**Caution: Photo not for the squeamish. Look away.**
This is a picture of what it looks like when jeans become fused into the skin of your knee…
When you trip over the curb and take the most spectacular digger in broad daylight in downtown Berkley. 
I’d just met my friend for lunch, as I got close to my car…I realized I was blocked in and surrounded by a Farmer’s market in the parking lot where I’d parked. 
Crap. How do I get my car out?
Is that a parking ticket on windshield?
And that’s when I tripped over the curb. 
Face planted on the sidewalk in front of everyone.
Both feet airborne, one after the other.
This fall was so dramatic, people audibly yelled out.
Strangers came running. 
Busy people who have lives stopped what they were doing to see if I was ok.
Busy people who have lives stopped what they were doing to see if I was ok. That’s the kind of scene that quickly unfolded on the corner of the Berkeley Farmer’s Market that had engulfed my car. 
I hit knees first and ripped the crap out of my jeans. 
The denim torn up and shredded…just like the flesh of my knee underneath. My right hand knuckle, scraped and bleeding. Left hand palm, splayed open and embedded with sidewalk grime. (I shudder to think about what was on that sidewalk in Berkeley. Hint: probably rhymes with “stoop”). 
As I was peeling my cheek off the “stoopy” sidewalk, well-meaning people surrounded me, reaching out to pick me up but then withdrawing their hands awkwardly… bc who touches anyone nowadays without hesitation? Especially in the Bay Area of California?
That’s when my ego - my most hurt part of all- kicked in and shot me right back up onto my feet.
I brushed myself off, assured everyone I was fine and quickly walked away until everyone was satisfied that they didn’t actually need to do anything.
That’s when the lady who sells baskets on the corner came up to me to ask again if I was ok.
I said, Yeah, yeah, just embarrassed. My body still shaking from the adrenaline.
She could see I was flustered.
She touched my arm to soothe me. 
Then she said, “Girl, I’ve been selling on this corner for 25 years. You know how many people have done that exact same thing?” 
“Oh yeah?”, I asked.
“Yeah. It happens all the time. I don’t know why the city doesn’t fix that…”
Like music to my ears.🎶
She saw she made me feel better and off she went back to selling baskets.
Point being: You think you’re the only one to ever do something stupid? Embarrassing? Painful?
Not true. That’s just your ego being defensive, critical and a general a-hole.
Highly likely, lots of people have tripped and fallen in the very same place.
Get up and brush it off. 
If you’re lucky, some lady selling baskets will take time out of her day to soothe your nervous system and your ego, and then let you know: 
it’s all optics.
it’s all optics.
Expand the timeframe and a misstep won’t even matter. 
Just read the signs thoroughly and don’t park in the middle of the Farmer’s market. 
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4 RIVERS OF TRANSFORMATION
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