In my family, growing up wasn’t about self empowerment. We survived, we made do, and we were grateful for what we had. Any self empowerment wasn’t recognized. It didn’t have anything to do with the mindset of raising children in the culture of my family and town. It wasn’t practical. Mind your parents and mind your teachers. That was the mindset of my generation.

Why do I bring this up? Because this week I felt like this,

and all of me felt like praying to some big person in the sky. But even when I do, I’m still the one with the screwdriver in my hand trying to fix whatever is broken.

When my car won’t run or my washer is broken, I feel helpless. We had snow and ice this last week so my car didn’t budge from its parking space and the battery was dead. Normally I face things logically. Easy fix. But for some strange reason when I feel trapped, I panic. I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I want to hide. I want to run. I want to crawl back under the covers and never come out. Helpless.

So what causes this shift in mindset and what do I need to do about it? I took the rational practical approach and got my car taken care of. I called the repair place to make an appointment for the washing machine to be fixed next week. What else is there to do? I took the practical approach because there is no magic potion or special words to chant. There was AAA who came to jump the battery and Collins Repair for the washer.

I also went to work and behaved like a rational person, pretending that I wasn’t raised from birth to be helpless. Even though I feel like a newborn babe, I’m not helpless.

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