Yesterday I was walking around our pasture and hay field (10 acres) and asking myself WHY I think of myself as ‘A FIXER’ in general. I have such a broad background in so many different aspects of life, that I am what might be considered a ‘handy-person’ who can FIX all sorts of problems around a place this size: woodworking, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, landscaping, gardening, etc. I’ve been trained in many ‘fix-it’ aspects of life from childhood on (Thanks, Dad).
Here over the past week I had handled the ‘old air compressor’ problem (replacement plus new hose line and fittings), and a “Woops—I broke the sump pump PVC line!” while sweeping the basement floor (water all over everywhere). We didn’t have to call for help from anyone. I just fixed it myself—because I can. (Good thing on a Sunday morning at 5am. I mean who are you going to call?)
When I first started learning REIKI—the energy therapy practice, my supervisor at work asked me why I was interested in doing that because his other worker was also interested in it. I told him the other person was interested because she wanted someone to heal her; and I was interested because I wanted to BE a HEALER. (That is another term for FIXER.) He nodded. At the time I was his Operations and Maintenance Supervisor—‘fixing problems’ was what I was hired to do. I had been their Graphic Artist for seven years prior to that. Hard to believe that O & M Supervisor was a step up for me, but it was in dollars and benefits. And I knew I could do it. (For four and a half years I did.)
After my stint at a different company as a Technical Publications Coordinator, then an Adjunct Professor teaching Technical Writing, I formed my own company where my healing prowess was a large aspect of my business. I then became a full-time ‘healer,’ although shortly after that I quit thinking of myself in the same manner. But I continued to learn; and studied shamanism and hypnosis to add to my skillset and knowledgebase. So I just kept on ‘fixing’ as I went along.
At some point in our lives, especially at this age, we look back on what we’ve done, why we thought we needed to do it in the manner that we did, and ask ourselves how we should assess our time here that we were allotted.
I look back now and clearly see ‘a fixer’ in most everything I’ve been and done. But is that a good thing or a bad thing? I mean I can choose to view it as a ‘good thing’—to try to help people in some way—to ease their burdens, to make their lives better if only a little, but who is to say that my attempts at ‘helping’ them was valid or was it purely self-delusional and did I instead interfere with their own learning experiences?
This is what I was contemplating on my walk around the newly cut hay pasture by the pond and wetlands area when I happened upon a palm-side box turtle struggling to crawl across those sharp, dry hay stubs on the ground that were as tall as he was. His little legs were half the length of my index finger and he was going nowhere fast.
I watched him struggling to crawl across that stubby field at least 60 feet away from the soft grass of the pond, and I picked him up and looked around to see where he might be headed. If the guys came to get the large 6ft tall bale bundles out of the field, he could be crushed beneath their tires out in the open like that. I looked at him all scrunched away in his shell held by a giant who couldn’t make up her mind what to do with him: leave him to his own fate struggling away there against the sharp stalks with no possible grass in sight for a hundred yards ahead, or move him back to the pond grass where he could at least get water and softer surface to crawl through? Was this really MY decision to make? Oh gawd! Was I trying to FIX the turtle now?
Ahrggg…I took him back to the pond, setting him on the soft green grass and pointed him toward the entrance to the water. And left it at that. It was his choice at that point. Go toward the path of less resistance or turn around and head back out over that stubby, sharp, hay ground.
But seriously, did I do that for him or for me? I don’t really know. I’m stuck in FIXER mode.
FINDING YOUR TRUTH 