Fight or Flight: Your REAL Defense?

What is your REAL Defense?  


This monster snapping turtle climbed out of a lake near Boothbay ME.  The car was stopped, the picture taken, and the critter was left alone.  He was ornery enough to eat a garbage truck

Sometimes called “the dinosaur” of turtles because of the prehistoric appearance—this turtle is known for its belligerent disposition and immediate defense—S-N-A-P!  This cannot escape into its shell, so it has developed a long neck with vicious teeth to protect itself.  Monster though it be, Nature needs the turtle as a scavenger and to balance the ecology of ponds and lakes.  

Now, I am not going to get myself into trouble, but will tread lightly when I say that the snapping turtle is second to the S-N-A-P of people.  We too have defense mechanisms, but unlike the snapper, we can withdraw into our shells.  This flight or fight defense pattern of people is sometimes needed when overloaded emotionally.  But there does come a time when we learn this basic truth—that defense mechanisms do not work as a way of life.  When we “fight or take flight,” we protect ourselves and loose something of ourselves at the same time.  The journey of life is to develop the ego strength which does not fear other people because we can only let them harm us—so we can hang in there, and the stones thrown are those that hurt the offender.


Case in point…and this may sound like a stretch…but remember Frodo and the ring?  Put on the ring and you disappear.  You take flight.  But it makes you even more vulnerable to the Evil Eye of Mordor.  

Actually, I watched a YouTube about snapping turtles.  A guy demonstrates how to pick them up carefully without getting bitten.  Or, if you just let them be—you cannot get snapped either.  But it takes a sense of personal security not to fly into fight and kill the turtle—or the one who snaps at you!