Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows my strange obsession with assigning names and personal histories to the local critters who live in my neighborhood. What can I say? It feeds my imagination and allows me to let my playful side out (Who knows? There could be a book in this!). Since I moved here in November, I have become acquainted with a couple of squirrels that live in the roof of the house across the driveway. I refer to them as Gus and Mrs. Gus. Stay with me, there's a lesson that is going to come out of all of this.
Gus is a very adventurous guy. Every day he scampers out from his entrance under the porch roof, which is hidden behind the rain spout, makes for the top most point of the house and across to the giant pine tree beside it. I don't know how tall this tree is, but I live in a three story building and this tree is way taller than that. The tree is full of pine cones and I assume it is for this reason that Gus makes his daily trip up and over to the other side of the house. Other times, it seems as if he just wants to get out of the house, get some air and stretch his paws. Mrs. Gus, on the other hand, is very hesitant and frightens easily. She has trouble deciding if she wants to come and out, once there, which way she wants to go. She doesn't come out unless her hubby does, and if she loses sight of him, she is in quite a panic. She obviously has dependency issues.
The other day I saw Mrs. Gus come flying over the top of the roof and make for home as if she were being chased. No sooner was she inside her hole than Gus also came scampering from the same direction and ... right behind him were two other squirrels. I wasn't sure if they were playing or if they intended something more sinister. Instead of running for his front door, Gus led them away to the other end of the roof and then disappeared into the pine tree. The other two squirrels kept sniffing and searching but did not manage to find the entrance that Mrs. Gus had dived into. After a while, they gave up and took off. About 10 minutes later, Gus appeared and, making sure the coast was clear, went home. Gus had bravely and successfully led the two marauders away from his den and his lady. Go Gus!
After watching this little scene that was worthy of a segment on Animal Planet, it occurred to me that even the animals have to put up with some drama every now and then. In their case, however, it often ends up being a real life-or-death scenario. How small our mostly self-created human dramas seem to be compared to theirs. I'm not talking about really serious issues that people go through, like illness, death and disasters. I'm talking about the ones we create ourselves: what others think of us, the job we hate, how we'll never find our soul mate, how awful/ugly/fat/dumb, etc., we are. I don't think Mrs. Gus worries about what the other girls think of how she's wearing her tail this season, or how much baby weight she put on. I think she's more worried about not becoming some one's lunch!
Super Coach Michael Neil tells us: "We're not afraid of what we think we're afraid of; we're afraid of what we think." So when a new "drama" surfaces in our thoughts, how much easier it is to simply accept that it's only a thought, refuse to be drawn into the drama, and reach for a better feeling thought. Somewhere out there is the job of our dreams, the partner of our dreams, and the life of our dreams. The only one chasing us is us. We're only a thought away from making our dreams become reality ... and we won't end up being any one's main course, either! Once we acknowledge that we have the power to end the drama in our lives, there is nothing we cannot achieve!
And so it is.
