Mind of Snaps - Positivity Podcast | Ep. 62 - "You Are Not In Immediate Danger"

Welcome to "You Are Not In Immediate Danger" - the 62nd Episode of the Mind of Snaps Positivity Podcast!

This is a special podcast series that is separate from the regular Mind of Snaps Podcast, with a new release (typically) posted every Monday for Patreon supporters!

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Hang in there, friends... we're all in this together.

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Jessy (Mind Of Snaps / SheSnaps)

www.MindofSnaps.com

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Transcript

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Good morning, my wonderful friends, and Happy Tuesday or whatever day it is for you at this very moment. I hope you all had a nice weekend and I hope you are ready to kick some butt this week. I went to record my podcast last week and I found myself right in the middle of some super poopy audio issues. So I'm glad that after somewhere around like three days of fucking with the settings, I was finally able to get it back to normal. Hopefully it stays that way. But you know with audio, you really never know when it's just going to decide to go fucking crazy. Anyway, I do want to add just like a quick warning. Before we get into the podcast for today, I will be talking about some situations I encountered in my life, where I felt very fearful where where I experienced something that was very scary for me at the time. So if you aren't in a headspace, where you want to hear about some some situations I encountered that scared me. Obviously, I'm safe, everything worked out for the best, then you know, skip this one come back to it when you feel like you're in a good headspace for it. Anyway, so recently, I was with Alex and we were taking our dogs for their night walk through the neighborhood. When we started reflecting on something that had happened towards the end of the summer, I had been visiting the pool nearly once each week, on my days off, and I'm oh my god was so nice. And I was really appreciating the fact that when I visited the pool during the week, it was usually empty. So one day, heading down the path to the community pool. And I'm nearly at the gates when I see this car near the entrance gate to our neighborhood. And it caught my attention because it looked like it was leaving. And then it just kind of turned around completely in this little like a very small kind of roundabout area. So even though I still had on my T shirt and shorts, I think it was likely evident that I was heading to the pool. And like as soon as I noticed the car, I got this very uneasy feeling. And normally I feel really safe in our neighborhood. It's very lively place. There's people everywhere. And we're very grateful to be renting in a space that is a private and gated community. Occasionally I do see cars enter the neighborhood without using the little keypad entry system. But I usually assume they're just following in a previous car and trying to save themselves the time of entering code or they're doing deliveries or something. Nearly all of our neighbors have cameras. And there's even a roving security detail that cruises through frequently. So like I've been out alone countless times both when I'm hitting the pool during the day and walking the dogs alone at night. I have never felt unsafe or even slightly uneasy until that day. So I see the car and I get this weird feeling. But I just keep going to the pool anyway hoping that the car will be gone soon. And I'll be able to enjoy my pool time. I make it to the pool, unlock the gate. And you actually have to use the key to get in and out of the pool area and it has really high fences. So I had in and I tried to just like find myself a comfortable spot to set up. I laid out my towel and right as I was getting ready to take off my shirt and shorts, so I could be comfortable in my swimsuit. I noticed the car again. It was stopped but it was running and it was just chillin in the driveway of one of the houses that faces the pool. So like the pool area, it has tons of flowers and bushes lining the fence. So it offers some semblance of privacy. But there are some gaps depending on the time of the year and if the bushes had been recently trimmed, whatever. So this car happened to be sitting in an area where it was pointed right at one of the gaps. Again, the uneasy feeling hit me so hard. I stared over at the car and I suddenly felt really weird about undressing, even though I had a swimsuit underneath my clothes. So I wound up stepping over to a shady spot that was kind of more obscured by the bushes. So I didn't feel as much like I was on display. I went back towards my stuff to get cozy and lay in the sun. And I noticed the car was still there. But it had moved a little it was moving around almost almost like if you could imagine someone was learning how to parallel park just very subtle kind of adjustments. And it had the rear of the car now facing me. But the reverse lights were still on. So it was just sitting there with those lights on. I kept waiting for it to move and it didn't so route Rather than lay out on my towel without really thinking, I just sat down and kind of hugged my legs by the side of the pool instead, I had such a weird feeling about the car. Immediately, I was like, Okay, let's let's rationalize this. Maybe they were doing a house showing and they weren't sure if they were at the right place. Who knows, I tried not to hyper focus on them, but I could not shake the uneasy feeling. And I didn't see anyone come out of the house at all during their time there. Finally, after what was likely, somewhere around like five to 10 minutes, the car began to move again, I was feeling relieved, like, okay, cool, maybe they're heading out, I can finally like relax a little. But instead, they simply moved to a different driveway like one house over with an alternate view of the pool and sat