Day 42 Scooting Past Anxiety

My daughter is a cautious girl. She’s afraid to ride her bike because she fell last year. She won’t even consider riding on my son’s small four wheeler or motor bike, even with me or my husband driving it.  When she’s feeling adventurous, she’ll grab a scooter and baby step it along the driveway. Today, she was feeling adventurous apparently. 

I watched her scootin’ along the driveway at a speed that I’m pretty sure my grandma could beat, but hey, the more she pushed along, the more confidence she will gain. Ideally... But even with her dawdling pace, she managed to trip. 


Now, I don’t know much about calculating speed impact, but it always seemed to me that the faster an object is going when it hit a wall (or a driveway in this scenario), the harder the hit. The harder the hit, the more damage there is. If that rule holds true, then I’d hate to see what she would’ve looked like if she had been going faster. She managed to scrape up both knees, one knee in three places, scrape her elbow and and bruise her hip. I knew she was alright by the way she ambled over to us, but I could tell that this was going to be a situation.

I greeted her compassionately, trying to keep her calm. I knew that once she got sight of a little red, she would lose reason. I beckoned her to sit on my lap and I would give her Reiki. She sat down and before I could hover my hands above her knee (the worst one) she caught sight of the RED (we can’t say blood in this house). 


Her eyes widened, her hands tensed, she kicked her feet and began begging for a band-aid.  “Please, I need  a band-aid!! Just let me have a band-aid!! Please!!” 


I wanted to give her the band aid, believe me, but I also wanted her to settle down first -- take control of her anxiety. I assured her that I would give her the band-aid after I gave her Reiki, to which she reminded me that I could do it afterwards too. With that remark, she grinned... knowing she had me. How could I argue with that reasoning? I smiled with her and instead of caving, I asked her how many raspberry bushes did she think we had in our yard. I asked her to count them out loud. As she counted, I asked the Reiki to flow. She kept counting.. 13, 14, 16. “Wait, a minute! You forgot 15 again. Poor 15! You always skip poor 15.” And I was glad she decided to take this opportunity to argue this with me. Hey, she wasn’t screaming for a band-aid. She continued counting and I continued treating her with energy. 


She was calm, feeling less pain, and in control. 

I took her in to get the band-aid as promised, but she not once lost control of her senses again. As we found the perfect sized band-aid, she smiled and laughed with me. I couldn’t have been happier for her. She later took a peek behind the band-aid, and saw how much red was on the gauze. She simply covered it back up and continued on with her playing. Phew! I’m so glad she was able to act nonchalant about it although I knew it was bothering. She didn’t allow it to take her over again. For every one of her moments of success, even if she may not realize the success at the time, I smile a little brighter. I can see how far she’s coming and I couldn’t be happier! Now, I've just got to get her back onto that scooter... I see elbow and knee pads in our future.