me, screaming and crying, and began to run back toward the intersection. My daughter jumped out of the car and began to run after him. We both followed him into the street, trying to help cars move away and around him while we tried to coax him out of the busy intersection. He did not want to listen or follow anyone.
By this time, another car had pulled over & a few people were calling 911 while we all tried to coral this youngster out of the road and into safety. He just kept his whining.
After we got him out of the street, I began to ask him questions to maybe change his pattern, “How old are you, Buddy?” “Do you know your colors?” “What color is the sky?” and on and on with no distraction or reaction. Just quiet whining. We could not get anything out of him & as we tried to hold his hand, he pulled away.
We tried and tried to get this little child to calm down, to not be afraid and actually trust us a little. We got nothing.
Then, the police officer pulled up and approached us. He asked the little boy a couple of questions, and still nothing but endless tears. The officer reached out his hand and the little boy took it in his. The little boy then crawled into the officer’s arms and they began to walk down the sidewalk in the direction the little boy had come from.
This made me think about life & the tough situations that may come up. What makes a bad situation worse?? We run! We don’t face our fears. We get scared. We run! What makes us run? Anger, negative emotions, situations that we don’t like, shame, worry… FEAR based feelings. Life can be like that sometimes. We may not want to deal with a situation and the easy way out would be to run to avoid the pain.
The little boy ran away from a situation, but then was left to his fears. Things got scary. He didn’t feel safe, so he just kept running… into the street, away from people who were trying to help, further from a safe place…
As adults, we can get into similar situations of fear and would rather run than face the shame, the people who want to help us, getting the help we need, etc.
Ask yourself—wouldn’t it be easier to just STOP!!
Stop running. Stop living in actions that are fear based (addiction, depression, avoidance, duality, negativity, anger, etc.).
The little boy would not say a word. He just cried and wouldn’t be calm. He resisted. He kept running, and he pushed away.
A few lessons from this:
-NO one can control anyone but themselves.
-No one can truly help unless someone wants and is willing to accept the help.
-If YOU are in personal trouble, want to avoid life, are living in fear, are acting on addictions to hide from emotions, STOP. Take a breath.
-Only YOU can find the place within that will lead you to feel safe and secure. No one can do it for you.
STOP!! Think about it.
-Only YOU can change where you are headed.
Just like the little boy–he ran and ran–into every street, every direction, away from help, and did not calm down until HE stopped and truly wanted help for himself. None of us could do anything until he was ready to take the officer’s hand and go in a different direction than where he was headed.
That is life. No one can do it for you. There are people who can try to help, but YOU have to make the choices, the directions, the steps that will take you to a better, safer place.
-PEACE, hope and LOVE to everyone who needs a hand to hold. It is tough to see anyone struggle.
Have a beautiful day. -H
Yesterday I was able to see my six-year-old nephew who had just had a birthday. I asked him if he had got his present because I was not able to be at his party. He responded that he had got the gift, but asked if next time I would buy him the giant ship that goes with the pirate guy I had given him. I smiled and laughed at his sweet innocence. He has no concept of money & that the boat was over $80. He just knew that he wanted something bigger, better and that it went with his character. He wanted the best of everything!!
My husband and our family have been on a rollercoaster of emotion for about four years now. My husband had been with the same company for about 15+ years when the company decided to sell and he was left without a job.
This morning as my husband was leaving to work, I was half asleep, but I remembered something I read recently and mentioned it to him. With a huge amount of HOPE in my heart, I said, “I read something that may help you today…be SUPERMAN. Find someone you can save today. Find someone you can lift with a smile, a kind word, a compliment. FIND SOMEONE YOU CAN SAVE!! He said, “That is a great idea. I will”
“Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow growth if it must be slow, and know the results must come, as you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night–with absolute assurance that the heavy-leaded moments must bring the morning.”
THE POWER OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE “But his unconscious influence, the silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, the trifles he never considers, is tremendous. Every moment of life he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.
FAILURE AS A SUCCESS: “Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of Nature’s gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.”
DOING OUR BEST AT ALL TIMES: “If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times , that determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully accepts the best–merely as a temporary substitute for something better.”
You never know how you will be impacted by those who come into your life. What will you take away from those experiences of meeting new people or even going a little deeper with those you are surrounded by. We need connection. We need to learn from others and their stories.
One of our new friends had already performed at a famous theater here in Utah as the lead. She sings, dances, sews, knits, plays the piano and guitar & is taking aerial silks. It was fun to get to know her & learn of her many talents. It was also nice to meet her mother who was from Ukraine. At one point during our afternoon I asked this young girl if she ever thought she would visit her mother’s home country to get a better understanding of her mother & her history. The girl looked at me and said, “the country has been ruined from war and I don’t know if we would ever go back. It is not like it use to be.” It was wonderful to listen to stories of how her mother grew up with a father who only put vegetables in the garden and not “beauty.” I took this young girl to a local nursery to pick out some flowers & make our own little pot of “beauty.” She walked the nursery saying, “my mother loves flowers. She would love this one. She loves petunia’s….” It made me have a whole new appreciation for “beautiful flowers.” When we dropped off our new friend, I looked at her mother’s flower pots that she had all over her yard & I thought about her perspective on “beauty” and I smiled at her pots and pots of flowers. We take so much for granted.
Our other new friend has been suffering from an unknown illness that has put her in the hospital numerous times, has been through three surgeries and still wonders if she is going to be okay. She still has flare ups. We sat at an outdoor eatery & talked about her experiences & how she wants to go into medicine even further because of her illness. She said it was the hardest to see her parents go through everything with her. She was an incredible girl with so many hopes and dreams. I sat and listened to her explain how she had read about a doctor who spends most of his year in third world countries and how she would like to follow in his footsteps. My admiration for her dream soared. She talked about constantly learning about medicine, learning more about homeopathic medicine, trying to find different ways to cope with her illness. She was so strong & so alive & so smart and beautiful. She lit up talking about playing the guitar & piano & is constantly learning new things. She was an inspiration. I thought to myself, she is so young, has learned so much & continues to pursue anything and everything her heart desires. If we could all be like that!! Maybe being sick, wondering if you may live and always searching for answers leaves you aching for more of what life has to offer. I am sure every day is a new day filled with possibility for her.
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