The tourist who almost drowned (and what happened after I saved her)...
On the beach with the girls this morning.
The beach closest to me is brutally dangerous - calm one moment, then massive waves smashing in combined with rocks. You're in real trouble fast.
I've pulled out multiple people from this beach. One last year with her shin snapped in half.
So I'm sitting there watching tourists wander in, paying zero attention to the danger. A family starts putting their towels down and their 6-year-old girl runs straight down to the waves.
I can't stay silent.
My Pay Attention/Ignore wheel fires up. I warn the father. He thanks me. Twenty seconds later, waves crash in exactly where she was standing. The mother thanks me too.
Perfect. Girl saved. Job done.
I walk away and sit with my girls.
And I'm trembling.
Not from danger. From my Right/Wrong wheel spinning: "Should I have said something? Was I wrong to tell them? Did I come across as paranoid?"
The wheel that just saved that girl's life was now torturing me with doubt.
Then my Pay Attention wheel kicked back in. I couldn't enjoy myself anymore. Kept muttering about tourists not paying attention. Couldn't ignore them. My morning with my daughters was being consumed by obsessive pattern-watching.
Here's where it gets interesting.
I caught myself. Watched the wheels spinning. Both of them - the hypervigilance and the self-judgment.
I observed the thoughts: "They're not paying attention. Something bad could happen. I should warn more people. But what if I'm being paranoid? What if I look crazy?"
Just watched them. With compassion, not judgment.
And within minutes, the wheels dissolved.
Not forever - they'll spin again when there's real danger. But in that moment, the compulsive grip released.
I got to enjoy the rest of the morning with my girls. The tourist family went on to have a lovely day at the beach. Everyone was fine.
This is the difference between knowing about hamster wheels and actually stepping into admin mode:
The same pattern that makes you brilliant in crisis doesn't have to imprison you in peace.
My hypervigilance saved a life today. Then it tried to ruin my morning. But because I could observe it spinning without being consumed by it, I got to keep the benefit without the suffering.
The pattern served me when I was young - spotting danger kept me safe. But now I can choose when to use it.
That's not positive thinking. That's not suppressing the pattern. That's the actual mechanics of consciousness work:
Observation dissolves programming.
Not fighting it. Not fixing it. Just seeing it clearly enough that you're no longer run by it.
If you recognise this pattern in yourself - the hypervigilance that serves you sometimes but torments you always - my book "Glitch" maps exactly how this wheel was installed and how to step outside it.
It's not theory. It's what I just did on the beach this morning.
Grab it here: [link in bio]
Rob
P.S. Little Rob created that wheel to keep me safe when I was young. It worked brilliantly. Still does when there's real danger. But he didn't know it would keep running 24/7 for the next 50 years. The dissolution came from thanking him, not fighting him.














