A decade ago, I had a Chicken Little moment. But instead of an acorn falling, it was an oscillating ceiling fan.

On an ordinary weeknight, I set out to take my daily nap at around 6 in the evening. But after minutes of deep sleep, something woke me up. When I turned to look at the clock, I was surprised that I had only been sleeping for fifteen minutes. Late nights out had turned me into a daily napper and I sometimes drifted to sleep for as long as an hour. But instead of heading back to sleep, I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom. As I washed my face, I heard a loud crash.

My mom was downstairs and yelled, “What was that?!”

I returned to my bedroom and turned on the light. Still groggy and half-asleep, I was suddenly jolted awake by what I saw. The heavy wooden ceiling fan that used to hover over my bed had fallen on it and was now spinning on the floor. As I looked up I saw that the wires that once held it to the ceiling was now severed. I was still shaken when my mom ran up to see what had happened. “If you were asleep, it would have fallen on you,” she said.

I didn’t think the world was coming to an end like Henny Penny, but it was a life-changing moment. To this day, I don’t know why I woke up or what would have happened if I kept sleeping. But the experience made me grateful and served as a reminder to listen to my inner voice.

This week we have a few posts that share this theme whether it’s in a mom’s intuition that something was wrong with her son or a woman’s courage to transform her shame of mental illness into self-acceptance. Hope they encourage you to find your own inner voice.

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