Hello everyone,
This post might not apply to everyone but today I want to talk about your fight or flight reflex. This is really something I probably already knew but it's something that I have realized about myself recently. I don't know where I heard this but I have heard it several times lately. When we face fear or some unpleasant situation, there is a reflex that kicks in almost immediately. We either want to fight the situation or we want to run away from the situation.
Before I tell you what I learned, let me say that to go to either extreme is not a wise decision. There are times when you should fight and there are times when you should simply walk away. In the words of my mom's favorite Kenny Rogers song, "You've got to know when to hold'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away and know when to run." I will soon describe what I have learned about my flight mechanism but before I do, let me say that there are going to be times when you should run away from the problem. If you find yourself confronted with a gun and you don't have one, RUN. If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, ladies RUN.
But what if you just find yourself in a hard place? For me, I used to shy away from conflict. It has taken me several years to realize that this was me running from problems. I didn't want to hurt any one's feelings and I didn't like when people hurt mine so I would just avoid the conflict. In some ways, I reasoned that it was easier to just keep walking. Now if someone calls you a name, that is the best thing to do. If you don't like the way they treat you, then just keep walking.
But what if the person you don't like is your husband or wife? Or what if that person is someone who works for you? Maybe that person is your boss. You can't just run away from everyone of those types of issues. Just recently in my own life, I was faced with a situation where my wife did something that I didn't like. The easiest thing for me to do would have been just let it go and say nothing. Now we both do that for each other regularly and that's part of a healthy relationship. But in this case, it was something that really bothered me. I could sense myself getting mad at her and I noticed that because I hadn't talked with her about this one thing, almost any little thing she did would aggravate me much more than it should. That's when it finally hit me that I was trying to run from a situation that I needed to address. Now here's the amazing part of this story to me. As soon as I recognized what was going on inside me, the little things that were trying to annoy me disappeared! I was perfectly fine waiting to talk with her about it until we had time. Here's another thing, as it turned out, it was just a misunderstanding between us. This particular issue wasn't a big one at all but it did teach me that I need to identify places where I am trying to fly when there are times that I need to fight.
So that's another Opinion of the Minion
But what if you just find yourself in a hard place? For me, I used to shy away from conflict. It has taken me several years to realize that this was me running from problems. I didn't want to hurt any one's feelings and I didn't like when people hurt mine so I would just avoid the conflict. In some ways, I reasoned that it was easier to just keep walking. Now if someone calls you a name, that is the best thing to do. If you don't like the way they treat you, then just keep walking.
But what if the person you don't like is your husband or wife? Or what if that person is someone who works for you? Maybe that person is your boss. You can't just run away from everyone of those types of issues. Just recently in my own life, I was faced with a situation where my wife did something that I didn't like. The easiest thing for me to do would have been just let it go and say nothing. Now we both do that for each other regularly and that's part of a healthy relationship. But in this case, it was something that really bothered me. I could sense myself getting mad at her and I noticed that because I hadn't talked with her about this one thing, almost any little thing she did would aggravate me much more than it should. That's when it finally hit me that I was trying to run from a situation that I needed to address. Now here's the amazing part of this story to me. As soon as I recognized what was going on inside me, the little things that were trying to annoy me disappeared! I was perfectly fine waiting to talk with her about it until we had time. Here's another thing, as it turned out, it was just a misunderstanding between us. This particular issue wasn't a big one at all but it did teach me that I need to identify places where I am trying to fly when there are times that I need to fight.
So that's another Opinion of the Minion
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