A few months ago I was talking to my daughter on the phone. She is the mom (and I the proud g-mom) of three boys 14, 9, and four years old. As we were talking the youngest was preparing to go outside and play. They live in a small seaside town in northern California, and “outside” means into the yard, meadow and woods. His current fashion preference has been shorts. Nothing but shorts. That day he was wearing surfer style swim trunks with a draw string. As he was getting ready to go out he was insistent upon certain accessories be tied to the string that holds up the shorts: a tuning fork, a set of keys and the plastic handle one uses in a tray to make popsicles (kind of a tiny sword-like shape). Thus prepared my daughter asked what he was going to do. He proudly announced that he was going outside to kill zombies. OK. A tuning fork, a set of keys and a popsicle handle. He is ready!
Once we stopped laughing about the attire I asked about the “killing” and the “zombies”. I know the undead are all the rage and I was curious as to how this had become his mission. She related the back story to me. She is wise, she is kind, and she (unlike HER mother) exhibits patience and restraint. And understanding.
This is what had happened. He had been home alone with his older brothers. While these two are not “allowed” to watch or play scary videos in front of the impressionable tot, that seems to have left their minds while mom and dad were away. ( If they do play video games of a scary nature when parents are home, the youngest can be removed from the room and distracted so he doesn’t need to be in the vicinity.) That factor escaped our young heroes and the five year old got an eye and brain full of zombie wars. He was scared!
Next day he decided to “get into the solution” and take matters into his own hands. Arming himself he went out to clear the area around the house and to make it safe.My daughter saw this, she didn’t worry about loosing the tuning fork or one of a set of six popsicle handles. She didn’t talk him out of his quest nor explain that they weren’t “real” and he had nothing to fear. She gave him the dignity of his solution and let him go out to slay zombies.
Would that we all had his bravery and were also a MOM to our own inner fears. Both finding solutions and permitting our selves to vanquish what caused us to be afraid.
SO taking this meditation to the mat – today I will face a pose I don’t care for, or am afraid of trying. Today I will sit with what causes me discomfort. Today I will look around me and find the tuning fork, the keys and the popsicle handle and carry them with me, that I might not be so afraid.
Thank you kids, for giving me a way to handle the zombies in my mind.
Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path”, a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training she holds with her good friend Kent Bond RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com