Just the other day, I was driving through the small shopping area near our house that has a handful of traffic lights -- even though the roads are more like extenuating arms of the parking lot. The speed limit is 25mph, yet an older couple in front of me slowed to 15mph, then 10mph, and then started breaking to a stop in the middle of a green light. I felt the same old tendency we all do of frustration and impatience, and my hands started tingling as if just waiting to be thrown up in the air. Instead, I breathed deep, smiled at how I knew they were headed straight for the K&W cafeteria, and thought of how we all end up in an older model car coasting along at speeds that seem too fast while the world spins around us.
We're all caretakers of each other. We want others to respect and be careful around our grandparents or elderly neighbors as they drive through town as carefully as tiptoeing into the shallow end of a pool. Yet how often do we get frustrated and forget the concept of Namaste, as practiced in yoga. The bow that signifies the spirit in me honors and respects the spirit in you. We forget and throw up in our hands literally or metaphorically, which only exacerbates our stress.
In this time of year, as we approach the holidays, I always find it a little harder to control my Crohn's, whether from having less control over diet with many holiday fetes and gatherings, or the stress of adding so many to-do's to an already bulging calendar. Instead of letting myself getting worked up over little things, I'm reminding myself that we're all caretakers of each other - and to bestow graciousness on everyone, even when it's hard.
Namaste, ya'll! Crohnies unite!