Last month, my 21 year old daughter was overseas. She was on a trip to Lithuania with her mom, and after a couple of days, I lost contact with her, couldn’t reach her, and I thought, you know, maybe there’s a problem with her SIM card, maybe there’s something going on with data, so not a big deal. But of course, you know, as the days wore on, I started to get a little bit more concerned as a dad.
I hadn’t heard from her in three or four days, which was a little out of character, butyou know, I’m trying not to stress out too much. Then one day, we were out in the backcountry without cell service. As we were driving back home, as we came back into cell service, I had my phone up on the dash, and I saw a message come in from my mom that said, “Hey Mike, give me a call when you get a chance.”
And immediately my head went to, Oh shit, something’s happened with Mikaela. The plane’s blown up, something tragic has happened, and my reaction was just visceral. Tears welled up in my eyes; my stomach was in knots, and I felt like I wanted to puke. Michelle was sitting in the passenger seat, and she looked at me with grave concern; she said, “Are you okay?”
And as I opened my mouth to articulate what was happening, I burst into tears. This wash of emotion just came over me. It got so bad that I had to pull over to call Mom and find out what terrible thing had happened to my daughter. When I pulled over, and I opened up the message, and I could read the full text, the following line in that message was “Nothing urgent. Just wanted to catch up.”
Of course, then my nervous system just calmed right down, and everything was good. I texted Mom and said, “I’ll give you a call when I get back home.” It was a great reminder, as men, how often we stress about things that haven’t even happened yet and probably will never happen.
The stories we create in our heads have a massive impact on our stress levels. It’s absolutely amazing the impact. I was blown away by how visceral that reaction was for me, and it was just such a great reminder to be careful about the stories we create in our heads that we don’t know are true.
Some of those stories are more useful than others. Think of a time when your partner is late coming home from work. There are a variety of stories you could spin. Each story causing a significantly different reaction.
“She must be working late to get some overtime. That will be helpful as money is tight these days.”
“She must be out having a drink with that male co-worker who she talks about all the time.”
“There must have been an accident on the drive home. Holy shit! Maybe she’s been in an accident!”
We don’t know if any of these stories are true, yet they all conjure significantly different emotional reactions and likely follow-up behaviours. Since we don’t know which ones are true, why don’t we choose to focus on the most useful story?
Anyway, my friend, this is food for thought.
