Mindfully Falling Flat on my Face

In the interest of helping you, my reader, to learn from my life, I would like to tell you what happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

After a run on the Levee Trail down in Chesterfield Valley, Sid & I drove by the nearby shopping area & spotted a restaurant that we had never seen before. We decided that we would try it out that evening. (So far, so good, right?)

We came back to the restaurant around the time that the sun was low in the sky. I got out of our car with my dark sunglasses on (notice how I'm already making excuses for myself). The double doors to the restaurant were wide open since it was such a glorious day. As we walked toward those doors, I remember squinting, trying to see how things were arranged inside, so that I wouldn't go the wrong way or do anything else embarrassing. I was so busy trying not to be less than perfect, that I totally missed seeing a concrete curb right in front of me. The first thing I knew, I was airborne and landed hard (trust me on this) on my knees & hands! Amazingly those hands held my upper body up enough that I didn't smash my face into the concrete pavement. So, there I was, sprawled, face down, in front of a lovely Chesterfield restaurant. Sid leaned down to help me up. I gratefully sneered, "Stop! Don't touch me!" (We are still married inspite of this) At this point, I considered my options. I could just lay there, face down, until the restaurant closed & then slither away into the dark. That one was sounding pretty good to me until a wonderful waitress came running out to me. "Are you all right? How can I help you?" I gingerly began to try out my body, one muscle group at a time to assess the damage. Amazingly, everything was still working. The waitress and Sid walked me into the restaurant and over to a table. I gratefully noticed that all the patrons were busily looking at anything - other than me, to help me gather my wits, since my wits were still somewhat scattered around the parking lot at that point.

As I sat in my chair at our table, mindful awareness came over me as I became aware of a powerful sense of gratitude. I realized how fortunate I was that I had not done any serious damage, other than a couple of small bruises on my knees. I was grateful for Sid who was so concerned about me being okay. I was grateful for the waitress who was not afraid to come running out to my aid.

I was sharing this story with my daughter, Jessica, at lunch a couple of days later and she said, "You know, Mom, falling flat on your face in front of a crowd of people is probably 1 of our worst nightmares, but yet the overwhelming feeling that you came away with was gratitude."

She's right. Every time I happen to remember this incident, I am filled with that wonderful feeling of gratitude.

This is another example in my life of how being able to slow down in the midst of a troubling event, bringing mindfulness to whatever is happening in the moment, allows me to move out of a contracted self-conscious state into a state of gratitude for whatever I have.