Fight or Flight

When faced with a problem or a conflict, we experience the flight or fight phenomenon. Our brains begin to take over and neurotransmitters flood our neuronal pathways, adrenaline that was stockpiled in the medulla releases. Our pulse elevates, blood vessels dilate to circulate blood major muscles and organs, spurts of glucose feed those primed muscles and organs... hearing, sight, smell.... all senses locked and loaded. It’s innate, uncontrollable, and is most often always a sign that something is not right. The. You’re faced with the decision... turn and run, or stand and fight. The flight or fight.

Ever realize that you have run beyond the flight or fight? Have you ever reached a day when you can no longer rationally make a solid decision in your life. Some days, I wonder if God hears my voice at all anymore. Or if maybe, I’ve finally nailed in the final nail in my damnation and managed to alienate the one person who could actually heal my soul.  I wonder if I am good enough, if I’m strong enough.. I fret over the fact that half way into saying my prayers last night before I went to bed, I fell asleep. I begin to find small failures, and grow on them enough to defeat myself. I’m not saying it’s right, and I know that it’s stupid, but I’m human. My irrational brain begins to tell me that I’ve screwed up so much that I’m done for.

The last two weeks have been pretty personally brutal. Crap happening at my job, crap happens with my kids, crap happening with my mother... all around just a giant load of crap. And, I keep thinking if I were adequate, if I were exceptional... I would have my shit together. I would be able to handle all of it without a hitch. I’d be the perfect mother, wife, daughter, and nurse everyone needed, life would be perfect..... and I would not have so much of a mess. I spend so much time worrying and focusing on everyone around me, and I shoulder so much.... too much. So much that it’s almost impossible for anyone one person to do. And when I fail, because I set myself up to topple over and onto my face... it’s deviatating. I feel like the world is going to crack and break into a million pieces.  I feel awful, and worthless.

 Then, in the middle of a bitter haze, and after a shot or two of tequila, and a paragraph or two into my thoughts.. I realize that this fight, this long drawn battle that I circle back to time and time again... yeah, that one. It’s a fight with mysef. Regardless of how much disappointment and hurt I’m about to bring down upon mysef, I still insist that I can do it all. I insist that I am made of stew and don’t bend or break. I loose mysef somewhere along the way, and sometimes it seems impossible to make it back to the person I was.

We don’t always have to fight. There’s always a choice, and we can choose differently, if we want to. I look down at all of my scars and I wonder, why the hell I always chose to fight? I wonder why I didn’t choose to heal, and get strong, and wiser. It’s like the saying, “Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.” I know it’s not true, and I know it will hurt like hell in the morning, but I like the damn fight. Being black and blue as a result, well that’s hindsight.

 In the moments where you have fought more than your share, it’s ok to come undone. It’s ok to be raw and unhinged, and it is ok to sob on the floor. It’s ok to choose not to return to battle until your healed and fit for duty. It’s ok not to be ok for a little while. This is the part where we learn and become wiser. It’s ok to need someone. It’s a cold world, and sometimes we become so damn jaded that we forget that we are the human element. We need each other. It’s innate, humans were designed to come in pairs. We can fall. Its ok to be lost.

And once we’ve come out on the other side of that tunnel, we have grown. Growth is almost always painful, because we begin to out grow the tiny boxes of complacency that we put ourselves in. We have to unbox, stretch our wings, and find somewhere new to perch. We have to commit to hope in unfamiliarity, and new beginnings.. we have to hope that this time, there will be peace. We have to be blindly optimist that this new place we are in will be a place of deep peace. We have to choose, to rest. Choose not to fight, and remember that it’s ok to be broken for a little while.

So, I’m in the valley. I’m resting my soul, searching for peace and rest. I am broken and lost, but I am  eternally and blindly optimistic that this new place... this new stage of life, will give me enough room unfold myself into the woman I want to be. It’s not perfect and I am still bruised and tattered at the edges.. but I am learning, and growing today. I know that in order to change the world, I must first change myself. I can’t change myself if I won’t let old wounds heal, so for now... it’s time for flight. And maybe one day, I will have it all figured out. Or not, but I do know this.... I will survive. I will heal again, and be stronger. The fight or flight will always be there, and there will be a day when I am strong enough and ready to fight again, but for now.. I’m taking to the skies.

Breathe. You don’t always have to fight. Nobility is not measured by how quickly we move mountains, but rather the intensity and stature of the mountian. So, heal. Be you and heal. Find a clear sky, and enjoy the view for a little while.

It’s time to learn to fly.

-A