My kid has been asking a lot of questions lately about how to build a real life light saber. Those are his exact words.

Of course, we encourage him to ask questions and to look for answers – but we all know there is no such thing as a real life light saber. (This is when the TSA agents at the airport who loved me for wearing a Star Wars tank top at the airport this week look at me in utter disgust and start threatening to keep me detained until I revoke that last statement).

Anyway, when my kid gets on one of these kicks, we help him do some research and most of the time we all learn something in the process.

In our collaborative research, we have stumbled upon many youtube videos of Star Wars enthusiasts talking about building light sabers. One of the most promising videos came from a theoretical physicist named Michio Kaku who hypothesized what it would take to create the different parts of a light saber. His one stumbling block seems to be finding a source to power the plasma torch he needs to create light that stops. You see, using a laser beam – what most people think when contemplating designing a light saber – isn’t possible because the light of the laser will not end.

My husband and son continued their search for answers and asked the smartest person we know, Dr. Ryan. He’s our pastor, but he’s also a rocket scientist – or something like that. He has an undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering and his Doctorate in Science and Engineering of Materials. And, no he doesn’t only believe in science, but he did seem to echo Michio Kaku’s laser theory saying quite frankly, “you can’t get the light to stop.” And depending on the power source, theoretically, light could go on forever.

So Cool.

Light doesn’t stop.

If the source of power for the light is strong enough, it could go on forever.

I got to thinking as I often do and drew a parallel to our emotional and spiritual lives. When we have joy, or light, in our life we can’t get it to stop.

Depending on the power source (us) it could, theoretically, go on forever.

So, not only do we have light in our life, we seek out light in others too. Why? Because our light is infinite and it is constantly seeking out places to illuminate. Darkness cannot exist where there is light and if you have joy (or light) you want others to shine too. There is no threat to your light by illuminating someone or something else.

We seek to make others shine because we shine.

Light is not threatened by more light.

Someone on twitter said this today “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle” – um, bingo.

Don’t be threatened by others who are talented.

Don’t seek to snuff out their light.

Don’t freak out because someone you know is so super awesome at something you struggle with.

We don’t have to exclude people because they are talented or bright or joyful. We should bring them along because, the more light, the better.

When you have enough light of your own, you won’t worry about the light others are shining.

You will want to include them in your brightness.

This article ran in Damsel Magazine in June of 2008, just six months after my son was born. As a new mommy, I had the surprise of my life. Really, nothing prepares you for a child and yet, along the way you hit your stride and things are just as they should be. This piece will always be important to me.

If you have ever read my entry on post-partum depression and anxiety, you will know how much this post means to me. I am so grateful that I fell so hard (both in love with my son and on my face in prayer) during my son’s first year. He and his sissy are the most amazing blessings that continue to teach and refine me as a mother, wife and as a person. My lovely friend, Luann , was my editor at the time and she gave me the wings I needed to fly to become a writer – she’s my writing mama – and gave me my start in print which I promptly loved and became infatuated with.

There have been more inspirational people and mentors along the way as I have grown and changed as a writer, but none with more impact than my children. Enjoy (and no that is not my kid. It’s stock photography, baby).

YOU HAVE TO CLICK THE LINK FOR THE FULL ARTICLE (unless you can read it here, which in that case, you are awesome) ——> Rainbow Connection

There’s this new campaign going around to dispel the myth about social media.

The myth that we are all awesome. That we are all put together and confident and cool.

The campaign is called “I am not cool” or @weareuncool #iamnotcool

It first caught my attention because a handful of Olympians had posted why they weren’t cool on a Facebook page.

As I looked through their reasons, I found myself wondering if what they were doing was a productive way of dispelling the myth of social media or just self-shaming. After reading a few entries, I felt a little confused.

While I can see the intention behind the campaign, I think exposing normal, everyday kinds of things and declaring them not cool only reinforces the stereotype. Like “I’m am not cool because I am 40 and still listen to Morrissey” or “I am not cool because I write blog posts on Friday night while my husband watches Star Wars.” We say this stuff thinking we are declaring something great for the world and all it does is perpetuate our shame on said topics (for the record, I have absolutely no shame about the aforementioned statements).

Big deal, right?

The deal is this. We are not alone in any of our experiences. For most of us these things are regular, normal, everyday things. Then someone, somewhere told us that stuff wasn’t cool. Then we believed them.

