“Wear your mask. Stay seven feet away. No talking loudly. And never point,” stated the guide as we headed up the steep, muddy trail deep in the Rwandan jungle.

We were both scared and excited to meet our assigned mountain gorilla family in their elevated natural habitat. We had flown 24 hours to find our internal Dian Fossey and meet her beloved primates.

As we huffed and puffed up the volcano, the guide announced we were five minutes away from our long-awaited introduction. Both our relief and anticipation heightened.

“Ouch!”

I slapped my neck after a surprisingly painful sting.

Within an instant, our whole group was doing a mad, screaming dance, only to turn the corner and spot our first gorilla.

So much for being quiet, staying contained, and moving slowly.

The circus had come to the bush, and we, the human visitors, were the entertainment.

“Put your rain jacket on!”

“Who has bug spray?”

“Keep walking!”

“Get them out of my hair!”

So much for viewing gorillas. Rather, they were viewing us and our crazy, out-of-control behavior.

Our whole jungle family, as they call it, was fighting off a buzzing pack of East African honeybees. Our group went from hushed reverence to instant chaos, while the gorillas stayed settled, grounded, and calmly in control.

Multiple bee stings later, thanks to our brave trekking team, we finally got what we came for: observing our mountain gorilla family in their natural habitat.

We watched them eat bamboo and leaves for breakfast, nurse their babies, swing from vines, and wrestle with one another, all while the 400-pound silverback stood guard. These gentle giants of the jungle, who share 98% of their DNA with us humans, showed us how to live, love, play, and be peacefully present high in the Virunga Mountains.

Ironically, they were the easy crowd.

Four hundred pounds of flesh that could have charged us and eaten us for breakfast. They presented danger, but embraced peace, community, and ease. Grounded in their own identity, they seemed to know their strength and power. They sat there eating their leaves, occasionally glancing at the gawking humans.

Those bees, on the other hand…

They were the real shit-stirrers.

The guide’s rules covered every gorilla scenario, but none of them held up against the bees. We had prepared for the threat we imagined, not the one that actually showed up.

The gorillas were supposed to be the big, scary thing.

Boy, did we have that wrong.

It was the small, pesky bite of the East African honeybees that made us lose it.

And isn’t that often how it works?

In life—and especially in relationships—we can spend an enormous amount of energy preparing for the big, obvious threat. We brace ourselves for the argument, the betrayal, the rejection, the difficult conversation. We imagine the gorilla.

Meanwhile, it is often the tiny, unexpected sting that sends us into a full-blown emotional swarm.

A look. A tone. A delayed text. A criticism that lands just a little too hard. A moment when we feel unseen, dismissed, or misunderstood.

The event may be small. But our nervous system doesn’t always know the difference between a real threat and a perceived one.

And once we’re stung, we can become less interested in what is actually happening and more interested in getting away from the pain. We run, defend, attack, shut down, blame, or start wildly swatting at whatever we think is coming after us.

Just like we did in the jungle.

Maybe the lesson isn’t that we should stop being afraid. Fear has a life-protective purpose. The lesson is to become curious about what has actually stung us—and whether the threat in front of us is really as dangerous as our nervous system believes it is.

Because sometimes the thing standing directly in front of us isn’t the actual threat. It’s the surprise attack that throws us off our game.

And maybe that’s where we have a choice.

We can become the bee—buzzing, stinging, reacting to everything around us.

Or we can become the gorilla—grounded, powerful, connected to our community, and secure enough in ourselves not to be knocked off course by every little disturbance.

Next time, we’ll put on our jackets and bug spray ahead of time.

Maybe then we can model our gorilla relatives: stay grounded, remain connected, and keep eating our leaves in peace.