This guy is cautious of ceiling fans. At any given moment, if there is a startling sound, he will quickly look at the ceiling fan in what I think is a bit of fear. To our knowledge, the ceiling fans have not done anything to be so ominous. He seems cautious of them on or off. And if they were previously off and we turn them on, he looks more vindicated in his fear response.
We jokingly say that one day when ceiling fans attack us, or one falls on us, he will be able to say, “See? And you were making fun of me.” We have lived in this house for seven years, and he has coexisted with the ceiling fans all along. They are in practically every room of the house.
But you and I know that the likelihood of the ceiling fans being dangerous is slim, right? I refuse to Google and find out how many have died by ceiling fans because those statistics often blow my mind. As you read this, you hopefully respond, “poor kitty—the ceiling fan isn’t going to get you!”
What are your ceiling fans? What are the things that create fear for you that aren’t even real? Try interrupting those thoughts and reminding yourself it isn’t real. Sometimes it doesn’t take that long of interrupting those thoughts for us to feel better!
Get ready, though; the fear sometimes tries to argue with you. I mean, if my kitty could tell me, he might say to me that the ceiling fan could crush him….or if it hits me, a human, in just the right spot it could kill me….or that there is a conspiracy that ceiling fans everywhere are becoming sentient and will ban together and take over the world. Some of that could be true. Some of that not so much. Nonetheless, if we worry all the time about the what-ifs, it is stealing our peace.
Interrupt the thought and tell yourself it isn’t real.