Yesterday, I posted a picture of Maya Angelou’s book cover “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” I remember reading that book and feeling connected with her at a deep level – like, connected for realsies with a person for the first time ever. Even though we had come from completely different backgrounds, at the gut level, we were connected. I connected with her brutal honesty, yet beautiful truths. I connected with her humanity and her grace in spite of abuse. I connected with the spirit she had to persevere and continue her journey.

To be who she was to be.

I saw her triumph, not in perfection, but in her humanity – her brokenness, her shame.

And she wanted out of that shame.

We all do.

I think by declaring “I am not cool” and then listing all the reasons why we aren’t, is perpetuating the very shame we want freedom from.

One, because it is still form of self-shaming. I don’t like these things about me.

Two, because it glamorizes the already cool people and makes them cooler. The really, really uncool people are probably not going to participate in this. The misfits, the outcasts, they are not proud of their “uncoolness” – they are mortified to be discovered.

Three, most of the reasons people are listing as uncool are actually things that make people kind of awesome.

I’m actually a little offended that all the things people think are uncool are what I think makes me cool.

I don’t want anyone else’s standards to define cool or uncool for me.

I connected with Maya Angelou in her book through her experience. She was not trying to declare coolness or not.

She just was.

Like, we don’t need a list of things to make us cool.

And we don’t need a list of things that make us not cool.

In fact, I wouldn’t even be able to come up with at list of things that are uncool about me because I don’t categorize myself like that.

I categorize myself as a human being. An imperfect person wishing and hoping to bring just a little light to those people who may need it. I’ve been places that people are now. I’ve experienced hurt in the past that people are experiencing now. I’ve harbored bitterness and anger towards people and have learned forgiveness. Forgiveness that people need now.

Forgiveness I’ve needed in the past. Forgiveness I need now.

Here’s the catch though. I’m not ashamed of any of that. It doesn’t make me cool or not. I’ve grown in some areas and I’ve remained stagnant in others.

So what?

I get what the campaign is trying to do, but seriously…let’s not get all wrapped up in displaying our uncoolness because we think it’s a good cause.

Let’s just do what we do. Be human and stuff and forget about what to label it.

Are we cool?

“Knowing what’s right most of the time for most people is easy. Executing what’s right, now that’s difficult…” Coach Andy Landers

We do.

Know what’s right, that is.

Whether we are adults or children, most of the time we already know if something is right or wrong before we do it. Executing what is right is the more difficult part.

It’s that tugging inside in that split second it takes to say “yes” or “no.”

Or it’s the weeks and weeks of agonizing before finally answering the question.

Could be something harmful to you or someone else, or it could be as simple as eating that entire plate of nachos, jalapenos and all (my Monday night’s regret – I knew it was wrong, did it anyway).

I mean, we want to say “yes” to everything because we don’t want to let someone down even though we know we are over committed and stretched too thin. Or, maybe we want to say “no” to everything because we want to shut people out or isolate, we don’t want to do the work of connecting or building relationship – it’s too hard.

Maybe we want to stay in the relationship because there are no other prospects even though we know toxic things are harmful.

Maybe we are the toxic one and fear breaking down our walls. The right way is harder.

It requires much.

Maybe we want to fudge a little here or a little there on financial situations and maybe we aren’t 100% about a certain rule, so we pretend we are confused as to where the line is drawn instead of asking for clarification.

It’s easier to play dumb.

I know first hand, we had a little of this in our house this week. One incident with my kid. One incident with my husband. Once incident with me.

In all instances, we knew what was right but did not execute what was right.

Why?

Was it worth the trouble of getting caught and dealing with consequences? Was it worth the approval of others? Was it worth the easy way out?

Never is.

Even when it’s the tougher decision.

And when I am presented with a decision in which I already know the answer, I need to execute that decision with the integrity I possess, the integrity I want to keep.

Because I already know.

“I don’t know what you are doing in there but it is working. Thank you so much…”

I felt a little surprised by this sentiment.

I had been seeing her daughter for about fifteen weeks and had been a little stumped lately as to which direction I would take her sessions.

As an intern for a private counseling practice in Orange County, CA I had somehow stumbled upon having several teen and preteen clients. The standard protocol was to meet with the parent(s) and child together to discuss confidentiality and my obligation as the therapist. This first session clarified that I was the therapist for the child and that my confidentiality was to protect them (the child) unless there was a reason to believe they were a harm to themselves, harm to someone else or if there was any stated abuse.

Those were the only reasons I could break confidentiality.

Course of therapy and treatment plan were discussed with mom and dad, but what was said in the room was between me and the client.

