We have a 10 acre pond in our front yard. I used to swim in it. I would always be on the lookout for snakes on the surface or at the rim, but as long as I was in the middle of the water, I figured I was safe.

Then I saw some bubbles escaping from somewhere beneath the water. It stopped me. What could those bubbles be? Then I remembered that my husband once said that those slow bubbles mean that there is probably a turtle at the bottom of the lake.  That stopped me dead in my tracks.

Now, when I think of turtle, I think of a big whopper of a snapping turtle, because that is what has been carefully extracted by a friend of my husband’s from this very lake every so often. The turtle has to be removed because it eats some of the life in the pond that needs to be there, and so it damages the ecosystem of the lake.

And in my head, that turtle is directly beneath me, waiting to swim upward and bite my toes off!  So my immediate physical reaction to seeing bubbles on the surface of the water is to freeze, draw up my legs to my stomach, and swim away from the bubbles as fast as my arms can take me.  Because of the connection my husband made for me between bubbles and turtles, and his teaching that enormous snapping turtles need to be fished out of the lake to protect the other life, and my once seeing the enormity of one of these extracted turtles (which I heard made a lovely stew), bubbles in the water make me PANIC.

Now, if you were in the water and saw a few stray bubbles, you probably wouldn’t even pay attention to it. You might not know what it is, but you certainly are not going to immediately assume it is something dangerous that needs to be avoided. It does not stress you out at all, because you have no previous experience with massive snapping turtles that can bite off your leg (ok, now you can also see how panic can spur increasing exaggeration).  You are sublimely ignorant.  But since I am not ignorant, I see a danger where you do not.  Maybe the danger is based in reality, and maybe it is all just an anxiety produced figment of my imagination.  So what do I do about the tiny bubbles?

I need to pay attention to those bubbles because there might be a troublesome turtle causing them.  I could decide never to go into the water again for fear of the turtle.  I could decide to quickly swim away whenever I see bubbles. I could go running to my husband to force the responsibility on him to investigate the bubbles and remove the turtle, if it exists.

Or, I could put on some scuba gear and go down to investigate it myself – my least favorite option, because it means going down into the dark water where I can’t see, don’t know where I’m going or what I will discover.  Plus, what do I do if I find the turtle? How do I get that whopper out of there by myself? What if he attacks while I am down there?

Does this sound familiar to you?  Do you have little bubbles that float up to the top of your life that mean something mysterious is going on deeper inside of you?  Do you ignore them and hope they will go away? Do you run away from them and hide from them?  Do you force someone else to try and fix the problem and make you feel more secure?  Or do you decide to be brave and take a closer look at it yourself to determine if there really is any danger in the first place, and if necessary, create a plan to remove the problem?

Today, I want you to pay attention to the bubbles appearing on the surface. They might be flickers of nervousness when certain people or situations present themselves.  They might be outbursts of anger that pop up.  They may be sudden bouts of exhaustion that make you want to get in bed and cover your head with a blanket.

I want you to consider facing the source of the problem, instead of worrying that it is bigger than you think or minimizing what could be a serious concern. Pretending the bubbles don’t exist does nothing to get you to a safer place, because these bubbles will follow you wherever you go, on dry land as well as in the water.

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. Song of Solomon 2:15

But the good news is that you do not have to go scuba diving alone. I will put on my mask and suit and go with you.  I will help you look at what is under there and help you devise a way to extract anything dangerous.

We don’t have to go diving right this second, but I want you to prepare yourself for the scary adventure.   Make sure you log into the web site and re-read what you have learned about Life Patterns and Recovery so far, and do the RESET assignments.  We’ve got turtles to hunt!