Are you stuck in flight mode?

I see a lot of very stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed women at OOMPH.

And, when they’re telling me their ‘story’, they do so at a mile-a-minute; only stopping to literally ‘gasp’ for air between paragraphs.  They’re struggling to keep up with life due to all the demands that have been placed on them. (Kids, careers, aging parents.) And, in effect, they are living in a perpetual state of psychological stress — ‘Fight or Flight’.

A previous blog-post that I’ve written on: Chronic stress 

Once I’ve listened to these women, and I’ve finally calmed them down with a nip of Kava & Mexican Valerian — I often respond with a wee story of my own…

Some twenty-odd years ago, my brother and I were moutain-biking in Kinleigh Forest in Lichfield. (Lichfield is a rural settlement in the south of the Waikato region).  The mountain bike park there is huge, remote, and the trails go on, seemingly, forever. (It is an intimidating terrain.)

While we were biking deep in the forest, a sheep dog suddenly whooshed by — overtaking us! We slowed our bikes down and moved aside, thinking the dog’s owner would also soon follow. But this didn’t occur. While it was concerning, there was little we could do as the dog had disappeared into the distance. So we simply continued making our way through the forest.

Around thirty minutes later, the same dog went careering by us once more! (Again, with no owner in tow.)

When later we came across some people in the forest, we enquired about the dog. They said they’d seen it — but had no idea who owned it as they hadn’t seen anyone else except for us.

When we returned to the carpark we came across another group of people, who had also seen the dog — and not just that day, but while they were biking there the day before!

There were no other cars in the carpark but ours, theirs, and the previous folks we had spoken to. We realised then that this poor dog had been abandoned and that he must have been ‘running scared’ 😢

Note: He would have been so very stressed, anxious and overwhelmed.

Just at that moment of realisation, we spotted the dog slowly moving about in the brush adjacent to the carpark. It was as if he was spying on us.

My brother (Mark) didn’t need any more information before taking action. He is quite burly, but also a super softy, and so he walked confidently over to the dog, and easily managed to catch him and pick him up. At this point, the dog fell limp into his arms. Mark carried him back to his station wagon and lay him down in the back and off we set. And thus this poor pooch slept the whole way back to his new home — a farm in Cambridge 🤩

I can’t remember who named, “Chase” — I think it was my mother? However, it was truly fitting; it suited him well.

Note: This gentle, loving, and clearly grateful creature lived with my brother until he was old & grey. He passed away a few years ago.