kids. It’s easy to do when we’re not mindful of the gremlins and shame triggers. Here’s proof:
Last year, I had to run to Nordstrom to pick up some make-up. I was in one of those “nothing fits
and I feel like Jabba the Hutt” moods, so I put on my baggiest sweats, pulled my dirty hair back with a
headband, and told Ellen, “We’re just running in and running out.”
On the way to the mall, Ellen reminded me that the shoes her grandmother had bought her were in
the back of the car and asked if we could exchange them for a bigger size while we were at the store.
After I bought my makeup, we went upstairs to the kid’s shoe department. As soon as we cleared the
top of the escalator, I saw a trio of gorgeous women standing in the shoe department. They were
tossing their long (clean) hair over their narrow, square shoulders as they perched on their high-
heeled, pointed-toe boots, and watched their equally beautiful daughters try on sneakers.
As I tried to avoid crumbling and comparing by focusing on the display shoes, I saw a strange blur
of jerky movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Ellen. A pop song was playing in the
neighboring children’s department, and Ellen, my totally confident eight-year-old, was dancing. Or,
to be more specific, she was doing the robot.
At the very moment that Ellen looked up and saw me watching her, I saw the magnificent moms and
their matching daughters staring right at Ellen. The mothers looked embarrassed for her, and the
daughters, who were a couple of years older than Ellen, were visibly on the edge of doing or saying
something mean-spirited. Ellen froze. Still bent over with her arms in rigid formation, she looked up
at me with eyes that said, “What do I do, Mom?”
My default response in this scenario is to shoot a diminishing look at Ellen that says, “Geez, man.
Don’t be so uncool!” Basically, my immediate reaction would be to save myself by betraying Ellen.
Thank God I didn’t. Some combination of being immersed in this work, having a mother instinct that
was louder than my fear, and pure grace told me, “Choose Ellen! Be on her side!”
I glanced up at the other mothers and then looked at Ellen. I reached down into my courage, as far
as I go, smiled, and said, “You need to add the scarecrow to your moves.” I let my wrist and hand
dangle from my extended arm and pretended to bat my forearm around. Ellen smiled. We stood in the
middle of the shoe department and practiced our moves until the song was over. I’m not sure how the
onlookers responded to our shoe department Soul Train. I didn’t take my eyes off Ellen.
Betrayal is an important word with this guidepost. When we value being cool and in control over
granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of
who we are, we betray ourselves. When we consistently betray ourselves, we can expect to do the
same to the people we love.
When we don’t give ourselves permission to be free, we rarely tolerate that freedom in others. We
put them down, make fun of them, ridicule their behaviors, and sometimes shame them. We can do
this intentionally or unconsciously. Either way the message is, “Geez, man. Don’t be so uncool.”
The Hopi Indians have a saying, “To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” I know how much
courage it takes to let people hear our hearts speak, but life is way too precious to spend it pretending
like we’re super-cool and totally in control when we could be laughing, singing, and dancing.
DIG DeepGet Deliberate: If we believe that laughter, song, and dance are essential to our soul-care, how do we
make sure that we hold space for them in our lives? One thing that we’ve started doing is turning on
music in the kitchen while we do a family cleanup after supper. We dance and sing, which in turn,
always leads to a good laugh.