I have never really been too interested in sharks and, like most people, they freak me out. They’re big, scary looking, have a million teeth, seemingly unpredictable and it feels like they could just pop up an eat you out of nowhere. Very realistic description, I know.
It was just recently the 40th anniversary of Jaws so the algorithms on my phone decided I should see a ton of shark videos. I found myself getting really lured into these videos of just one swimmer and a huge Tiger shark. At first, I swear to you I was trying to learn tips so I could educate my children how to protect themselves if they ever encountered a shark at the beach. Again, very realistic of me. What I saw fascinated me and I found these tips to be more relatable than I was expecting. This diver gave three tips. One, stay upright when a shark approaches you. Two, look it in the eyes and maintain eye contact until they swim away. Three, reach out to make contact with the sharks nose and simply direct it the other way. These huge sharks would willingly swim the other direction. She gave another great tip of redirecting the biggest shark first and all the other smaller ones would follow the bigger one’s lead.
This all seriously stopped me in my tracks. Yes, this tiny lady just redirected and shark the size of a bus with her hand, that’s amazingly impressive. But what my mind began to relate this to is those stubborn ass intrusive thoughts that creep in before you can get ahold of them. The ones that just sneak up right as you’re opening your eyes for the day. You know, the ones that can paralyze you or sabotage a good thing? The ones that can pop up and eat you out of nowhere. THAT. Those are what I now call Tiger Shark Thoughts.
MY mind began to see some reoccurring intrusive thoughts as a big tiger shark and I played around with the concept of standing up tall in my energy, looking it straight in the eye, reaching out and making contact with it and ever so gracefully redirecting it the other way. It felt really powerful. The simplicity of only three steps, the visual of this huge intimidating thing listening to silent commands and the peace of respect and self love having the power to move mountains…or in this case a Tigre Shark Thought.
It’s not bypassing, trust me, you still see it. But you don’t let it consume you.
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