The Nose Hair Trimmers…A Cinderella Story

Two years ago we were heading to Myrtle Beach for a family vacation.  The car was all packed up and sitting in the driveway. I hopped in the drivers seat and said, “Let’s Go!” and that’s when all hell broke loose. My husband and I don’t like each another’s driving. He came out and said, “If you are driving, I’m staying home.” I said, “Adios dude. We went last year without you and had a blast. I’m sure we can do it again!” When he realized I wasn’t backing down, he finally sat down in the passenger seat and away we went. There was tension during the trip because of the way it started. It seemed like little squabbles kept popping up between us and between the kids and between us and the kids. It was just a crappy road trip. At one particular point, no one in the car was speaking. About ten minutes went by and all of a sudden, we looked over and my husband was all the way up in the visor mirror with a pair of nose hair trimmers buzzing, pretending to trim his nose hair! 

WHILE WE WERE DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD TO THE BEACH!!!

Well you can imagine the laughter that erupted when that happened! We all started laughing uncontrollably and it wasn’t long until we forgot why we were all mad at one another in the first place.

Believe it or not, that is an actual method of conflict-resolution. When used skillfully and respectfully, a little lighthearted humor can quickly turn conflict and tension away. (www.helpguide.org) It allows you to get your point across without getting the other person’s defenses up or hurting his or her feelings. Or in our case, if the fight was silly, it allows you to just move on!

Pulling out the nose hair trimmers certainly doesn’t fix all problems in life, but if we would pull out the nose hair trimmers of life and make each other smile and laugh more and stress each other out a little less, life would be happier.

-lightningbug