I’m gonna catch some fishies!

One night, I was working my last hour of my shift covering the Customer Service desk, which meant when I wasn't busy, I was supposed to help clean up around the cash registers, including taking back items people changed their minds about at the checkout. Earlier, I had witnessed a kid carrying thos cute plushy toy. It was a brown and white hedgehog. The kid, at the checkout, saw a remote control car and he told his dad he qanted it. The dad told him, "The plushy or the car- you can't have both" (by the way, I respect boundaries with kids and parents sticking to their guns about it), and the kid picked the car.

So, I'm cleaning up, have less than an hour left of my shift, and I see the little plushy hedgehog. Somehow, he never got put back nor had anyone else seen him and decided to buy him. He was just sitting there, slumped to the side, unattended.

It's Christmas and I'm a sentimental old sap at heart. My brain starts replaying the scene from RUDOLPH where he's on the Island of Misfot Toys, and is told a toy is never truly happy until it is loved. I picked him up and quickly took him back to the bin with the plushies but... It was empty. He was literally the last plushy toy and my boss was about to wheel the bin out. We weren't getting any more toys till November, so that meant any toys left at this point needed to sell or they'd be sent to the dump.

I brought the little hedgehog to the front, figuring someone would see him with the candy, candles, & Christmas brick-a-brack, and fall in love with him. When I finished my shift, I went to ask my manager a question and as I passed the Christmas candle display - there he sat, the sad little slumped over hedgehog plushy. No one had bought him, or even moved him.

My manager, Phillip, saw me and the hedgehog. He asked how the hedgehog got there. I told him how I'd put him there when the bin got sent back, and he was the only plushy left. Philip had kids, I figured he'd probably get sentimental and buy it for his kids. Nope. He shrugged and said he'd send it back to be disposed of.

That night, I came home with a plushy hedgehog in my passenger seat. My mom saw him and just thought he was the cutest little hedgehog and asked what I wanted to do with him. I told her the story, then added I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with him.

My mom is a child psychiatrist, specializing in children with PTSD and brain damage that results in learning problems/issues with processing their emotions. She asked if she could have the plushy hedgehog (even offered to pay me for him, she didn't expect me to just give him over), so kids could hug him when they were upset in session.

Murphy, the plushy hedgehog that still slumps a little to the left when seated, has been hugged by hundreds of kids. Little girls have held him tight while explaining about bullies, little boys have held him tight while crying over their panic attacks, younger siblings have held him to whisper secrets while elder siblings and parents talk about self-soothing techniques, teenagers have hugged Murphy while talking about the worst day of their lives. Murphy has also been hugged by kids excitedly chatting about a new friend at school, a teen girl excited to be called by her name instead of her dead-name, little kids proudly saying they've mastered their ABCs, and even staff members who just need to come chat over a case they are having trouble with.

Every now and then, my mom brings Murphy home for a weekend. He gets washed (she calls it a Spa Weekend, to her coworkers, all of them laughing), dried, and sits outside with my mom in the sunshine to get aired out, then on Monday, they are back to work. Some kids even just ask to hold Murphy while they talk, no matter their mood or what they want to talk about. They just want to hug Murphy.

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.