How to Overcome a Crisis!

I was in the changing room at a well known retailer of jeans in an equally well known outlet shopping centre near my locale, breaking my fingernails trying to do up said jeans when a crisis wafted over me!

Now you might be thinking that the crisis was in the attempted doing up of the button (I don’t care what my butt says my label is going to say 12!) but actually I was facing a three-fold panic situation.

Firstly, I couldn’t find my lesser half to get his valued opinion on said jeans and then completely ignore it if it didn’t reflect my own thoughts; secondly the great editor of this magazine, the incomparable Mrs Barr, texted me to inform me that I had inadvertently sent her the wrong style of article for my page this time.

Imagine my consternation! My hubby was nowhere to be found, the great Barr was upset, and my butt was fighting to escape from the jeans (that being the third crisis of course)!

These are problems that no one should have to face whilst laying on the floor of the changing rooms with their feet up the wall (would space to turn round really kill shop designers?) covered in dust (those places are strangers to vacuum cleaners) trying to become a fashion statement.

However, never one to be defeated I decided to give up on the jeans and take up breathing again; dismiss the article issue as the kind of screw-up we artistes are expected to have on occasion, and ask my husband to help me get back up again.

Having ably dealt with these traumatic situations we decided that coffee and cake was the only way forward at such a crucial time. So whilst tucking into a few calories, and making a mental note to blame the Editor if I have to start cutting out size 12 labels and sewing them into size 14 clothes, we placed our considerable intellects as the disposal of the article situation.

Now whether there was something in the cake or my husband had spiked the coffee I do not know, but I decided that the only thing to do to retrieve this situation was to take refuge in lunacy.

You see I could have had a panic over the missing article and a very tight deadline. I could have gone out on a huge spending spree because my husband was missing and then had no money for chocolate (I mean vegetables) for the rest of the month. And I could really have got upset that I couldn’t do up those obviously mis-sized jeans. These shops really must learn how to spell 10!

However, when you really reflect on these issues, very little of what we choose to worry about is a genuine problem.

Ok, so the three week old kitchen needs rebuilding, my 50 something year old butt is not quite twice the woman my 30 year old butt was, and I did have some pretty swift words to put together for Silent Voices. I do have to pack a suitcase for Sweden and turn up with the right number of knickers this time (shriek!), and I am running short of chocolate. Yet at the end of the day all is really well in my world.

So what have I learned? I’ve learned that another shop’s size 12’s are a much better size, that we all take life far too seriously a lot of the time, and that today I really didn’t want to be a serious Spiritual writer. I wanted to share just a little of the best medicine – laughter – because that is the only way to solve a self-manufactured non-crisis situation.

In other words, only have a crisis if you really have to, and if you don’t – laugh!

Wishing you happy days and peaceful nights (and a small butt)

© Deb Hawken 2011
www.dancing-star.org.uk