I read once in the Thesaurus of Trivia, also known as Reader’s Digest magazine, a story about a Big Rig truck trying to go through an under pass that was three inches too low for the height of the trailer and got stuck. The police were called, and they couldn’t do anything, so they called a wrecker. When the wrecker inspected the situation. He discovered that the rig and trailer was too big for his truck to try to pull it out, so another company was called that had the equipment to satisfy the need for the situation. When they arrived and hooked everything up and started to pull the rig out, concrete from the upper section of the underpass came ripping off and crashing everywhere. The police that were standing near-by determined it was too unsafe to continue. So, the rescue operation was called to a halt.
Meanwhile, a little boy was standing with the bystanders, and asked what was going on. One of the adults, responding with great authority, said removing the truck has become an impossibility and there doesn’t seem to be any viable solution. Looking over the situation, and all the people that had tried to solve the problem with no success, the boy responded, “Why don’t they let the air out of all the tires until they’ve gone down four inches and then back the rig out?”
We all know the importance of breathing in, to bring the much needed oxygen to the lungs, but scientists tell us letting the air out is equally and sometimes even more important. Only when you exhale properly and fully can you breathe the toxins out and allow fresh oxygen to fuel our body. Our inhales lift, energize, and expand us, while our exhales ground and stabilize us. And, they allow the body to back out of a stuck situation.
Every time I am preparing a story to tell, I can feel the inhale, a deep full breath and I drive full force into the underpass. And that’s where I get stuck. Is it fear, lack of confidence or the fact that I don’t see myself as an academic that so frequently halts my forward movement? And I forget to exhale. I have done enough self-help to take a moment and remember that letting the air out at this time of stress, feeling scattered, and overwhelmed will help neutralize these feelings and settle both my mind and body.
With all the classes, and book learning I have gone through to prepare myself to become a professional authentic storyteller, I keep having to go back to the first learning lesson: let four inches out of the tires and back out of a stuck story. Find a different road to get to where I want to go and move on.
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