Monster high

My daughter loves the new cartoon monster high. For those of you who don't have children that share this infatuation, it is about the children of all the monsters and their adventures in high school. At first  I didn't know what to think of this new phenomenon. However, as I watched it I realized that although it has the overtures of teenage drama attached, it also had a very cool and much needed lesson that stuck out. "Don't you want to be a monster too?" This is one of their theme questions. While their charectures are a little frightening at first, they carry with it the age old question: Is uniformity and an ideal look what defines beauty. If we look at literature throughout time, we see the same story told, some disfigured scary monster causing a stir only to realize that they were great and beautiful people. Quasimodo as the hunchback, Frankenstein's monster, etc. So why when many don't encourage monster high to their kids, do we let ours watch it? Well the othe day my daughter saw a mole on my body that she scrunched up her nose at and said "ewwww"! How did I feel? Well I've felt with the dislike of my many and some times large moles for most of my life. I will get over it now! However, it reminds you of how cruel we can be to ourselves and to others. Something that doesn't fit into our Barbie mentality of beauty, can become austrasized.  When austrasized we begin to feel angry and less important. This can lead to all kinds of other problems such as violence to our selves and others. If instead we can embrace the "monster" characteristics in ourselves and others that make us different, fun, and flavorful, our lives will be much more rich. Part of this falls on ourselves. A few years ago, I told a friend who was constantly having people make fun of his calves for bein skinny. Now this person worked and worked on his calves and they honestly look great! However, he was always worried that they were to skinny. So people were always commenting on how skinny they were. I told him to start thinking how big they were. He was projecting an image of himself and others who should prey on insecurities were grabbing it. Once he started making himself think a different way. People started telling him how great his legs were. I have found it is the same thing with all of us! If we think we are ugly, fat, thin, awesome, funny, great to be around, no fun to be around, etc. so we are. Instead do why my 9 year old is learning, be a monster and embrace your stitches, hump, mole, perfect skin, great personality and everything else that you are. Realize that you are the only one that can bring to the world what you bring. The more positive a spin you put on it in your own mind, the more your traits will bless others. "Don't you want to be a monster too?" As far as me, my moles and my daughter go, well, my husband says they are all constellations and just make me more interesting and beautiful. If she can understand that what we perceive as imperfections can be our beauty, she will be ahead of the game! Find your beauty in your differences and share so that others can find there's!

Where is your focus?

The other day, I was having a conversation with my daughter about mistakes. She was very concerned that she could lose my affections if she wasn't perfect. It led to a great conversation about learning. When she was a baby, she didn't know how to do anything. Walking came early for her, 9 months, but not with out it's bumps and bruises. My question to her was what if she had been so afraid of falling, that she never tried to walk? What if she said, "I know I will fall, so I won't try."
 She laughed and said, "I would be asking for you to do everything for me still." 
"So do you think that venturing off the coach and allowing yourself to fall, was a good thing or a bad thing?" "It was a good thing mom."
Some times we allow ourselves to focus so hard on the fact that we might fall, that we never venture off the coach. 
We are focusing on the mistakes and not the direction we are going. A perfect example is a word that most of the world gets very hung up on. That word is sin. For most people sin is this big black thing in the corner to be avoided at all costs as it is all evil. Technically, the definition in its original form, is a very different thing.
The word sin is translated from the Greek work Harmatia (not 100% sure on the spelling but close!). It is an archery term that means to  miss the mark. It makes sense right, when you "sin" you are missing the mark. Ok but lets look at it as the archery term. If I am aiming at a target and I miss it, whatever I was aiming at, I made a mistake. This is normal when you are learning a new skill. You  can't expect to pick up something new and be perfect at it. However, we often expect that of ourselves. I should be able hit the target the first time I pick up that bow and arrow.  In all reality, It's probably not going to happen. You have to learn how to aim at the target and get everything else to line up correctly so that you can hit the target. It takes time and practice.
Now what if you were to do what most of us do in life while learning. What if you stop looking at the target after you shot your arrow, and began looking at your mistake.f You are no longer aiming at the target. Now you are aiming at your mistake because it has captivated your attention.
We bang ourselves over the head with every mistake. "I should have been able to get it perfect the first time." "I should have known better." "I can't believe I messed it up." "I didn't stick to that diet or exercise program again." 
In all fairness, you havn't learned how yet and if you can't get your focus off of your mistake, that is where you will keep aiming. If you are aiming there, then you are training yourself to shoot that target, instead of your original target.
So what do we do? We learn from our mistakes. We take our focus off of beating ourselves up and what we don't do right, and we focus back on the original target and actually allow ourselves to learn how to get where we want to go. We accept that any new challenge or learning experience is going to come with scrapped knees and a bruised ego. We only fail if we fail to get back up or if we allow our mistakes to steal our focus.
This new year, find your target again! Get your focus back on where you are going and the steps you need to get there instead of how you have fallen in the past. I hope to hear what those goals are and I look forward to hearing how your arrow is closer this year than it was last year, even if you haven't gotten a bulls eye yet. Use your mistakes to train you how to do it right.