Navigation Story and Reflection

by Dr. Tonya Caylor

Jun 10, 2025

Years ago, my young nephew was carpooling to school with us in my new Honda Odyssey minivan that had my first navigation system. From the captain chair behind me, he exclaimed, "Oh COOL Aunt Tonya! You have a force field?!" It took me a minute to realize he was talking about my dashboard location depicted on the map as an arrowhead with a circle around it. It did kind of resemble the spaceship in Astroids (old video game) in which you could enact a forcefield. I laughed so hard said, "Well- it sure does look like it doesn't it?"

Almost immediately, I found it a useful analogy when there were road-ragers driving around me. I'd mentally picture my force field. "You can't do anything to me unless you insist on running into me." It was kind of a way of checking my countertransference. And it was powerful. I could continue with my current mood rather than being hijacked by other drivers' frustrations. (I'd like to say in my defense, I don't believe I encountered more road-ragers than others. If I did, then maybe minivan drivers are targeted. 😉)

This analogy goes back to managing our thoughts. "What a jerk!" "Are you kidding me?!" "How dare you!" All those old automatic thought patterns turn into, "Hmm, fascinating how angry they are." "I wonder what led them to behave that way." "This is so much more about how they are thinking of their situation than it is me."

Wonder, Curiosity, Understanding, Calm.

My amygdala doesn't have to be activated. Is there a particular person or place you would benefit from putting in place some force fields? What technique works best for you? How will you practice this week?

When someone comes at me with emotion boiling over, I hear Captain Kirk say, "Enact Forcefields," and I smile, thinking of my nephew, gain my inner calm, and then listen to understand. 😎

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Navigation Story and Reflection

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