The first few sessions were awkward. “Yes” and “no” answers and your basic preteen angst, rolling of eyes and “I don’t know why I’m even here, whatevs” attitude.

After three sessions of painful silence, sitting in my own anxiety and not trying to fill the silence, I finally suggested she pick a board game.

There were plenty of them in the play therapy room where we regularly met.

We settled on Candy Land (or was it Chutes and Ladders).

As we played we engaged in a game of parallel process ourselves.

I’d ask a question, she would answer “yes” or “no.”

I’d ask a question, she would answer “yes” or “no.”

It was a game within a game and she was not spilling any beans.

At the end of the session, she would thank me for the game and we’d go back out into the lobby where her mother was waiting.

I smiled at mom and said “see you guys next week.”

The following week, we would do the same thing.

She’d pick a game. I’d ask questions, she’d answer “yes” or “no,” then we’d meet her mom in the lobby.

I kept thinking I should tell her mom that she was paying me $100/hour to play Candy Land with her daughter and that she could be saving a lot of money if she would just spend a little time with her kid, but I didn’t. I just kept doing my thing.

About ten weeks in, I met with mom and that’s when she told me.

“I don’t know what you are doing in there, but it is working. Thank you so much.”

Mom fought back tears and told me her daughter had been opening up to her at home and that she was a different kid since she started seeing me. Her gratitude was genuine and heartfelt. I could see that she had gotten a piece of her daughter back.

About a month later, we mutually terminated our time in therapy.

See, sometimes our job is simply to sit with someone.

Open the space, allow them to just sit and process without prying or offering solutions.

Sometimes we just create space for someone and allow the process to happen on it’s own.

With or without us.

As much as I wanted to be the amazing therapist who performed some great intervention that made that kid whole again, I wasn’t.

I was merely the conduit to make space for her and her mama to heal themselves.

I sat in silence and anxiety and awkwardness while she and her mother found common ground at home.

I will never ever forget that lesson as long as I live.

I will never forget that for my own kids as well.

Sometimes the silence and the anxiety and the awkwardness are just as healing as the big, crazy intervention.

Relax and just trust the process.

Step one: Move away from your friends and family in search of a new life.

Step two: Move somewhere that you only know two other people.

Step three: Make sure it is a desert and there is no ocean in plain view (like there was in the place you left).

Step four: Buy house randomly next to the most awesome people on the planet except you have never met them so you don’t know they are awesome yet.

Step five: Get pregnant, watch economy crash, endure first summer with 20+ days of 115+ degree temperatures in a house with no insulation.

Step six: Lose house, lose job, keep baby.

Step seven: Have son, beam with pride, realize you didn’t really know this kind of love until now.

Step eight: Get postpartum anxiety, rely on aforementioned awesome neighbors and bring your parents out for a month, realize you don’t know jack.

Step nine: Move to a scorpion infested rental, pay bills off unemployment checks and find husband new job, start working for your church, get pregnant again.

Step ten: Enjoy little moments with your husband and son and realize that life isn’t a house or a job or anything material, life is not stuff.

Step eleven: Live off less, sell off things, buy only what you need (i.e. food, diapers and cookies).

Step twelve: Have daughter, beam with pride, realize your heart can expand even more though you didn’t think that was humanly possible.

Step thirteen: Get postpartum again, rely on friends, neighbors and family, realize your community is growing from those first two people into a village of warriors that support you during the toughest times, cry a lot, pray a lot, express gratitude…a lot.

Step fourteen: Join CrossFit, get strong, do things you’ve never done, awaken your own warrior within.

Step fifteen: Serve, volunteer, give back to the community that has supported you since you began this journey.

Step sixteen: Get stung by scorpion, no really, get stung by scorpion, realize that after all the years of waiting to be stung by a scorpion in the desert that the scorpion ain’t got nuthin’ on your journey now, trash talk said scorpion, then smash scorpion with a gold Haviana flip flop, ladybugs, bees, butterflies, myriad beetles are all fine, but all bets are off with the demon spawn that are scorpions, smash that sucker!

Step seventeen: move from scorpion infested rental, keep friends, add friends, get rid of perfection, get rid of comparisons, get rid of people who bring you down, add people who bring value to your life and encourage you.

Step eighteen: Give grace first to self, then to others, slow down time, speak kindly, have patience, turn forty, be funny.

Step nineteen: Use everything from the second you entered this world to this very moment to turn your life into gold, pure gold.

Step twenty: Don’t take anything for granted.

I don’t know, but it worked for me. Worth a shot. Build your life and don’t ever look back.

Do you hear me? Build it and never look back.