Grandma’s Wisdom

Categories: Blog, blog Nov 29, 2020

We’ve all heard the stories of how a grandmother has lifted a car off of a child, or how a man has picked up a tractor off of a friend. We’ve heard stories like this because they happen. In emergencies, when the action of another is needed at the most, people can respond in extraordinary, superhuman ways. They can do the impossible. 

 

Have you ever noticed that most of the heroic stories involve “ordinary” people.

 

Or people that have never trained to do such amazing feats?

 

What I mean is, those grandmothers that do the impossible, they didn’t train for the impossible. They didn’t spend years exercising, trying to get stronger. They didn’t practice lifting heavy things, they didn’t worry about missing a day at the gym, and they probably never sat around mentally rehearsing superhuman feats. No, they were just there, in the moment that called for them to respond. And, they responded.

 

So I have a weird question: If an “ordinary” grandmother can pick a car off a child, if a friend can leverage a tractor off a neighbor, do you think we need to lift weights to be strong enough to enjoy our lives? Or, do you think our bodies are actually strong enough to do anything we want them to do, we just need to know how to access that strength? 

 

Here’s where I’m leaning - all the strength you need is inside of you. You may not know how to access it, but that doesn’t mean its not there. Your nervous system has placed restrictions on your strength. But what if you could allow your nervous system to relax those restrictions so you could express your strength freely? 

 

Maybe there are clues in the stories of superhuman feats. Most of these stories are reported around an emergent need, life or death for the person trapped or pinned under an object. So the heroes, the grandmothers, responded in a moment of need. A moment was needed. The grandmother was not stuck in the past thinking of all the times she tried to move heavy things and could not. She was not trapped in the future’s fear of “what if I can’t move this car.” She was there, in the moment, without a thought, but with a heart. In the moment, she was there with utmost clarity of the need and a desire to act. 

 

In these stories there are no tales of waiting for others to arrive for help, there are no tales of mental and physical preparation. There are only tales of “Well, I’m here right now.” 

 

What if the way for us to unlock our full potential was to be present in the moment, without the noise of our thoughts, our memories, and our fears? What if simply being alert to the moment allowed our nervous system to feel safe enough to let us freely move and express our strength? Sure, an urgent situation will produce a hormonal cascade in the body that may help with this strength, but the the presence of the moment is what puts it to affective use. After all, most peoples’ thoughts cause the same hormonal cascades of an emergency, but their thoughts also make their nervous system feel unsafe; thus the hormonal cascade.

 

I think we are all more than strong enough to live our lives very well, to do what needs to be done and to do what we want to do. But often we get stuck in our heads, our beliefs, our fears, and our doubts. What if we could get out of our heads, our thoughts, and get into our moments? What if our moments were the key to living with unbridled strength, creativity, and compassion? 

 

I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud to you...But when I think of those heroic, amazing stories, it makes me ponder our ways. Right now, your body is strong enough to pick up a car. That sounds amazing, but you’re amazingly strong. We all are. Grandma proves that. 

 

Maybe that’s Grandma’s message for us: “Baby, yaw need to get out of your heads, get into your hearts, and respond to your moments. It’s the only way yaw’ll be free to express your potential.”  

 

“Oh, one more thing, you know there’s no such thing as ‘ordinary’ people.” 

 

Yes ma’am. Thanks Grandma.

 

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