I was sitting with my eyes closed meditating when I heard the sound.
I ignored it.
“God, what if it’s an animal getting in the attic?”
No, just forget it ignore it.
Go back to peaceful, silent meditation (Denial).
More scratching and pattering under the floorboards.
Argh!
Finally, I stand up and go to the window and there I see two baby squirrels frozen mid-step. One on the shingles of my roof and the other with its head peeking out of a hole into the roof.
I felt the rush of panic and concern. How on earth would I get these squirrels out of my house?
What kind of damage had they done to the insulation, electricity, shingles, wood, etc.?
After the initial rush of adrenaline, I sat with the panicked thoughts and confessed to myself, “I don't know how to solve this problem.” It is a disturbing and painful experience to be confronted by a situation that provokes : I don’t know what to do.
I messaged a few companies but was not sure they would also be able to repair the roofing as well. I worried about how much all this would cost.
My body felt exhausted by the unexpected thoughts, feelings and worries that sprung up in the middle of a meditation. Discouraged, I told my wife the bad news, asking her to do her best to not freak out. She did well. I coped temporarily by telling myself that the squirrels might have been there for days, weeks and months. It was an important issue but it wasn’t an emergency and therefore it was ok if I didn’t have an immediate solution. I could take a few days to find one.
The next day I happened to see a post on a local neighborhood Facebook page with someone requesting a few shingle repairs for their roof after some wind damage.
I noticed a man offering his services and his tone seemed friendly and helpful.
I checked out his profile and found his company page and that he had been doing this work for 19 years.
“This sounds pretty good because we need to repair the roof” I thought
As I read more on the company page, I could see that he also did pest removal.
Roof repair and pest removal combined!? Eureka!
I felt so hopeful. Maybe I had found someone who could save us from our squirrel problem.
I contacted him immediately through Facebook but sadly did not hear back. I tried the phone number but it did not go through.
After a walk in the morning, I look at the house hoping to take pictures of the damage. I notice that I might be able to climb on the roof and use a ladder to get a closer look at the squirrel hole.
I felt hopeful. My natural curiosity to explore , to look and to wonder: what is going on? Could I scare the squirrels out the hole at least and convince them to leave? Could I put my counselling skills to good use and meditate a solution?
I reached out to another company but there was a lot of uncertainty. I had to pay $50 dollars to get an estimate and there was no guarantee they would do the work because of the height of the roof and the snowy conditions. I could feel that this was not likely to be a viable solution.
Discouraged, I looked at the roofers Facebook page one more time and noticed an email account. I assumed that he did not see my Facebook message and perhaps the phone number was outdated. I was following an instinct that I had from that small Facebook interaction that this person could be trusted to do this job.
So I sent a message and within an hour he got back to me!
We spoke and within a few hours he was at our house repairing the roof. He noticed 3 squirrels scampering out and he sealed the hole. He also just happened to have the type of shingles we needed to repair this small segment of roof.
My instincts were right.
It felt validating to go through this process of experiencing the initial distress, then letting go and acceptance of the situation and then allowing my mind to conjure up solutions knowing that the first things I thought would not be the correct or the best solution.
What I learned from this experience is a revisiting of the life process:
When Something ‘bad’ happens. Something disturbing and painful occurs.
I can see the psychological process that something from the unconscious emerges into my conscious awareness
As I notice it and it hits you like a punch to the face. I feel scared, confused, stressed, angry.
Of course, I don’t like the emotions. I feel the intensity. I want to try to ignore or deny the experience, situation and the feelings. I feel the impulse to be defensive. To protect myself from the experience of pain. I see myself wanting to deny or ignore the situation.
Then a choice to face the situation occurs as I ride the wave of initial intensity.
I take a deep breath and orient towards the problem. I humble myself before the problem and begin to look and notice whatever I can about what is going on.
I try to accept my feelings with acceptance/compassion and as information.
I am oriented towards solutions. Who/what could help? This was beyond me.
Admitting my limitations is definitely an asset and has helped me as recently as a few weeks ago when my son shoved a piece of Lego up his nose. After one failed attempt to get it out I admitted that I could not fix the problem so we took him to emergency where the doctor proceeded to wrap him up in a blanket to immobilize him, use local anesthetic on his nose and a special Lego remover designed for the nose. It was actually an amazing feat!
Trusting the life process including others.
I followed my instinct to reach out to the roofer on Facebook. I was creating an image in my mind based on what I was reading and seeing on Facebook that he could help us. Trusting my instincts, which is a deeper source of information than simply my reactive emotions or defensive patterns.
I persisted even when I didn’t hear back. This is something I have been learning to do more, which is not to write people off so quickly but to give them the benefit of the doubt.
In the end, this seemingly small and insignificant event of getting squirrels out of the attic had the narrative arc of a typical hero’s journey. Going from a state of bliss, into chaos and the unknown and then needing to widen my perspective and access resources that were unknown to me and to to engage and then to trust the living process. I’m not saying I was the hero in this story. The roofer was. But the archetypal narrative arc of order, chaos and then new order is something we experience in our daily lives whenever problems arise.
Somehow everything you need to learn you can learn from squirrels.