Hypervigilance

For your consideration…

Wow, another memory, another story as an example of a message.

I worked for an automobile company in trim. Most of those years were in the engineering, manufacturing, and business planning of car seats. When there is a change over to a new model there are always bugs to work out. There is a natural training curve. During one of these changeovers, our manufacturing plant inadvertently cut fabric going the wrong direction. When you cut fabric with the nap in two different directions it makes the fabric look a different color. It is not always obvious depending on the light and or direction of the light. The finished seat covers managed to get past the plant’s quality control and into the assembly plant where once the seats were built the error was discovered. The plant’s explanation was that there was a flaw with the fabric…not a cutting error. This set off an investigation with the Design Center, Engineering, Manufacturing in both plants, and the fabric supplier. Fabrics go through intense testing before and after they are chosen for a vehicle. It is a long and costly process. Before doing that, it was decided that vehicles with the “suspect” fabric would be put outside in the natural light. Engineers, designers, suppliers…anyone available was invited to go through those vehicles and identify anything flaws they saw. They were not told what they were looking for. Long story short, people identified all kinds of things…none of them involving the seats. In turn, those observations were turned over to various operations responsible and the assembly plant. As you can imagine, none of them were very happy.

What really happened? Rather than just acknowledge the one error, the quality control manager who had a personal relationship with the director of the product, created a diversion. At the same time, the assembly plant became hypervigilant and started seeing things that weren’t really there. Notice the clothes you have on now. If they have a nap, rub your hand down and then up them. You will notice the color difference, yet they are cut and sewn correctly.

To some degree, all of us become hypervigilant during times in our life. It is like picking at a scab. We want the problem to be permanently gone, we think it is resolved but we just can’t leave it alone. It is like an obsession.

Our message today reminds us to trust ourselves and our Guidance. Believe that what is solved and gone is just that, solved and gone. Hyper focusing on it can only keep its energy in our space preventing the new to fully emerge. Let it go.

That is the HOPE. And so it is.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, HOPE by HOPE action steps anyone can take…

-Affirm…“I am loved.”

-Meditate/pray…ask…”What is my next step for my highest good and the highest good of all?”

-Drink lots of water.

-Get outdoors and take in at least 10 deep breaths.

-Save time to do something you love.

What made me smile yesterday…

-Switching out from Halloween to Fall decoration.

-Christmas cards made out and waiting for Christmas stamps to be put on them.

-Catching up with Jackie and Alex.

-A chill day.

Love, Blessings, and Gratitude,

Rev. Chris