As a boy mom, I watch more super hero movies than I would if
I were holding the remote. I exasperate the kids by forgetting who is Marvel
and who is DC, who are the villains and who are the good guys and forget
keeping up with the timelines. But the one thing that I can respect with all of
these super heroes is how they got there in the first place. They all have an
origin story.
Every super hero experienced some major life event that made
them super. They lost their parents, they were modified with claws by evil
scientists, they had to put a battery in their chest to live, their father was
an evil super villain and they escaped, they were bit by a spider. You know, run-of-the-mill,
everyday adversity. But what made them super is that they overcame life’s
challenges and it strengthened them physically and mentally. It changed who
they are.
There is a lot of talk now about growth mindset and grit.
How we handle adversity plays a major role in the people that we become. If we
are lucky we do not stop evolving when we become 18. That’s just the beginning.
That’s the dough before it’s baked. Life adds the spice. Some of those spices
are sweet and some of them are spicy. But the recipe isn’t done. If you are
fortunate, you have a growth mindset and take those crappy life moments and
become stronger and more resilient. You build compassion, empathy and perseverance.
You build grit, which has been shown to correlate with success. You become one
of those cliché memes that I love about falling down but getting back up. You become you. You become a super hero.
When I look around at my tribe, I see super heroes
everywhere. The people in my tribe have origin stories and that’s what has made
them into the supers that they are today. We are walking around with super
heroes and don’t even know it. I can look at everyone in my tribe and see strength
and grit and know that they have evolved because they have an origin story.
They have experienced things in their lives that were turning points. They
could have used those experiences to shape them into victims of their
circumstances. But they didn’t. They emerged and became stronger. They became
amazing people. People that I can turn to when I have issues and know that
their advice and compassion comes from a place of knowledge and experience.
They chose to move forward when life pulled them down. They grew into the
beautiful people that they are today, scars and all. They inspire me.
Now do I want people to experience horrible things? No, of
course not. But it is when we are down that we have the opportunity to grow and
become better people. When we are cut, we develop scars. I used to think my
scars were ugly. When I woke up with 33 staples in my stomach after the
Squirrel was born, I couldn’t look at myself. I was Frankenstein. It was
disgusting. I was ruined. But as time passed, I grew to love that scar. That
scar was a battle wound. That scar made the Squirrel possible. That scar is
life. And that’s what I realized. You don’t create scars if you stop living and
breathing. Scars only form when you keep moving on. Scars are grit. Scars are witness
that we lived. We bear scars that we can see and we bear scars that are in our
hearts and souls. You need to heal that wound, you need to let the scar form so
you can move forward with more strength than you had before. Scars are beauty. Scars
say “I have done hard things and I am a survivor.”
As for my Moose and Squirrel, it is impossible to not want
to protect them from the difficulties of the world. I’m their mom, the Mama
Bear in our forest tribe. But I know that the people they will become will be
because of their experiences more than the protection I can provide. What I can
do is help them reframe and find the moments of growth when life is hard. I can
teach them that sometimes you have to work harder to keep up with everyone else
to get what you want. I can teach them about trust and love and forgiveness
when they learn that people are fallible. I can teach them to get up the next
morning and look at what they can do rather than look at what has happened to
them. I can give grace for the pity party when life sucks but also remind them
that no one wants someone to overstay their welcome – we are not people who
shut down the pity party – we leave before the night is over to go on to the
next adventure. We learn something when life knocks us down instead of dwelling
on what’s happened. We form scars. We use the word “yet” when we are challenged
– it’s not “we can’t do it,” it’s “we can’t do it YET.” I am teaching them that
they can’t become super heroes without origin stories. And that’s what I’m
doing – building super heroes. I’ll leave it to them to figure out who is DC
and who is Marvel. That stuff still confuses me.
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