I live on a street with a medium amount of traffic. The neighborhood is residential and commercial (mostly doctors offices). But at the same time, every morning people are swarming for parking spaces early. I happen to be out watering my garden around the same time so I see this regularly.
This morning a gal was trying to parallel park her compact car in a plenty large space. A 1970’s, boat style sedan could have fit in this spot. She backed in crooked, pulled out, backed in again, the angle still off, pulled up and out again, tried several times, and then gave up in short order. She saw me “noticing” her attempt to parallel park. I then sensed added to her exasperation, I gave her the respect of looking away quickly.
I could see and sense, in a moments time, her cascading story afoot. I don’t know how to parallel park, I always do it wrong, I really want this space because there aren’t very many, this might even be the last one for blocks. I’m such an idiot that I can’t parallel park. Whats the matter with me? Normal people can parallel park, OMG that lady can totally see that I’m a complete failure, I better get out of here now!
In my mind, I was thinking, “oh she’s got this, there’s plenty of room”, I was actually cheering her on in my mind. I know people who’ve convinced themselves they can’t parallel park, I’m not one of them. I don’t have time to waste on the “I can’t parallel park” conversation in my head.
Which got me thinking about the difference, on any subject, between those who have one story, and those who have the other, in their head. She could change her story and become a decent enough parallel parker overnight. I could change my story on plenty of other topics overnight. And probably should!
Some people have the story that they have more health than a disease. Others have it the other way around. If I do the math, there are a multitude (times a lot) of functions that my body must carry out all day. But every day and it’s going smashingly well in comparison to a stiff neck, achy hip, or a testy stomach on any given day.
Most of us know that we all have cancer cells in our body all the time. The cells just happen to be in too small a quantity of matter. But I heard a while back that every person gets full-blown cancer at least six times in their life and the body usually resolves it, unbeknownst to us. Sometimes it doesn’t resolve it. Maybe it just happens to “get caught” in the midst of a not-yet-completed round of resolving it? I can think of three times where I bet my body was “resolving cancer” and I felt like hell. Was really low on energy, and sort of like I was dying. Knowing that it sounds dramatic but my secret thought was, “it feels like I’m dying?”
It was scary, and after I had pity party with myself (lonely affairs, I usually don’t invite anyone else), I always got re-focused on what mattered. Which, in every case is feeling well. Which means my choices shore up to support my focus until the energy shifts back to health. I’ll never know if it was about cancer my body was handling or not. But I will say I have a deep and abiding respect for the intelligence of a human body to manage all that it does, and mostly smashingly well.
I choose to celebrate what’s working while what’s not works itself out. I might need a little support working it out. A good stretch, an acupuncture treatment, some herbs, a doctor visit usually works. I’ve noticed that when I focus on what I want, it comes around easier. And when I obsess on something, that usually makes it worse.
When I focus on being able to parallel parking, I can and do. If I were to convince myself otherwise, I’d have to settle for sucky parking. Let’s celebrate stories that heal and all the ways our body is working well. While at the same time taking care of what needs to be taken care of in the spirit of “smashingly well”.