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On a recent fall evening, a group of my adult students was gathered in the Trailhead Center for a class designed to relieve the effects of stress and anxiety.
Outside, the first snowfall of the year was happening.
It was a little slick, cars were coated and it was artic cold. I was worried that someone would fall on their way into the center, or decide not to come because of the conditions. Earlier, my daughter had been at the center and she’d gone outside several times to make tracks and feel the snow melt on her face.
Different people, my daughter and me, different outlook. My outlook has been conditioned by years of seeing people actually fall, of understanding that bad weather is a good reason to stay in, from feeling pain and discomfort from a walking commute in Chicago winters. We often make trite comments about a child’s simple innocence, but the point can be taken more deeply here. I’ve developed thought patterns that she’s yet to access. It’s these thought patterns that cause me to think and behave in certain ways.