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There has been a coyote wandering the woods around our area over the last few years, and occasionally we see him or hear him somewhere in the distance.  One of our children didn’t want to go out to wait for the bus this morning, because he was scared that the coyote would get him.

It’s not a big pack of coyotes, it’s maybe a few.  They’re not huge or vicious, they’re actually kind of small and scruffy. But it struck me that too often I react just the same way and with the same flimsy reasoning.  ”I don’t want to make that call” or “I don’t want to face that person” or “I don’t want to dig into that problem”.  But when I look at it from an outside perspective, I see that the person on the other end of the phone is not so big and scary, the personal conflict is not a huge war, the problem is not the end of the world.  I blow it all out of proportion in my mind, and it paralyzes me.

I know a lot of people who have this same issue – in fact almost everyone I know has it at some level.

The answer is perspective.  We need to choose to see the situation objectively and deal with it as it really is.  How do you gain perspective?  What habits have you developed? What tricks do you use?

And by the way, the coyote did not get him this morning – he was perfectly safe as always.

It’s interesting to me that we often think that we have no choice.  “He makes me so mad” we say, rather than “he behaves badly and I choose to hold on to the anger that causes.”  OK, it’s not as emotional – but it is valid.  We may not choose our initial reactions, but we choose our long term emotions.

Here’s some proof…

Have you ever had a day when you look back on it and say something like “I should not have been that angry with her” or “I really was too hard on him”?  Just this thought says that you have some control over those emotions that you expressed.  Now we may rationalize it away with “well she brings out the worst in me” or “he was really arrogant” or other such nonsense, but the reality is out in the open with that first thought and nothing that we can pile on top of it will change it in any way.  Thus, if we can realize that we emotionally over-reacted, it logically follows that we can control that reaction, and if we have control then we can choose to control ourselves or not.  It’s that simple.

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Today, by the grace of God, I learned to stop and take a breath. Just for a few minutes, in the middle of the busyness and the tight schedule, just stop. Smile. Breathe deep. Relax.

I’m working on it as a whole program – a way of life. A mini-meditation.

Try it.

The last few months have been crazy. Too many new things have come up each day to ever handle. Not just busy work, either. Really important stuff.

So my choice has been to either spread myself thin and halfway address a lot of things or else ignore them and hope it turns out alright. I’m coming to the realization this week that there is a third choice – let someone else handle some of the stuff. I’m pretty good at that in the office, but not so good at home. Working on it – I’ll let you know.