What Really Hurts You?

photo © 2008 Tambako The Jaguar | more info (via: Wylio)
I mentioned my five year old the other day and how I learn from her constantly.

A scary but ultimately humorous event the other night illustrates one of her inherent strengths and weaknesses(and mine as well).

I was at a meeting after hours when I got a text "E hit her eye on a cabinet, REALLY bad spill!!!"
Hate those in any format, but text is the worst.

I received another moments after, "She needs to talk to you." At an immediately appropriate moment, I got up out of the meeting to call home. My little trooper answered and in her sobbing explained that she hit her eye on the cabinet that we placed in the hall from her brother's room that is getting shipped off.

I got on the phone with my wife and got the full story. She had a doozy of a black eye developing with a huge welt. Of course, the way it happened is the way ANY child gets hurt in such circumstances EXCEPT she rounded the corner after my wife swore she body slapped to the floor and said "I think this is going to hurt."

Of course, once she realized that she had this growing black and blue bump developing out of her face she absolutely LOST IT!!!

I was the same way as a child and even to to this day have been injured and it barely registered with me.

However, the following day, she went to school and did not take well all the children deriding her "black eye." She complained, "but it's NOT! It's just a bruise!" It didn't matter that she looks like half-a-raccoon.

Knowing what can REALLY wound us is important, no?

Check out my appearance on the The Toddcast Podcast

Click and watch the podcast recording of my appearance on the Toddcast Podcast Such a fun time!

New Life

It's weird, sad and slightly freeing. I've been headed towards a completely different life for a lot longer than I even knew. It took me a while to catch up to realize it was happening. Thankfully, I was cognizant enough to see it finally and mostly ready for it. It's amazing when you have the rug completely pulled out from underneath you. The adjustments are jarring. I made mistakes, but like most I learned from them, adapted, and tried my best to do better. The reason you see that truck next to a storage place? That's the sum of my life right now. Never take for granted that you will work hard for something or someone, and it will end up meaning very little. You are guaranteed nothing, owed nothing, promised nothing. Anything and everything can be taken away in a heartbeat. I wrote this to my kids a while back: I tried to be the best father I could be based on what I knew when I knew it and how I could. One of the lessons for your life needs to be: you need to b

Guiding Light

Most folk who know me, know I lost my father when I was 14 years old. However, before he passed, he shared a timeless secret with me—a practice that would shape my life in ways I could never have imagined. He didn't teach me meditation in the traditional sense, with incense and crossed legs. Instead, he showed me how to meditate by gazing at a lone light on the ceiling. When I was very young, I had night terrors that would wake me in the middle of the night. I'm sure it was terribly frustrating to calm a child from that. But my father had the way. I never understood how he came to the practice. But over the years, I've come to understand that my father's unique approach to meditation was, in fact, a profound lesson in mindfulness and presence. In a nearly pitch black room, he would tell me to find a speck of light, not unlike a star. Then focus. He would say, "Just watch the light, like you're watching a story unfold. Be the observer, not the thinker." I

Todd Lyden

Search This Blog