This is a piece written from the Relative/Dualistic Side of Life. This morning I was driving my spouse to a 7:15am appointment for a routine test at a nearby hospital. It was rather an unusual morning for me, since I don’t start work until 11AM and generally work until 7 or 8PM as a psychologist. About one-quarter mile from our driveway, I ran into a deer that leaped out of a field in the morning mist. The deer’s impact smashed my front fender and she dashed off with an injured right hip, perhaps dying somewhere nearby in the woods, perhaps not, I don’t know.
Neither of us humans were hurt, and the air bags in the car didn’t inflate, which can cause additional injuries when and if they do. We got out of the car to check that it was still mobile (it was) and to see about the damage. The deer was long gone.
Once we got to the hospital, I had a long wait, and was then able to feel what had happened. I was in a bit of shock, ice cold hands, and internally shaken. I was sad for the deer mostly. Chagrinned that I hadn’t had an accident in 45 years and had one this morning but, only for a moment. I was a bit put out about the car needing to be repaired, a bit more so finding out that the expensive insurance we carry had a $1,000 deductible and that I will have to pay that towards the repairs.
The surprise was that I never felt a dramatic response to what happened. My emotional system didn’t make a ‘big deal’ about it, I didn’t feel victimized, and I wasn’t really frightened. I was sad that a living creature was hurt and then went on into the day. I drove my spouse home, packed a meal for my long work day (7 clients today) and went to work.
If my mind had lingering doubts about there being no impact from Awakening, they were dealt quite a blow this morning. My whole nervous system is responding differently. Without the mind’s made up stories of ‘what terrible thing might have happened’ I was calm, and sad but, not ‘freaking out’ or ‘making a story out of being a victim’ (since the deer was, after all, the victim). Once again, Awakening proves to be a life-changing, body-changing, nervous-system-changing process.