there for a while again. So now all of my possible justifications for the behavior, we're starting to feel much less likely, they hadn't gotten out of the car or knocked on any doors. They hadn't turned off the car or anything. They were just sitting there. And I couldn't help feeling like I was being watched. Unfortunately, all the windows were tinted pretty dark, which is pretty common in Arizona, you know, we live on the surface of the sun. So I couldn't see into the car to get a sense of who I was looking at either it was just a silver car. I could not fully relax with the car just idling there, pointed right at the pool. But I also felt mostly safe knowing that I was in a locked area with fences, that would be nearly impossible to climb. So I just kept an eye on the car and kept my cell phone in my hand. Eventually, the car moved again. And I became immediately hopeful that they would be leaving the fucking neighborhood so I could relax. But instead, the car left the second driveway in pulled right up to the curb that was on the other side of the pool gates. So for picturing this, I'm sitting near the pool directly across the pool, and outside of the gate is this car. And it's just slowly moving forward along the bush line, stopping every so often like every few feet or so. And every time it stopped, it stops that the rear windows of the car were almost perfectly lined up with the gaps in the bushes. All fears ahead of being watched, felt like they were being confirmed by this behavior. There was no audible music coming from a car, I couldn't hear any voices in the movement was not something I could rationalize or explain away. In my mind. This was just creepy as fuck. So at that point, I decided I needed to make it clear that I was paying attention. So I stood up and moved to an area where I felt I could get a better view of the license plate, wrote down what I could see along with the Megan, the model of the car. And then I called Alex. I could have called the cops, of course. But I didn't feel that was necessarily the right call either for something that that really still could have been a simple misunderstanding. So I called Alex who was out doing Uber deliveries at the time I explained to him what was happening that I felt incredibly uncomfortable, and that at the time the car was still right near the gate. So I asked him if he could head home. Fortunately, he wasn't terribly far away, he said he'd be arriving within like eight to 10 minutes. So I just kept my phone in my hand and kept an eye on the car. A few minutes before he arrived, the car finally slow moved away from the pool. But unfortunately, instead of leaving the neighborhood very via the very nearby exit, it just slow cruised deeper into the neighborhood and vanished from my sight. And while it did this, it passed right by our house. So that made me feel even more uncomfortable. I stayed alert and kept watching to see if the car showed up on the other side of the pool, because the neighborhood is kind of like a giant square. But I didn't see them. Alex eventually arrived and I gave him the details of the car and I asked him if he would drive around the neighborhood to look for the car and see if it was parked somewhere else like idling still, or if it was just cruising around, he made a few laps didn't see it at all. At that point, I felt immensely relieved because at the very least it was clear I wasn't alone anymore if the car did pass by again. And I didn't feel like if I left the safety of the gated pool area and tried to walk home. I was in any danger of being intercepted before I made it. It kind of reminded me of my time scuba diving. Like we would always feel the safest in open water because you can easily look around and up and down you can move around freely. But the most dangerous time is heading up to get back on the boat because at that time, an ambush predator could come up from underneath us and get us before we got up the little ladder and returned safely to safety. So I asked Alex to hang with me for a few minutes at the pool so I can kind of get myself back to relax because I was feeling pretty anxious after this whole ordeal. And I wanted the comfort of his presence a little bit so I could collect myself. Eventually Calm down, had a nice pool day, and went back home without issue. Now I feel I should add a little disclaimer to men a woman for 34 years. I am no stranger to harassment and people overstepping. And like even on the same day of this event, a man walked right past the pool when I was alone, and I was sunbathing and whistled at me made some loud and lewd comments just like heavy eye contact kind of stuff. And it didn't faze me. Like it's used to it. You know, it is what it is. Something about this particular encounter, though, had me remembering times when I witnessed men attempt to prop pull girlfriends of mine into cars late at night, as we were leaving clubs together. Like it really felt so wrong and creepy. And I, I felt like I was in danger. Anyway, so that was that was story one. Moving on. Reflecting on the situation recently brought up more memories related to scuba diving and fearful circumstances. One memory specifically came up. Several years ago, I was on a dive in the Florida Keys with my x in his family, and we had a really scary encounter. For those of you unfamiliar with scuba diving, everyone typically buddies up for multiple reasons, possible complications with air being one of them. So we typically went diving in a small group, but everyone would do their best to stay within arm's reach of their one buddy. for safety purposes. My ex was my diving buddy, and everyone else was partnered up as well. So we were going out to do a dive. And typically we went out super early. So we'd be arriving at the reef or the shipwreck, whichever it was, we were going to dive around the same time as like the sun would be rising, was really nice, because usually we were some of the first to get to our spots. And