A Taste of What Wesley has been going through

I have been having a fabulous conference.  Seeing all of my wonderful NAPO friends, receiving all of their love, hugs, and encouraging words has been the BIGGEST boost!  The classes are fantastic and I have found some exciting ideas to take back to my business.  Today in one of the classes, I got a taste of what Wesley has been going through in HIS classes at school.

I am cruising along very well feeling fairly safe ... in a class on negotiating skills ... when out of the blue, the presenter has this exercise we have to do.  She wants us to get in groups of four and use our negotiation skills.  She pops up five names, each with a bit of information - a 65 year old priest that reminds us of Mother Teresa, a 35 year old mother of 4, a 45 year old doctor who came up with a cure for a type of cancer, a 17 year old female that is 2 months pregnant, and a 21 year old man just entering Military service.  Within our group of 4, we have to decide which one of these five "live" ... and which four "die" ... the catch is, if we cannot agree as a group, they all die. 

So I am sitting there feeling my blood pressure rise and my anxiety rising farther ... any time you get near the subject of death, I am sure I will feel that anxiety ... and I decide that I will not participate in the discussion but I will get in the group and just listen.  I did that for about a minute before I bolted the heck out of there and let loose crying.  Running to the bathroom as dignified as possible, I splashed some water on my neck and tried some deep breathing.

I have wrestled with this exact issue because of Max's accident where two of the three people in his SUV were killed.  I have talked about it with my therapist, and have become deeply grateful that I DO NOT have to ever choose who lives and who dies.  That is God power, period.  Fundamentally, I have an objection to even hypothetically deciding who would live and who would die based on that limited information ... who knows what the potential consequences are for any one of these people and what will change because their life has ended. 

At this point, 8 months later, we have been working on strategies for Wesley to stay in class and figure out anxiety rather than bolting ... and yet ... 8 months later, *I had no choice* but to BOLT OUT of there!!  I have a special tenderness for what Wesley has been going through, and yet now I feel like I understand him even more so after my experience today. 

I am debating whether to email the presenter to let her know why I so rudely bolted out of her class, or just let it pass on by as a trigger that was just mine.  I am going to sleep on it.  I was able to regroup and join the class again, but I am struggling with it again tonight.  This new life is *so* hard to navigate.