Have you ever experienced a fear so intense that you started to shake and get dizzy? A recent experience left me with a new appreciation of my ‘fight or flight’ response and taught me a few things about my lizard brain.
Let’s rewind to last Friday afternoon.
We left Portland for a bike camping adventure. We were both excited to spend time outdoors, ride our bikes, and explore a new state park. The beginning of the ride was fantastic. The air was warm, fresh, and the scenery was incredible. Everything rolled along smoothly until we turned onto HWY 212, near Boring, Oregon.
Yes, the road was legal and had a bike lane, but there were too many cars, going way too fast, and when a 18-wheeler semi-truck passed me, I completely freaked out. I started to get scared and became sweaty, dizzy, and felt sick to my stomach. I yelled ahead at Logan to “stop” but he couldn’t hear me over the noise of the traffic. I kept pedaling behind him yelling for him to stop. Once Logan noticed my distress he turned around and asked “what’s wrong?”.
Logan was adamant that we only had a little more pedaling to do before we reached our turnoff to the park. But I was determined to find a new route to the park and get off the business road. Rather than argue on the side of the road, we decided to walk back to a less trafficked road and take a break. The break gave me a chance to calm down and look at a few maps. Interestingly, we discovered that we’d been going the wrong way and my lizard brain helped put us back on track.