Stop?  Go!

Being generally into lights (colour lights, fairy lights, candle lights…) I wasn’t much into pedestrian traffic lights till we sold our car some weeks ago. The very first and real weeks of joy of a car-free lifestyle in a town are upon us.

Stop? So, one recent winter morning I was walking my youngest son to his Saturday morning drama class and was naturally in a hurry  as we unhurriedly approached a set of traffic lights. We were about to cross a busy road so even though I was obviously in a hurry I stopped to check the lights. And for a split second, I was utterly confused. The traffic light was green,  clearly  surely green but…there was something else about it. It was green but somehow the red part of the sign appeared to be more visible!

Strongly remembering guiding stereotypes of fairy tale wisdom on the association between being a Grandma which makes poor eyesight and glasses almost compulsive, I looked closer into the apparent mystery . Because of night frost, low morning sun as well as probably very little sleep and dispersed attention and apparently not so many people before me using this traffic light the bulb inside warmed the red part of the sign more while the green part was still a frosty window being not used much. This is why even though it was green it appeared that the red part was prominent at the very same time. I stopped to take this picture (I could tell the waiting drivers were puzzled at pedestrians approaching the lights seeing green and…not crossing but photographing the lights instead…I would, in my driver’s times) and we crossed the road.

Stop? Go? A couple of weeks before that ever so slightly confusing morning I did a talk about Colourpuncture lights on a meeting of Acupuncture therapists and – apart from colourpuncture lights – we talked about how our deeply ingrained inner change and which role colour lights play in a process. In preparation for my talk I was looking for images to represent the underlying principles and eventually constructed something out of PP tools to explain. But this picture of traffic lights would have been so much better! It was created by nature (well, a combination of technology, weather and…light) and the recent talk was still probably in my focus otherwise I would not notice this light play! (Going to use the picture for the next talk and wishing I  were a better photographer for the picture to look truly impressive).

So, what was in that for me and why I noticed that and even stopped to take this picture? Imagine one day we decided to make a change in our life and go from point A, where we were (bad health, destructive relationships, mid-life crisis, generally in the middle of the soup :(…..please insert your choice here) to point B, which is our dream, goal, better health, early retirement, financial independence :)…..please insert your choice here).

Stop? Go! Because of my current role in life I can relate it to health and lifestyle patterns best of all. And so here we are struggling along  moving swiftly and optimistically and fast and furious about it (absorbing colour lights, other therapy, getting life and business coaching, following a self-help guru (please insert your choice here).

And there truly are all green lights as everything is going for us. But then there is a little stress, a poor eyesight vision, even an attractive ‘secondary gain’ waving intensively from the side walk of life and we just might lose track of what is happening, all the green lights and it can momentarily appear that the lights are all red again. It might seem they were never green, we never made that good choice, the world is against us, again! Just because the lights were red for too long and whatever energy supported our past choices for too long became  habitual and soooo ingrained in our psyche, thought patterns, physiology or behaviour.

Go! So, what is needed? Treatments for eyesight, better time management and sleep for me…. And for all of us, a deep breath, a clear vision, a written goal, focus, strength and determination, as well as self-love and self-support including a strong, solid, attractive, prepared in advance alternative solution to address ‘secondary gains’, even a help of somebody with a better vision to tell you the lights are green indeed…

P.S. A subtle magic of light play takes a keen observation or/and ‘lateral’ vision. By the time we reached our destination the traffic light play was over. So being an (amateur) photographer needs a speed of reaction and nearly automatic observation skills…But the green ‘Go!’ was very clear now.