Jan 22, 2019…..4AM
“Michael! Get up, I think we have water leaking in the basement!”, was the first thing I heard abruptly and totally unexpectedly. I sprinted downstairs, and as soon as I got to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, my heart sunk. Well, my feet also sunk because the carpet was sopping wet.
I turned the corner into the unfinished side of the basement only to see 2 inches of water consuming everything in the room. After screaming out a few obscenities, I ran to the main shut off valve and turned the water off. The bleeding stopped.
Long story short, a faulty PVC valve was to blame for this wake-up call. Full flood in our storage area, and partial flooding into the finished part of the basement.
At this point, the damage was done. So now what? Our water is off and we have a 13-month-old. I have to make some calls, emails and cancel some clients. Priorities. First thing – 5:35 AM drive to HyVee to get some gallon jugs of water. Grocery stores are interesting at this time of day, I highly recommend you check one out sometime.
After getting everything squared away with insurance, and between getting the cleanup crew over, and the plumber to repair the pipe, it was a very sporadic and unplanned day. Which I hate.
But what can you do? How can you handle it? What can you do to keep pushing forward?
In between talking with the cleanup crew, and the plumber, I worked on programming for clients, online posts, did some continuing education work and planned out the rest of my team training for the week.
I’m not making this point to show off, or say “look at how productive I am…” but just to use it as a real-world example.
There was no way I had control over that crappy valve bursting. But I had total control over how I let that affect my day and my mood.
Did I handle the situation perfectly? No. I had a minor freakout within the first 5 minutes (that’s understandable right?)…but after that I told myself, what’s done is done, time to solve this.
The same thing goes with life, and how you respond to stress, anger, sadness, happiness, tiredness, etc. I often talk with people about not using food to comfort them.
Food will never fix your problem unless your problem is hunger.
Sure, I could have sulked around all day, day drank bourbon and cried my feelings away into a pillow…but how would that help anything? That wouldn’t get my basement dry. It wouldn’t move my business forward. It wouldn’t bring back our wedding guestbook that was now soaked…It’s only stuff anyways.
It is an important reminder to tell yourself over and over – “food won’t fix this problem, only I can fix it, or at least I can control my response and what comes next.”
What if it’s too late?
Maybe you already reached for the bag of chips and went to pound town. Ok. Did you realize what you were doing? Then stop.
Maybe you did but couldn’t stop. Once you calm down you need to refocus. So you ate a whole bag of _____. That doesn’t mean your day is ruined and you might as well eat everything else in the pantry. It’s like getting a flat tire and slashing the other 3…doesn’t make much sense.
Gather yourself in. Reassess what is going on, and why it is happening. Remind yourself that you are always in control of your reaction, and actions.
Nobody else controls your emotions, your reactions, and your actions – take ownership of them, and continue to push forward, it is your only good option.
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Stay healthy my friends,