How many of you have ever eaten bread?
I'm going to take a gamble and say that most of you fit into the bread-eating or have-eaten category. Bread has been a staple food for many a moon. People were eating bread long before anyone ever said the word "bread".
Not too surprising, that.
What I would like to focus on is not the bread, but the part of bread eating that is a much more modern addition.
The removing it from the bag part. Specifically, the removing of the twist tie that holds the bread bag closed.
You all know what wire twist ties are, yes? If you don't, than you've either just been born, live in a country that does not use such primitive contraptions, or you have recently suffered a head wound and should immediately head to the hospital for x-rays.
Twist ties. A piece of wire inside a paper or plastic sheath. Malleable, flexible, and all around, well, twisty. Tie together bundles of small somethings. Tie off bags. Tie off your finger till the blood doesn't flow all the way to the end and it turns purple and my mom yelled at me to stop that.
Hypothetically.
Eventually as you use the twist tie over many days, months or even years if you are that agonizingly frugal (I mean "wise". If you are that "wise". Ahem.), the sheath will tear and break and begin to slide off the wire (if you haven't lost it altogether long before then). And then, should you still be working that twist tie, it will, eventually, break in half all together.
Completely unrelated except for how it's completely related, this is how back injuries were once described to me by a doctor who deals with such things.
While there are many things that contribute to catastrophic spine related problems, one of the common causes of back problems is a simple lack of flexibility. In fact, almost all common structural problems that develop over time are directly related to a lack of flexibility and weakening muscles. My doctor friend explained it by telling me how, when your back is inflexible and becomes even more inflexible over time, the spine does all of it's flexing in the exact same spot over and over instead of flexing in many places all at once and spreading the motion around.
This leads to the person forcing increased strain on an increasingly weak area until something gives, just like the twist tie.
Therefore, one needs to be vigilant about increasing ones flexibility and maintaining the strength of the muscular system.
This was illustrated very nicely recently while I was helping supervise a school class trip this past week.
Once upon a time I had a number of back issues that stemmed from injury and the resulting flexibility issues that I never truly attempted to remedy. But, over the last few years, I have attempted to improve my flexibility and keep things moving well. And, it has made a huge difference. I haven't had back problems ever since I made this my way of doing things.
However, like all people, there can be an ebb and flow in my dedication which relates directly to me feeling the stiffness and soreness threaten to rear it's ugly head. Although, to be fair, on my best day, my back is not anything remotely related to super flexible.
Back to the trip.
We took the class to Wisconsin Dells. The class used the funds they had raised and stayed at one of the really nice water park resorts that exist there. A good time was had by all. One evening as we were rounding up the youngsters, we were standing around a deck table making sure everyone had their gear.
I was standing behind one of the deck chairs patiently waiting for the decimal (that would be 10) of kids to figure out who's stuff was who's, one kid slid the chair in front of me back at an alarming rate, the corner of said chair aimed directly at my sensitive man bits.
At this point all my ninja instincts took over (cough, cough) and I did the only thing I could do. I thrust my butt out behind me to make room for the corner of the chair to now reside where my pieces and parts used to be.
While I succeed at the evasion, my back was very unhappy I had tried to save myself by twerking. (please don't think to hard about what that looks like. It's for your own good. You will never scrub your mind clean of any mental image of me trying to twerk. So don't think about that. Don't do it. Don't think about me twerking. Excellent. Now your mind belongs to me.)
One spot down low in my back decided to grumble strongly. It just wasn't flexible enough to do what I'd asked it to do. It didn't cripple me. It was fortunately a mostly short lived annoyance. But the lack of flexibility almost became my undoing. I've had too many back injuries to not know the signs of impending spinal doom.
Our mental and emotional states work very similarly. A lack of flexibility in who we are and how we perceive things can be directly related to how quickly and catastrophically we break when we've finally bent farther than we've trained ourselves to allow.
When we become stuck on a single way of seeing reality around us without any consideration to addendum's or modifications to our thought, the moment that something happens that shatters that view will ultimately shatter us.
It happens at a frighteningly high rate. It causes people to either crumble completely or to bounce around in this "either/or" way of thinking. Bouncing between extremes. It must either be this way, or that way. There are no other options.
If we see everything that way, we are completely unequipped to deal with anything that doesn't conform to one of the two possibilities we've decide must be the only two ways at seeing reality.
We've made ourselves inflexible. And when something is inflexible, it eventually breaks. Maybe not right away. Maybe not for a long time. But eventually. Much like the twist tie.
Now, before you cry foul, I am aware that all analogies break down eventually. I am also not suggesting that someone "compromise" a belief for the sake of flexibility. It's about broadening consideration, not compromise. Compromise is about taking something you do believe and ignoring it. Broadening ones consideration is about expanding upon and understanding more the possibilities that actually exist versus the ones we thought existed. It's about realizing there is more to reality than we would like to believe.
As you navigate your life in whatever phase of it you are in, practice being the flexible mental ninja. Strong and adaptable.
Do not be a mental twist tie where one too many wrong mental twerks become your undoing.
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