the wildlife and the diving sites were usually pretty undisturbed. So for this particular dive trip, we had a newer captain, we had been going to the same dude, the same boat for years before that. And this particular trip, that Captain had retired, so we had a new captain. And he was definitely a very knowledgeable guy, but a little bit newer to the area. And that day, he made what I believe was the wrong call. We did a current check before getting in the water and noticed that the current was pretty high that day. This isn't necessarily a huge deal. But oftentimes, when the current is bad, the captain will make the call to do what's known as a drift dive, which basically means you get dropped off at one end of the site, the reef or the shipwreck, and you just kind of allow the current to move you along a path. While the boat follows along and picks you up at the other end. He didn't recommend a drift dive, but instead recommended a path that he felt would keep us somewhat safe from the current by staying within these higher coral reef formations. This wasn't a section of the reef we were quite as familiar with. But we had our little map and we did our best to set our navigation for the dive, make some mental notes of what to pay attention for and off we went. It turns out, the current was much, much worse than we had anticipated. And while the reefs did offer some respite from it, we ended up getting turned around a bit and went off course for a while when it comes to dive planning, typically the plan factors and how much oxygen you have in your tank to last for the dive. And we do our best to always have enough left. So that we have roughly 500 psi of air left in case of issues like this. So typically, the goal is to get back on the boat with that 500 remaining. But if something happens, you know in the plan, kind of you deviate from the plan or whatever, you still have that 500 to kind of fall back on. The current was so bad that we were running out of air way faster than normal because we were swimming so hard. And we were exhausted and we were breathing heavily as we were trying to move forward against this punishing current. For the first time ever, we ended up getting separated from our group and we lost sight of the boat. We had to surface repeatedly to locate it again, reset our campuses and then try to drop down again so that we could avoid getting beat up by the waves on the surface. And like underwater even between the reefs. It was like it Being in a washing machine, that it was so crazy and to feel so solid on land and then be underwater and feel like you're weightless, it can be a really cool thing. And it can also be a terrifying thing when the waves are just kind of sloshing you around like that. So long story short, before reaching the boat, both my buddy and I ran out of air, and we were forced to surface. I'm really bad at judging distances. But when we surfaced, we could see the boat off in the distance and could just barely make out the people who we were seeing getting onto the boat. As soon as we surfaced, we quickly inflated our vests manually by blowing air into them. And this helped us to at least stay afloat without having to tread water. And in the short time, it took us each to manually inflate our vests, which is like you're you're pulling up a tube from this vessel attached to you, and blowing into it until it's inflated. So it doesn't take terribly long time. But in that amount of time, we had already drifted probably 10 feet or more away from each other, and moved even further away from the boat. We were super fortunate that there was a morning ball, which is essentially a permanent anchor to a point on the reef below that includes a long rope line for boats to attach them to attach themselves to so they don't drop an actual anchor and potentially cause damage. So if you imagine it almost looks like those fishing, like what do you call them the big ball do hobbies that go on a fishing line. I can't think of words right now. But it's that but giant. So it's just this big ball with a line coming off of it. So we were fortunate that there was a morning ball, which had the line so that became the target. We were already so exhausted from attempting to swim against the current for so long, and from getting our asses kicked by the waves on the surface. So we had to use what little energy we had to fight like hell just to get to the line and to each others that we could try to hang on to each other's vests, and keep our buddy system intact. It took probably five to 10 minutes just to reach the line and the whole time we're both coughing and spitting up water as the waves are just slapping us around. So finally, we're able to grab the line, but we still weren't quite safe. hanging onto the line proved to be more challenging than we expected because the current was trying to constantly drag us off and the waves were making it feel so hard to breathe. Even though each of us was using a snorkel at this point. We were frequently coughing up saltwater and smashing into each other as the current in the waves just tossed us around. In the visual if you can imagine the way we had to hold on to this line. We were like flags on a flagpole like we were just just blowing in the wind just it was awful. We were grateful that we had invested in some additional safety items, which include this long inflatable orange tube that could allow us to try to signal our boat without having to try and scream because that hadn't already proved useless. So we manually played in the tube and started waving it around as often as we could. But they seldom see us. Now, another fear of ours is. So shark attacks are relatively rare. But that didn't totally eliminate the fear of them. We can't deny that the ocean is a vast space that is filled with predators. And predators tend to be drawn to commotion, like the way that we were being forced to flail around in the water trying desperately to get help. We wound