Controlling Chaos

 Several weeks ago, driving home from taking my son and his friend skiing for the day, I had a surreal experience that keeps coming to mind.  It was dark and cold and rainy.  Driving in the middle lane of the highway, I saw a car in my passenger side view mirror driving very fast and looked like it was coming towards us. I took my foot off the gas and as the car passed us, just missing the front corner of my jeep, he cut in front of us perpendicularly and proceeded to spin across the highway into the median,  bouncing off the median into the barrier like a ping pong ball while pieces of his car flew all over the place.  All I could think about was I need to get these kids home safe.  I did not want to hit my brakes and get hit from behind or slide on black ice and speeding up  to get past it all, just felt too risky in case the car hit another vehicle that would hit us or if a piece of the bouncing car hit us causing me to lose control.  So I white knuckled the steering wheel, took some big deep breaths,  my heart pounding out of my chest, and stayed in my lane, moving through the accident unscathed.   Later that evening, exhausted and home safe, my son said, “Mom, that was kinda cool.  It’s like you were the camera man in a movie, the way things were just flying around us but not hitting us.”  

 

I’ve thought a lot about that moment the past few weeks because I’m not really sure how we managed to just move past it all without incident, controlling the chaos. I somehow remained in control despite the chaos outside of my vehicle.  The past couple weeks life has felt kind of like that moment.  Out of control, things flying at me from all angles, overwhelming, and I’m not always sure what to do.  For me, running often helps me sort things out.  The busyness and chaos of the past couple weeks though has felt like things flying at me so much, I just can’t sort it out all the different things in a few miles.  Although, it does help me stay calm.  Earlier this week while I was running, I was thinking about the day before, which had felt like a constant challenge.  I began to think about the car accident and the way all that chaos just kind of flew past us, not really impacting us.  How did I do that?  What was it about my reaction to that situation that allowed me to just move through it all, without even a piece of debris hitting my vehicle?  

 

I started to break it down.  I slowed down. I stayed in my lane. My primary focus was protecting what was inside my vehicle.  Although my heart was racing and I made myself breath, I stayed relatively calm. And not knowing what to do, I surrendered to the situation as it was.  I could not change or control what was happening outside my vehicle or how it might impact us.  How can I do this in life?  How can I be the camera man in the action and excitement, controlling the chaos,  but not getting hit by the debris or the out of control things in this world that overwhelm me?  

 

Slowing down: Can I take I minute to just breath and not react?  When I feel that reaction to hit the brakes or go faster, can I just slow down instead, taking a breath and a minute to decide how to react or just surrender?   

 

Staying in my lane: Do I stay in my lane or am I concerned with what others are doing?  How often am I comparing my journey to others?  Can I focus more intentionally on my journey and my lane instead of what others are doing? Can I trust my instincts more in my lane? If I had switched lanes on that highway or sped up as many others did, there’s a reasonable chance I would have been hit because the timing of how the car was bouncing back and forth out of control would have changed.  Maybe if I just stay in my lane, focused on myself and my world, the timing of life will work everything out just right, the debris and chaos flying around me but not hitting me.

 

Protecting what is inside:  I will never be able to control what is beyond me, but I can focus my energy to protecting what’s inside and taking actions that protect my heart, my mind and my soul.  I’m sure this looks differently for every single person so I can only speak to what works for me, getting outside. If work gets busier and more demanding, I set more time aside to be outside, move, breathe and just listen to the sound of my breath, fully aware of how alive and powerful I am in that very moment. Somehow even though the chaos wants me to believe there is no time, there is always time when my focus is on protecting the pieces and peace in my control.

  

Breathe and Stay Calm: Although most of myself was panicking and thinking oh sh*t, I forced myself to take some deep breaths.  In the oh sh*t moments in life do I react or do I breathe?  Maybe when I feel that oh sh*t I can just breathe and allow my system to get as calm as possible instead of mirroring the lack of control of the chaos outside of me.  

 

Surrender:  Can I learn to accept what is, especially when it is beyond my control?  Can I learn to let it be as it is and trust that everything is working out?  Can I find the quiet and surreal in the chaos of everyday life, floating past it all unscathed?

 

Although I could not quite sort out all the chaos of the past couple weeks, I finished my run with some more insight into how to use the lessons learned in a scary moment to give perspective to the past couple of weeks. I cannot control all the chaos but maybe, I can focus on the internal chaos and indecisions by slowing down, staying in my lane, protecting what’s inside me, breathing, staying calm, and surrendering.