Warning Signs

Have you ever heard this warning, “This is an emergency!” After the alarm sets off, it tells you to proceed to the nearest exit. What is the feeling you have when you hear these words? What are your thoughts? For many years, I would sigh and shrug my shoulders. I would wait for many minutes and ignore the warning. I believed that I knew better than the alarm because so often in prior days, it was always a false alarm. I would think to myself, “Why are they bothering me?”

With so many false alarms in life, we have been conditioned to ignore warning signs, even loud alarms! It does not matter the warning we are being given, the signals are always going off. It is one thing to ignore the alarm in a hotel high-rise, but one ignored warning sign after another leads to potential trouble.

Investigate vs. Ignore?

We have our own unique alarm within us. But, as we consistently ignore the siren inside and think that we know better, we train our brain not to hear the signs. Whether it is a pain in our body or the sickness we feel.  We blow it off as just something small and never get it checked out, only to find out a few years later that it has become something of great worry; a true emergency. What about the signs and alarms going off inside your head about a coworker at the office, telling you to be cautious of their intent, might they turn on you? These warning signs inside you are not to be ignored. At minimum, they need to be investigated to understand if they are false or not.
How about the alarms that go off in your head about a relationship with another person? Those are the loudest and are mostly ignored until it becomes a real emergency and more damage than necessary has been done to both parties. Before the explosion, fire, or flood of emotions takes over; the signs could have directed each person to the source to disconnect and disarm the situation. How many more relationships would be salvage in this world if we investigated the alarms that go off inside us?
We condition our minds to treat these inconvenient alarms as false right out of the gate and merely act imposed upon when they won’t let us sleep, stir our thoughts in the middle of the day, or agitate us in the moment. We are upset that it has intruded on our existence.
One of the paradoxes of life is that we create false alarms ourselves, called fear. They tend to get acted upon as if they are real because we created them. We own them; thus, they must be real. How ironic! We choose to ignore true warning signs, but without question, we stay paralyzed in fear. Fear is stopping us in our tracks from proceeding or investigating the truth.
Learn to listen to the alarms that go off in your life. For every false alarm investigated, numerous ones are true, and they just might negatively impact your life. It is much more comfortable and less painful to listen to and obey the message “This is an emergency” than to suffocate in silence and ignorance. At the same time, you must investigate the fears! Do not accept them as truth until you check them out. Push for the truth. Unlike other internal warning signs, you will find that the internal warning signs of fear are just simple distractions from the truth. But, investigate; you must!
Warning signs were put in place to avoid disaster, death, and destruction. Cherish the signs and be grateful for them. Breaking through the fearful warning signs will help you to discern your truth from the lies. Both might just save your life. Investigate.