Don't Feed the Alligators!

I live in central Florida. When my family and I moved here 27 years ago, we were immediately informed that every single drop of water should be expected to have alligators in it. Who REALLY believes that? We didn't. Initially. But there are literally thousands of ponds, lakes, rivers and puddles in Florida and before long we became believers.

We were converted soon after we settled in. While sitting in the bleachers during one of my son's baseball practices at the nearby YMCA baseball field, keeping a close eye on my then 1 year old, I glanced up and noticed a large log moving leisurely in the outfield. I stared at it, mesmerized and quite unsure what I was seeing. No other parents were present at this particular practice session so I stepped up to the fence and attempted to gain the attention of the coach. He ignored me. Finally, I shouted to the coach who stopped giving whatever instruction he was giving. He swiveled his clearly annoyed head in my direction as I pointed toward the object in the outfield. Nearly every boy also turned to look. That's when I got my first introduction to alligators and the attraction they have over all things human. The wild and crazy mayhem that ensued was equivalent to the world coming to an end. The 9 year old baseball players ran in all directions shouting excitedly. The coach behaved in nearly an identical manner though he did manage to round up all the players and hustle them into another practice field though it was nigh unto impossible to get those boys even remotely focused again on baseball practice. Still, they were all safe from the roaming leviathan.

You could quite possibly be wondering why this discourse on alligators? In this case, I'm not speaking about literal alligators but the ones that lie between our ears..in that dangerous zone upstairs where we should not venture without adult supervision..the one in our heads.

I was excited to capture a pic of the above sign: DON'T FEED OR ENTICE THE ALLIGATORS! Seriously, isn't that precisely what we do. We get some false idea in our heads, usually one that attempts to eat our lunch, and we play with it, we entice it. We turn it this way and that. We have "pretend" conversations about what we are going to say or what we should have said or blah! blah! blah!

In fact, I was riding my pretty little red bicycle down the West Orange Trail when I came upon this particular sign and the new park that the sign was planted on. As I peddled around the lake, I was remembering the last time I made the trip. It was with someone I broke up with 4 YEARS AGO.
Seriously? I'm having a having a phantom conversation with someone from 4 yrs ago?

And then I saw the sign. Do not feed OR ENTICE the alligators.  We entice our imagination with old thoughts, resentments, hurts and images and then we feed them. In many ways, these mental alligators are equally as dangerous as the real ones. We are the ones that suffer. The other person  may have moved across the country by now and is unaware and unaffected by my mental alligator feeding.

So how do we extricate ourselves from this destructive feeding frenzy? It's usually not very easy. Simple, yes. Easy, no.

We need to learn to LET IT GO. Whatever the "it" is. Feeding it doesn't serve us. And just like the alligator hotline, we, too, have a hotline though it's frequently not the first thing I think about. There is something disturbingly delicious about marinating in that mess for a while. Maybe it's the victim mentality that brings satisfaction.

Take it to God. Straight to God.

Or a trusted friend. Or your minister. Or a coach. Dump it. Get rid of it.

Here's a century's old remedy - forgiveness. Now I'm not saying forgiveness is easy-peasy but it is a tried and true method for getting rid of anger and resentment. There are as many "methods" to forgive as there are people and I do not claim to be an expert, I'm just saying....DO IT. And the "p.s." to forgiveness is to pray, pray, pray for that person. Pray like your life depends on it...because it often does.

That's precisely what I had to do after my ride on my little red bike. I had to dump what I was feeding. And I had to go straight into prayer.

Big sigh.............much better now. May you find the same relief and feel as serene as this:

Please leave a comment, I would really appreciate it   :-)

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