Remember year 7 science and that time we all learnt how to transform a scraggy strip of magnesium ribbon into a brilliant white light the instant we heated it over a Bunsen Burner?
My teacher was Mrs Morgan and she was a quiet, tiny lady who had apparently gone through some very difficult things in the two years before I started year 7: “Apparently, she got caught out in the snow and nearly died of hypothermia”, postulated one senior student in year 9, flipping her hair with the confidence that an extra two years of being in School- Part II brings.
For some reason, this tea bag reminds me specifically of Year 7 and the good old trusty tripod. More often than not it was rusty, red and ancient. Its legs were always a bit bendy, and so it sometimes didn’t stand flush against the bench surface- but it always pulled through with keeping the wire heat mat stable for the beaker and my little stirring rod. It was a stalwart of stability, I tells ya.
Anyway, if I could be so bold as to draw the connection between this teabag and my tripod throwback, it goes kinda like this: you create an inner tripod and pick what 3 elements it to be made up of– and this then sets you up for a truthful and genuine way of dealing with people and life.
As this lovely tea bag suggests, love, compassion and kindness are a divine place to start. But whatever your tripod consists of, just get clear on it (as my life coaching course teacher would say: “They’re your BEING VALUES”).
Who knows, each leg of our individual tripods might have lots of different aspects to it! But whatever—just break it down and always remember your inner tripod, so that even if we get confused, old, rusty and a bit creaky on the outside, we can still stand firm in what we believe in and support the metaphorical beakers, heat mats and stirring rods that life gives us 🙂
