Finding my Incredible’s Super Power

She’d completely messed up and it had almost killed her family.  I’m talking about Violet from The Incredibles.  Syndrome fires rockets at the plane they’re all in and Violet can’t get her strengths in line…she’s had years of ignoring them…and using them to hide.

The metaphors in this film are brilliant; Violet, doesn’t want to be seen and doesn’t want anyone to get close to her can literally go invisible and put an impenetrable force field around herself.  Dash might be the most hyperactive kid in animation history – and he can move at lightning speed, and as for Jack Jack, well babies can be anything, unlimited potential…and he does.  In both Violet and Dash’s case their superpowers are also their greatest liability, Violet hides from everyone and Dash is always in trouble. The thing that both holds them back, makes them special is ultimately is the very thing that makes them great, but only when they choose to use their gifts well.

We ALL have super power – an area of genius – something we do better than the people around us.  This doesn’t make us better than they are; it doesn’t make us superior; it makes us human.  When our strengths work together with the strengths of those around us we become truly superhuman – and super humans.

When Dash and Violet accept their own strengths and the strengths of each other, they form an unstoppable combination.  Seriously, just check out the hamster ball they create…it’s brilliant.

I have to admit I’ve spent a HUGE part of my life going between wishing I had the strengths of the people around me and being so full of my own magnificence that I can’t work with anyone else.  Both of these has held me back.  I have strengths, so do you.  Let’s see what we can accomplish when we acknowledge both ourselves and those around us…we can be unstoppable too.

For a bit more on The Incredibles check out my previous postThe Incredibles Incredible Romance (one of my most popular thanks to a link from  elflamingo2 on Reddit  )

Life Lessons From a 5 Year Old

These are my kids – taken by my good friend, and awesome photographer, Tracey Nolan http://misstraceynolan.com/

Lily, the oldest was adopted from China, Zara from South Africa.

We had just come back from South Africa with Zara when Lily came home from school saying that she’d met her friend Elisabeth’s little sister “And they look EXACTLY the same”.

The adoptive parent in me went into panic mode…”if I don’t deal with this correctly, her self-esteem and sense of family connection will be lost forever.  The next few moments will direct her life toward happiness or a life of drugs and gang  involvement” (OK so I was a little jet lagged).  I gently took her in my arms, and explained that some siblings look alike and others don’t, but they’re all still family.

She said “you mean the way Zara and I look alike.”

Take a second and look at the picture again.

When I asked her why she thought she looked like her sister Zara she looked at me like I was out of my mind and said, “Because we both have the same colour hair and eyes”.

This kid should be working for the United Nations.

I love this story not only because my kid is so awesome, but because it reminds me that we find what we look for.

If we’re looking for things to separate us, we will find them.

If we’re looking for things to draw us together, we will find them.

If we’re looking for reasons to be miserable, we will find them.

If we’re looking for reasons to be happy, we will find them.

If we’re looking for situations to help us grow into the people we were created to be, we will find them.

What are you looking for?

Check out my post about the flip side of the equation…we don’t find what we’re not looking for.

http://animatingyourlife.com/2013/02/12/the-day-i-didn…training-order/ ‎