Don’t Let Mice Hang Out In Your Pantry.
And other metaphors that help me be a less anxious person
Jess Connolly, author of You Are The Girl For the Job, changed my life when I was seventeen years old. Her book transformed the way I saw myself and my abilities and continues to inspire me to this day — especially because I reread the book this past weekend.
In a later chapter in the book, she details a rather fascinating story about a mouse problem her family had a while back.
Much like many Charleston residents, they started dealing with an unprecedented mice problem and didn’t know how to respond.
Jess describes herself as being terrified and unnerved by their presence, and how much she avoided the downstairs of the house where she believed the mouse lived.
However, after catching the mouse she and her family realized how innocent and almost sweet the small thing looked. While they were trying to dispose of it, it got away and because they had seen it and thought it was less threatening than before, they didn’t worry too much about it.
Lo and behold, weeks later, they were hosting a small group at their house and that mouse scooted right into the middle of their living room and made itself a little seat in the center of the small group circle.
That’s when she knew, it had to go.
Jess likens the mouse to our fears that we allow to stay in our life long beyond their welcome.
How often do we let things stay occupying our minds and thoughts without ever questioning how dangerous and irritating they might be?
One thing you should know about me is that my car’s been broken for the past three years. Coincidentally, I’ve only had my car for three years. At the end of my senior year of high school, I couldn’t fathom going to college driving a 2012 Silver Toyota Corolla.
I wanted a car I could put kayaks on top of, a car with cruise control, and one that looked like it could make it through at least a little ditch.
So, I purchased a 2010 Nissan Xterra on Facebook Marketplace. She was beautiful. And from the moment I got her, she had problems.
She still has problems. She does have close to 220,000 miles on her so that’s not surprising, but it’s been a frustrating experience nonetheless, one I walked right into with my $6,5000 in cash in hand.
Recently, I finally got it fixed. My mom’s boyfriend figured out why it most recently hadn’t been starting and deduced that my starter had finally gone out. He replaced it, and, sure enough, it started.
However, every time I started it I winced a little. Something sounded different. My thoughts went to “Maybe there’s an electrical problem” or “What if Mikey didn’t put it back on right?”
I couldn’t calm myself down long enough to realize that I had a working car that actually started when it was supposed to.
It wasn’t until I drove my brothers and my older brother’s girlfriend to get ice cream the other night that it hit me. I made a comment about my car starting differently and Lily piped up from the passenger seat — “It sounds crisp.”
I began cross-referencing the sound my car was making with the sound cars usually make when they start.
They were the same.
My car was making the sound of a car starting correctly — it had just been so long that I’d forgotten what that sounded like. What was correct, right, and good had become so unfamiliar that I couldn’t recognize it.
Any psychologist or family science student will tell you that this is how abusive relationships work. Someone gets so used to being abused and berated and hurt that they don’t know what normal’s like anymore.
How often do we face that situation with our own abuse of self?
I can’t even begin to think about how many times I’ve allowed ridiculous fears and worries to take over my life and continually hurt myself again and again to the point of not even knowing what reality is.
Don’t let the mice hang out in the pantry. Don’t let your problems perpetuate themselves for so long that you don’t even know what “right” is anymore.
We have the power to change and transform our limiting beliefs and should avoid “scarcity thinking” where we believe our problems can’t be solved or that a better situation isn’t possible.
scarcity thinking — the overfocus on things you don’t have, instead of looking at the possibilities and resources available to you
This is often synonymous with anxious thinking — where we believe that our problems aren’t solvable because the world is out to get us and nothing good will ever go our way.
Once I realized how many fears and anxieties I was letting linger in my life, I felt the urgency to clean house and start doing a more thorough inventory of the thoughts I let captain my ship.
I’m done letting my irrational fears and limiting beliefs hide under the surface of my life, undermining everything I do.
They’re not cute. They’re not helpful. And they certainly don’t have my best interest at heart.
Most importantly, I don’t have to deal with them anymore.
Your issues won’t be solved in a day, just like my car wasn’t fixed in a day. But if you hold on to the truth that problems shouldn’t stay around if they’re repairable, you won’t stop until you’ve figured things out.
Go become a problem solver — because the issues you face and the fears and negative beliefs you hold on to don’t need to be left space in your life. It’s time to give them the boot.
Best of luck!
