Thank you to everyone for your love and concern about the car accident. We are all well.
This post is not as much as about the accident as it is about the consequences. So I am borrowing a car temporarily till I get my own car fixed at the body shop. It is literally identical to mine give or take a year or 2 on the model, but the make is the same. All the internal features were familiar. It looks the same, but does not feel the same. Ironically of all the cars, the universe gets me into a car identical to my own damaged car.
The following day I am driving to work, and I find myself having to “think“ about where I am going. I had to be more vigilant about my actions in and with the car. I was more particular of cars around me. Perhaps it was a tiny bit of PTSD or maybe because it was not “my” car the feelings were different. Yes that is it.
My own car knew where I wanted to go. I would just get in and “we” would get there. ( no autopilot) I knew how “she” handled around curves in the road, I knew exactly how long it would take to make her stop at traffic lights. She knew my temperature controls, my perfect seat positioning. She knew how fast to go to get me anywhere on time. I was familiar with her limits and helped her grow beyond them. I was sad that she was hurt. She would contact my service advisor, who would call to inform me that a service was due. I would scold her for not telling me first, and miraculously that day I would get a notification on the dashboard that a service was due.
It was an odd relationship, till I realized that my car was a fine tuned extension of my nervous system since 2017. We had gone everywhere together and she had protected my family from several near misses in the past. Then the question came up for contemplation. What else am I attached to ? The list came quickly. My phone, my watch, my hot beverage thermos, my stethoscope, my ipad I use for writing all my posts. Each of these knows exactly how I react and what I do. Or is it that I just know how THEY react?
Anything that we are constantly in possession or in contact with, becomes an automatic extension of our senses and nervous system. Or rather How often are we just extensions of our gadgets? Integrated. Connected. Impulse based living. Attachment to all that is material. It is like a weight lifter who is attached to their favorite barbell. Or the chef who loves their particular set of knives. A writer who needs their special pen. An artist who loves her paint brushes. A golfer and their endeared golf club. A tradesman has their own perfect tool set. It is wise to ask ourselves “ what are our most important possessions whether at work or personally or both and why do we love them so?”
It is our strong connection to our possessions that also create our identity and our identity is defined by what we hold most dear. Yet it is when we break free of our attachments to the material objects, that we break our identity. Now that is the scariest of all. Losing our identity.
With the identity of a cardiologist I can handle any cardiac arrest or emergency without breaking a sweat. Yet if my car, phone or microwave or gadgets go awry, it throws me for a loop and gives me anxiety. Which identity am I most comfortable with? The cardiologist teacher or the Uber driver for my kids. Perhaps it the scared feelings of loss of mobility or freedom if the car goes kaput. It could be the gain of inconvenience when the object is broken in the flow of my life. We are invited to ask “ what material possessions define us on a daily basis?”
Regardless of whether it is a gain of painful circumstances or the loss of our routines, sometimes disruptions in our lives are needed to make us question the monotony of the comfort zone that we all survive in, and grow into what we choose to thrive in at a soul level.
As always, many life situations give me more to contemplate on and allow me to arrive at my own answers in their good time, for all the universe is a collection of answers, and it is the right questions that unlock their mysteries. Observation of what comes up in all experiences without reaction, brews the wisdom that we seek.
What life situation will make you stop and think “wtf am I doing with my life?”
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I love you
