More Ready Today!

I was five years old, playing in our local public swimming pool.  Being a pesky little sister, I was following my brother and his friend around.  Probably trying to ditch me, they went to the deep end.  I followed.  All of a sudden, I realized that it was too deep for me!  I panicked!  I couldn’t touch the bottom!  What was I going to do?!  I flailed around, calling for help!

Finally, a life guard jumped in, pulled me out of the 4 feet deep water, and took me over to my worried mom.  Then he sat down to talk with us to be sure I was okay.  I was fine, just a bit shaken up.  I asked him why he waited so long to come rescue me.

“I thought you were just playing, Jane.  I know that you know how to swim.”

That’s right, I knew how to swim, in fact, I had had a lesson that very morning.

“Why didn’t you swim to the side?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.  I was scared,” I answered.

I got scared and, well, forgot that I knew how to swim.  Have you ever freaked out about a situation that you were actually quite ready to deal with?  You know, a time when you were actually okay, set up to get through it okay, but for some reason didn’t realize it?   Maybe in a stressful situation at work.  Maybe in an emergency, like a car accident.  Maybe even in a large-scale natural disaster?  Sometimes a lot can come at you pretty fast, making it a challenge to recognize, let alone rally all your resources and all your  knowledge.

Whenever that freak-out factor starts sneaking up on me, I just remember one of my mantras, “I can swim.”  That helps me to ground myself, remember all that I’ve done to prepare for that situation, and deal with it more effectively.   Should you find yourself dealing with the next big one (or even a not-so-big-one emergency situation), you don’t have to worry and stress and flail around. Remember all of the preparation that you’ve done; remember your resources; remember your strength.  Remember that you can swim.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2012 at 10:39 pm and is filed under General Planning, Quotes & Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.