{"id":23573,"date":"2020-06-24T09:55:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T13:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/?p=23573"},"modified":"2024-02-18T10:10:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:10:22","slug":"what-opossums-have-to-do-with-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/blog\/what-opossums-have-to-do-with-you\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do Opossums Have To Do With You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Survival and conflict are on our minds in these turbulent times. We are discussing life and death types of fears at a national level, from racism and from disease.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without taking anything from the significance of those real concerns, we experience stressors on micro-levels every day and learning to manage the stressors that are within our span of control is so key if we are going to have the mental space to deal with bigger things in a way that feels right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You\u2019ve probably heard of the \u201cfight or flight\u201d response. This is how your body reacts to danger to help you survive. Your heart beats faster. Your muscles become tense so you\u2019re ready to spring into action.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adrenaline begins to pump throughout your body. This is all to get you ready to fight back or run away from the danger like we had to do in archaic times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of this is done automatically, completely outside of your control.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we actually have a third stress response to danger called freeze.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What is the freeze response?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I want you to think of playing opossum.&nbsp; As soon as an opossum feels any kind of threat, they fall over, frozen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In less than a second, the brain decides that freezing (rather than fighting or running away) is the best way to survive what\u2019s happening.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what does this have to do with you right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In light of recent events, many of us have just surrendered instead of pushing through and holding onto our visions for our life, our businesses, and even our schools before everything got so out of hand.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, the way life has changed is making us pivot. Yes, there&#8217;s a lot of uncertainty and unrest. And yes, we can still hold onto our vision we had before and keep moving the needle.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But that means we have to take courageous action.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might mean we make decisions that are more progressive and risky than others are making.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might mean we brainstorm and look for the opportunities that come from this situation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might mean you keep steering the ship even in turbulent waters because you are the captain of your ship and your family, team, or organization is looking to you to keep us moving forward.&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might mean you plan, strategize, and take action just as you always have and you do so with courage and conviction.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At some point, we all have to get back on the horse&#8230;to resume the vision we once held and know that we can and will rise again.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interested in our online, self-paced courses for professional development? <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/onlinecourses\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or maybe you are ready to book your <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/speaking\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Back-to-School keynote<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Survival and conflict are on our minds in these turbulent times. We are discussing life and death types of fears at a national level, from racism and from disease.&nbsp; Without taking anything from the significance of those real concerns, we experience stressors on micro-levels every day and learning to manage the stressors that are within [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joy-drop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47487,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23573\/revisions\/47487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}