Today, I knew exactly what would happen when I found a woman with a flat tire in the university parking lot.
When I approached her, she was in a high state of agitation and distress. She was talking on the phone about her predicament and trying to figure out if she needed a tow truck.
I knew her.
“Hi, Ellen,” I said.
When she showed me the flat, I knew her problem would be solved in less than an hour. I could see her future and knew everything would work out fine.
But she couldn’t. She was caught up in the problem. She continued to fret even when I tried to explain this was just a minor inconvenience. I left her to fetch G, a tire iron, and a jack and told her: “Sit in your car, turn the AC on, and take twenty-five deep breaths. I’ll be right back. Everything is going to be fine.”
(I would bet money that not one deep breath was taken.)
But what if she did take those breaths? What if she used that simple breathing technique to self-regulate?
Would she then be able to envision an alternate future, a happy outcome to her dilemma? Could she switch her focus to the reality at hand, which was that she’d experienced a flat, but a friend with the skills to fix it had also arrived?
G and I had her flat off and the donut on in fifteen minutes. We accompanied her to the tire store, where she bought four new tires—tires she had planned to buy any way at her next oil change.
When we have problems, that’s all we can see. Friends, teachers, coaches, or therapists can tell us we’ll be okay and that there is a way out of this problem if we take the right actions, but we don’t believe them. Even if we want to, we can’t see their vision for how things will ever improve, so we continue to marinate in our problem and make ourselves miserable..
But we need to trust these visionaries—these people who see a better future outcome for us even when we can’t or refuse to.
So trust your friend, who tells you your failed job hunt is a minor roadblock.
Trust your coach, who knows that if you practice, you WILL attain that skill.
Trust your mother when she tells you you are smart and capable even though you feel dumb and inept.
Trust the ER nurse who tells you your broken wrist is going to be okay.
And trust the woman in the parking lot who tells you your blown-out tire is no problem.
These people can see your future even when you are blinded by your problems.
And when a person comes along and tells you to take twenty-five deep breaths, take them.
Inspiration Location 