Big Trig

   That Blair Witch feeling.... (SPOILER ALERT) of making tremendous amount of effort and feeling like you're out of the woods and finding you're back where you started with no clue and no directions and in the dark... that's how I feel driving in unfamiliar terrain at night.  I can't see quite right, I know enough about the roads to make a decision but it's almost always the wrong one and typically I end up in a mall parking lot because well, this is New Jersey.

    So what?  It's an extra hour of my whole life, so I'll get home a littler later, but is it a big enough deal to warrant the insanity that ensues when I get lost? I mean, pull over at a gas station and ask the old fashioned way for crying out loud.

     But... being lost at night is a "Big Trig".  Someone implying (and they're usually not even implying, I'm just interpreting) that I might have done something wrong... BIG TRIG.  Two year old spitting at me... BIG, BIG, BIG TRIG.  The things that make us lose all our sense AND sensibility, make us go from zero to ranting lunatic faster than a Z3... the triggers that set all our ego-ridden, pain body filled, defensive, blaming, demon satan eyes ablaze.    

     Sometimes I wish the greatest spiritual leaders of our time would confess to their Big Trigs so that I could feel like their level of everyday serenity was more... attainable.  You want to know that Einstein had to learn his addition facts.  I want to know that the Dali Lama had road rage.

     Can paying more attention to our Big Trigs help us intervene somewhere between 2nd and 6th gear, before we start shooting laser beams out of our eye sockets?  I've started to take careful notes  -  literally careful notes, I keep a pad in the car - of times when I get looney toons.  The driving, but only at night.  The spitting, but only if we are late.  And lateness in general - if I'm not running early, I'm running psycho.

    So what?  There's not much time between Zen and Straightjacket in my world.  How best to remind myself to intervene, to come back to my breath, to get my vision straight?  Picture a Big Red Stop Sign? Recognize the physical symptoms?  Those are a couple of techniques I've taught in anger management in the past, and the physical symptoms thing is really, really helpful.  Knowing the signs is the first step to steering clear of the lunacy and putting the situation back into perspective.  

    My physical symptoms? I start talking out loud, for starters.  I mean, out loud to my dashboard.  My vision gets a little unfocused, my brain gets chattery, my jaw gets extremely tight.  If I can stop it there, I could head the whole thing off at the pass.  

   Next? Once you know, what do you do?  Tomorrow, more about asking the right questions in the right moments.

    And thank you for the well wishes - everyone around here seems to be on the mend.  

Peace.