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Jake's Story

Jake reflects on two similar scenarios he has encountered with bees and how that has made him realize the power of one’s own mindset when it comes to handling situations differently. He talks about how he keeps a positive mindset which has translated into looking at things in a more gratifying way and spreading positivity in other aspects of his life.

Jake's Story
00:00 / 04:45

I guess my story starts when I was going into High School, the summer going into High School, basically both these instances are times that I got stung by the entire nest of wasps. So the first incident was with my friends. Then we did sort of a hide and seek tag game. I decided it would be good to hide in the woods next to his house instead of like in the yard you know extra secretive. I go like slightly off the path because obviously if I'm on the path I can be seen and then as I'm waiting I feel sort of like things in my legs and I have no idea what it is so I'm like oh oh and then I start running away and it's actually horrible cuz as I'm running like that's like the worst thing you can do obviously. So it gets more traumatic so I'm running down the street and the type, I’ve never been stung by a wasp nest, and basically the pain waves are like sort of comes in like waves and I realize after it's on purpose cuz I was obviously stuck multiple times but the waves make it feel like you're being stung like a million times. So I'm running down the street and then I'm like no it's stuck in my shirt so I take off my shirt. Like I said, eventually now I'm completely panicked. I sit down like my friend's mom is out and she's also panicked. I’m exhausted. According to the fire department, I passed out for five seconds or whatever, so overall horrible and I didn't think it would happen again. Then in my summer camp job, it was all outdoors because of Covid so they weren't inside and I had to walk the kids to basically the other side of the school where there is a bathroom Just as I am walking completely innocently I see one little like wasp thing near like a hole and the kids are all lined up behind me and I walk just completely on the sidewalk, not on the grass, and they all attack me. So here I was and not a single one attacked the kids, just me. They're like in shock but it was a completely different situation and I feel like basically the essence of the story is that like the power of your mind and like sort of your mindset. So in that case, I was literally just standing there and I just took it and I was like oh my like I was just completely calm and it was crazy that happened twice in the reactions were so different and it wasn't it wasn't because you know I know I was stung by bees before so I learned from it. It was more just that you know here I was a camp counselor so I was like oh I have to act calm you know so like if a bee stings you you’re not going to panic. If ten sting you you’re going to try and not panic either and that reaction really stayed with me. I was all red and they and I then I continued walking them to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom. I took them to the bathroom. You know I was fine. Completely different reaction and just reflecting on that was like sort of the importance of your mind and like how your body reacts cuz it really does have a connection I feel like. One of my favorite character traits of me is my positive attitude on things. One of the ways I sort of like I think naturally I am positive but one of the ways I got to be so positive was I started doing gratitude journaling. Before bed I would just close my eyes and instead of thinking about random things during the day I would just think about things I was positive about and then I would just fall asleep and that would be the ending of my day. It was actually super cool cuz like first of all you don't realize how many good things happen every day but then also I started being like during my day I was looking for things that I could write or tell myself at the end to like add to my list. And then eventually after a while after a few weeks of doing that then just subconsciously I was like absorbing positive things and it was like it was super cool and I actually started texting sometimes I text my friends instead of doing it before bed I'll just text my friends randomly like things I’m grateful for like that day and then a lot of times they text back things they're grateful for so I hope that sort of spreads the positive mindset stuff or whatever. The bee situation, looking back I think it encapsulated how

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