It was raining the other day when my husband returned home from a grocery shopping trip. I am so grateful that he does most of our shopping. I was downstairs in the kitchen when I heard Dean’s car drive up, and I opened the front door for him. He asked me to open the side door to the garage so that he could unload a couple of packs of water without tracking wet dirt through the house. Our plan was that he would hand me the burlap bag that contained the rest of the groceries before he came back through the side door of the garage.

Upon grabbing the burlap bag, he discovered that its bottom was seeping wet. One of the bottles of daily shower cleaner that he loves to use had somehow burst. There were three yogurt containers in the same bag that were victims of this moisture outburst. He handed me the wet burlap bag and I brought its contents into the house. I rinsed the yogurt containers in water and dried them. They still smelled faintly of the shower cleaner, and I wondered how safe it would be to hold on to them. I shared my concern with Dean, who is usually the one to express doubt. “Don’t worry. They’ll be fine,” he said.

I had put the three yogurts in a designated spot in the refrigerator so I could identify them in the coming days. Three days later I reached for a yogurt to top off my daily oatmeal and fruit bowl. I was aware that the container I picked up was from the shower cleaner incident. After placing a couple of scoops on top of the fruit, I tasted the yogurt on my spoon. I told myself it didn’t taste right, and I immediately launched into panic mode.

In my panic, I told myself that I had consumed yogurt contaminated by a cleaning solution. Immediately I felt nauseous and for a moment, frozen in a cloudy fear, imagining that I had been poisoned. Dean walked into the kitchen as I was scooping yogurt out of my bowl into the sink. I told him the sensations that I’d been experiencing. He took a scoop of the yogurt and said it tasted fine to him. While that gave me a sense of peace, I continued to clear my oatmeal bowl of that container of yogurt.

The Lesson

As someone who has experienced anxiety, this was a reminder of how quickly and powerfully my mind can take over if not directed by positive thoughts. At the same time, it’s a lesson on how much I can leverage the power of my mind to take me where I want to go, provided I work with it in partnership.