When fear recently rode into my life and tried to pitch camp in the terrain of my mind, I discovered a strong need to seek order in the face of disorder. I’d gotten a scare from my doctor about an abnormality detected in a routine exam, and I wouldn’t know whether his suspicions were founded until I had further tests run the next morning.
I returned home numb from the news and found myself reaching for anything that gave me the illusion of control, anything that made me feel like I was driving instead of an unwilling passenger headed for some unknown place I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit. Laundry, dishes, a small stack of previously unread magazines – things that I normally would have bypassed with ease suddenly got my full attention.
In the midst of my cleaning frenzy, I noticed what I was doing and stopped to ask myself what the heck was going on? The answer was simple. These otherwise mundane tasks offered some semblance of control.
The fear of an undesirable diagnosis – albeit just a figment of my very active imagination at that time – had temporarily turned my world upside down, and I wanted to latch onto anything that would return my sense of order. I desperately needed to know there was order in a world that suddenly seemed out of order.
In that moment of pause in the eye of my self-induced storm, I remembered that there are only two things truly within my control, the only things within any human being’s control: Our thoughts and our actions.
Pumping the brakes on my imagination was enough to help me refocus and restore my calm. I asked myself what was true at the time, and what, if any, actions, could I take?
My doctor had noticed something abnormal, yes. I felt great with no symptoms to suggest I was anything other than the picture of vibrant health and vitality, yes. I had an appointment for additional testing the next morning, and I had no control over what those tests would reveal, yes. In the meanwhile, I was free to imagine any outcome I wanted, yes.
Rather than careening down the panicked path of assuming I was stricken with a dreadful condition, I chose to think the exact opposite: Healthy until proven ill.
Sure, I’m as susceptible to fear as anyone, but through the continued, diligent practice of being mindful of my thoughts, I’ve learned to redirect if my thoughts start to wander somewhere that doesn’t serve me. And what fun would it have been to torture myself for the next 24 hours?
Instead of dwelling on the undesirable, I went to dinner with a friend and got lost in great conversation while cheering on his football team. I capped off the fun-filled night with an exhilarating reminder of the life pulsing through me when I gave my best Mario Andretti impression behind the wheel of my friend’s Tesla. Twelve hours later, I walked out of the doctor’s office on the greatest high of all, the tests proving my body to be perfectly normal and healthy.
In claiming the authentic story of our lives, we’re going to be tested time and again with circumstances or conditions that don’t serve our highest good, but we don’t have to automatically surrender to the downward spiral.
If we pause and ask ourselves what is true and what can we do in that moment, we can anchor ourselves solidly in thoughts and actions that do serve us and sail our way through even the most turbulent waters.
