It happened so fast. I was driving home from the gym, feeling good and suddenly something went “thump” against my car tire. Startled, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw feathers flying. Out of the blue a male duck was crossing the road and I hit him.
OMG. I just killed a beautiful bird. I pulled over to the side of the road, shaking. I was upset and spooked. But then…uh – oh. I remembered I was scheduled to give a workshop to 500 women later that morning. I needed to get my emotions under control, fast. I dug into my mental toughness tool kit and did this easy exercise:
- I bought myself a bouquet of “feel-good” flowers at the supermarket,
- Headed home and regrouped in my living room by doing 10 minutes of diaphragmatic, cleansing breaths.
- Then I blasted some “Bennie and the Jets” to get juiced up.
- Put on some make up, looked in the mirror and said with conviction “I nail this workshop. I am good at what I do. I got this!
In just 20 minutes, I went from crushed and shaken, to “Invincible Laura”.
I hope you never kill an animal while driving, but if you do, or whenever you need to get out of a shocked state of mind FAST, just do what I did; Change your physiology. Breath, move, dance, walk. Then give yourself a dose of positive self-talk.
Flowers help!
Nothing WooWoo here. This stuff works.
