Tornado Shelter in a Concrete Box
When I was much younger, I lived in a part of the United States where tornadoes are much more common than elsewhere in the country. I knew several people who had tornado shelters in their backyard, usually consisting of a pre-fabricated concrete or steel box buried shallowly in the ground.
When a tornado siren would sound, or an announcement was made over the radio, people would seek shelter in their concrete box, where they would stay during the passing of the winds that could reach 300 miles per hour. These concrete boxes—whether outside and underground or fashioned somewhere in the house—saved lives.
But who would want to live in a small, cramped concrete box all their lives? The disadvantages in space, social interaction, sanitation, and choice of activities would be prohibitive, so people didn’t live in their tornado shelter. They only went there during times of tornado warnings in the area.
Living in an Emotional Concrete Box
Emotionally, we have all experienced tornadoes, and at very early ages—usually before we can now remember—we learned to protect ourselves by constructing concrete boxes. We learned to hide, lie, withdraw, get angry, and more.
These Getting and Protecting Behaviors—these boxes—protected us from emotional destruction when we were young. But they also became a habit. We learned to run to them sooner and more often, to the point where most of us now LIVE in our concrete boxes.
Living in a box can be very useful on occasion—like during a tornado—but STAYING in it would be highly inconvenient and even foolish. The box would be cramped, usually damp, sometimes wet, and insufficient for most activities that we enjoy every day.
The behaviors we learned from childhood that have protected us temporarily from harm create a box that now is making happiness impossible. Behaviors that once enabled us to survive are now making it impossible for us to thrive.
With sufficient unconditional love and guidance, we can learn to live outside the concrete box and enjoy the vast expanse of the world around us. We must do all we can to learn this, both for our own happiness and so we can enable our children to follow us into the conditions of light and freedom.