up taking turns looking underwater and trying to scan around for threats, worried all the time that something could come up at any moment from underneath us. Like some threats were relatively minor. We were concerned about jellyfish which don't really swim, they just kind of get pushed along by the current themselves. So if you don't notice them, the jellyfish could end up smashing into us and causing a pretty unpleasant rash, painful burning sensation. But obviously there were some other possibilities that we did not want to risk. Fortunately, no such attacks happened. But the fear of all of it was so intense. After what felt like a fucking eternity. We finally saw the captain look over and acknowledge us with a wave. Unfortunately, he still couldn't move the boat until all the other divers were able to get on board and secure their gear. So we still had to wait a while before they would finally unhook from their morning ball and start the journey over to us. By the time the boat arrived, I was so tired. I could barely climb up the ladder and like you're climbing up it with heavy gear. You got a tank on your back and everything. The folks on board took our gear for us thankfully they fastened Sit down for us and everything. And as soon as I sat down on the edge of the boat, I had a full blown panic attack, all of the experience of the previous hour came crashing down on me. And I felt this mixture of relief and horror at the idea that we could have died any number of ways. Just a few minutes before, I cried quite a bit, and we had a pretty quiet ride back to the shore. One of the captains used to warn us regularly, like, be cautious, make sure that you stay together and make sure that you don't get in the line of one of these big currents because and he would always make the joke, you'll be halfway to Boca Chica before we can even see are gone. And once you're lost out in the middle of the ocean, if you're just one or two small people, it is really hard for people to find you. So that that realization was really fucking with me. So that was kind of what I was thinking about is is like how close it felt like we had come to either death or to disappearing out into the middle of the open ocean. So it was it was very scary, to say the least. But things worked out. Okay. The rest of the dive trip went off without issue. And I will absolutely never, ever forget that day. So why am I telling you all of this, not just to freak you out or raise your blood pressure. But to consider something about both of those times I spoke of just now, in both instances, all of my senses were on high alert, I was only making choices based on what was right in front of me. And most of it didn't involve me really overthinking about what to do next, my body and my instincts took over, I was a passenger as this human suit went into self preservation mode. During that time, you know, what I wasn't doing was not weighing out options. I was not making lists of pros and cons. I wasn't considering how others would feel about the actions I was taking. I wasn't thinking about all the other stressors in my life that I would have to deal with after I was 100% in the moment. So these long winded stories were to remind you that there have likely been moments in your life, where you've also ceased all thought and become a creature of action, a person working to ensure their own survival in a potentially dangerous circumstance. And if you haven't encountered this yet, there may have been more simple instances, like attempting to step off a curb on a curb only to see a car racing towards you. And in that moment, you didn't just think, Oh gosh, I should step back. You know, your body just instinctively stepped back onto the curb quickly to prevent injury. In this moment, stop and ground yourself real quick. Remind yourself that if you were thinking, you're okay, you are safe. You aren't in any immediate danger, or else you wouldn't be considering your options or listening to this podcast. With or without your own deliberate choices. Your body and your mind would be doing whatever it took to keep you safe. Things have been intense for many of us for quite some time. It can be so easy to believe that we are already in survival mode. But in reality, we aren't quite there. If you were you would know it for sure. likely not in the moment. But after whatever immediate actions needed to be taken or were taken. Sure, things may be stressful Sure, money may be tight. Sure, there are good reasons to stay alert to what's going on in the world. But we do not need to keep ourselves in a perpetual state of worry, or convince ourselves that it is important for us to remain hyper vigilant. 24 fucking seven. If you're thinking if you're watching TV or listening to a podcast or podcast or you're on Twitch, or you're scrolling through social media, do yourself a favor and stop every so often to do those check ins. Do a check to release any tension you find. Take a few slow deep breaths and tell yourself confidently I am safe. I still have time to figure this out. I can do this. I think it's also worth mentioning briefly that the state you encounter through dangerous circumstances. A state of extreme presence and awareness is one you can work on achieving without any potential danger. Keep up your mindfulness practice, keep meditating. keep bringing yourself to awareness and you'll see what I mean. When you look Listen, feel breathe and ground yourself as often as you can. You will get what I'm saying here. But in the meantime, remember You are not in immediate danger, my friends, we are in this together. And we all live to fight another day. Do what you can to remain balanced. So you can make whatever next choice needs to be made with a clearer mind. You got this. Now take a nice deep breath in to the count of four. Hold the breath for four seconds. Breathe it out for another four seconds. relax yourself for a moment. And then get out there and manifest dope shit.