Saturday morning Robin and I jumped in the car and went off to run some errands. After a stop at the Post Office, I walked back to our car and discovered we had a flat front tire. Oh nooo!
A flat tire is a terrible way to ruin the day. And it was all Robin’s fault. Obviously he didn’t use his sensation function when he jumped in the car or he would have noticed the tire was flat. Shouldn’t he check all the tires before we go anywhere? Isn’t that part of the driver’s job?
Okay, okay… I didn’t check the tires either. And it never crossed my mind until after the tire was flat that he should check all the tires before getting into the car in the same way you check your gas level and temperature gauge. It was a new rule I made up on the spot.
Now I was grumpy. After all, I had a lot of errands planned! And all my plots were ruined. (Anyone who has Chart-the-Course preferences really hates having their schemes foiled.)
But an inner voice kept reminding me to look on the bright side. ...So what was the bright side?
Well the bright side was that it happened early in the day, so there was time to take care of it while the sun was shining and the shops were all open. And yeah, the sun was shining—it had rained in the morning (good ole British weather), but it wasn’t raining when the flat tire was discovered. We were able to drive 12 minutes to visit a tire shop (in Britain they call it “tyre”). They stated that the repair would be done in two hours. That’s not awful. And, luckily, no one was harmed (it’s not like we had a blowout on the freeway). Things could have been so much worse.
But I still felt grumpy.
As it turned out, a walk was just what I needed. I daresay all of the types benefit from a pleasant walk, but possibly those with poor sensation most of all.
It was a lovely walk.
Flowers were blooming everywhere, and their scent and color were amazing! Lorca had a great time too, sniffing and loping along. He was in pooch heaven.
But the best part of the walk was the discovery of fairies in a tree!
Five sprites were hidden on this tree! Three of them were Tinkerbells, who should be recognizable above, and it was simply magical to meet all of these pixies unexpectedly perched on a tree trunk!
After our fairy encounter, I wasn’t grumpy anymore. Probably the delight of a charming imaginal experience reconnected me to my imagination and thereby restored me to my superior intuition function—always a good cure for the grumps. And in fact, the tyre shop fixed the tyre in half the time they estimated, and we were able to resume the rest of our errands and salvage our plans. It turned out to be a most productive day indeed! (Maybe the fairies helped out?)
In other news, another article of mine is due to be published in the ImagiNews newsletter of Imagery International, the organization for imagery practitioners. In it I tell the story of helping a college student client choose her major in a most unusual way.
If you know any college students who are trying to figure out their direction in life, send them to me so I can help them too! It’s extremely meaningful when a former client emails you years down the road to thank you and tell you what a huge difference you made in their life at a precarious juncture. I would be thrilled to likewise help other students on this quest.
Ciao until next time.
warmly, -Dr. Vicky Jo