The Sticker and the Rock

The Sticker and the Rock

August 3, 2025 – Morning Reflection

While I was walking this morning, I felt something small pressing into my heel.

It was a rock. Just a little one, but enough to interrupt my stride.

So I stopped, crouched down, and checked the bottom of my shoe.

Sure enough, it was stuck deep in the tread. I dug it out.

Then I noticed something else—stickers.

Those sharp little burrs were tangled in the grooves.

I couldn’t get them out without removing my shoe entirely,

so I slipped it off and started working them out carefully.

I was trying not to poke myself… but of course, one slipped.

Straight into my finger.

“There we go,” I muttered, half-laughing, half-annoyed.

I flicked it off and went for the next one—this time with more caution.

Got it. No poke. All clear.

I put my shoe back on and started walking again.

But a few steps in, pain shot through the side of my pinky toe.

That unmistakable sting.

I stopped, pulled my shoe off again… and there it was.

One of those stickers I had thought I flicked away

had somehow clung to the edge of my foot and ridden along.

That was the hourglass moment.

That small sting was a reminder:

Even when we think we’ve cleared the issue,

it’s easy to miss something small—and carry pain with us.

Sometimes it’s not the big obstacles that stop us.

It’s the sticker we didn’t notice. The tiny thing we didn’t feel until we took a few steps forward.

The part of the story we didn’t deal with.

The sharp edge that’s still stuck to us even after we “moved on.”

That moment reminded me:

Awareness is everything.

If you’re not present—if you’re not checking in with yourself, your environment, your focus—

you can end up dragging something with you that doesn’t belong.

And eventually… it pokes you.

Whether it’s a sticker, a fear, a lie, or an old wound—

sometimes we’ve got to stop, take the shoe off, and really look.

Only then can we walk forward without the sting.